Ignoring the Science for Ideologies

by Joni Kamiya, Hawaii Farmer’s Daughter, March 7, 2022

For too long. the public has been manipulated by disinformation spread across the news and social media. Some claim it is harmless to believe in false information.

Russian bots spread anti-vaccination messages across the social media

Story here and here on anti-vaccine rhetoric traced back to Russia that backfired on them.

What was the result of that? 957,000 deaths to date.

Russian disinformation on GMOs

Biotech in agriculture has been seen as a product of the Western world and disinforming the US spread across Europe. That in turn prompted Putin in increasing exports of non-GMO and organic products globally. This campaign stalled agricultural innovation and even banned GMO technology across the world keeping improve seeds from so many small farmers. It keeps farmers from maximizing their productivity and ability to adapt to climate change across the board.

History has shown that the Russians have conducted disinformation against scientists for a very long time, including starving a key plant geneticist, Nikolai Vavilov. Before being imprisoned, his last trip was to Ukraine to collect seeds to address famine.

Hawaii depends upon Russian oil for 30% of its energy needs

I was listening to NPR yesterday where it was quoted that up to 30% of Hawaii’s energy needs come from Russia. Other outlets have states that nearly half of our energy comes from Libya and Russia, two regimes full of corruption. It has been suspected that NGOs do not disclose much of their funding and have long repeated false information around the energy issue. We are now faced with sourcing energy domestically given the invasion at hand. Will we now be willing to consider geothermal or continue to fund Russia’s war effort?

Do we have the political will to work from facts already?

War is ugly as we are seeing in Ukraine. It is evident that there is a huge impact on the many refugees fleeing a country to find safety and families. For too long, the idea towards false balance has promoted the very propaganda that has led up to this war because we had to give the other side input. If we are to create a grounded and balanced decision on an issue, we need to work from facts already.

We don’t need to have to have an anti-vax mom’s opinions repeated on a news feature about getting COVID vaccinations for their kids. We as a society need collective efforts to address real issues at hand in this day and age. We also do not need a well-funded activist influencing laws on agriculture when she is not part of the effort to grow food for the community. What we need right now are the real problem solvers working on the ground to make change in the right direction.

Years ago when I gave birth to my son, I hoped for my kids that they will never have to see the horrors of war. I fight for the facts now to return to a peaceful world. We have seen what disinformation has done in the pandemic and now we see the invasion of Ukraine. I am heartbroken to see the suffering happening.

The dissenting Russians are protesting are chanting, “No more war.” I fully agree with them for the sake of the children.

Read more on what’s happening here. We have seen this coming and chose to ignore the evidence and block innovations globally. The entire world will pay the price for following ideologies.