PropertyValue
?:author
?:datePublished
  • 2022-12-12 (xsd:date)
?:headline
  • Did World Economic Forum Call for Slaughter of Millions of Pets To Save Climate? (en)
?:inLanguage
?:itemReviewed
?:mentions
?:reviewBody
  • In late November 2022, conspiracy websites began promoting unfounded claims that climate activists have advocated for the mass slaughter of cats and dogs to save the environment in late November 2022. A Nov. 28, 2022. story on the widely discredited website News Punch claimed that Climate activists are now calling for millions of dogs worldwide to be slaughtered in an effort to reduce the 'carbon pawprint' they produce as a result of eating meat. A few days later, on Dec. 9, 2022, that same website repurposed this same general article to advance a new version of the same claim: that the World Economic Forum (WEF), specifically, and not climate activists in general, had issued this directive for the slaughter of pets to save the climate. The central piece of evidence for both of these stories is a CNN report published in September 2022. That story, which ran with the headline Our pets are part of the climate problem. These tips can help you minimize their carbon pawprints, cited a 2017 study by Gregory Okin, who is chair of geography at UCLA. As CNN reported: Notably missing from the conspiracy clickbait stories is the evidence that these observations equate to advocating for the murder of pets. In fact, the CNN article explicitly states that bidding farewell to your best friends is not the answer, reminding readers to not panic. Okin, the author of the study cited by CNN, told PolitiFact that the notion activists were advocating the killing of pets was ridiculous, telling the outlet that he made no such claim nor do I know anyone who does. Nonetheless, News Punch made the factually unsupported argument that the WEF ... wants to introduce an international policy that would require the majority of pet owners to euthanize their animals based solely on CNN's reporting of an article from 2017. The WEF has never advocated such a policy. The WEF has, in fact, shared reporting on the concept of a carbon pawprint on their website. None of these articles, however, advocate killing pets. A June 2017 WEF blog post, for example, argued: Another WEF blog post from January 2019 highlighted a new insect-protein based dog food: Because neither climate activists nor the World Economic Forum are advocating for the murder of pets, and because the evidence cited in support of this claim does not actually lend any support, we rank the claim False. (en)
?:reviewRating
rdf:type
?:url