{"id":105022,"date":"2025-03-04T11:31:16","date_gmt":"2025-03-04T17:31:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=105022"},"modified":"2026-01-01T16:05:50","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T22:05:50","slug":"climate-disinformation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/climate-disinformation\/","title":{"rendered":"Gas Leaks Project breaks down climate change disinformation, language barriers in Chicago"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Cathy Ching
\n<\/strong>Medill Reports<\/em><\/p>\n

Social justice leader Mary Gonzales<\/span> fought for environmental justice in Pilsen for years. Breaking down the language barrier in <\/span>climate-related issues for the<\/span> Latino-dominated community is one of the biggest challenges of all, she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMost websites dealing with things that are important to us are not in Spanish. Secondly, if they are in Spanish, it\u2019s so technical,\u201d said Gonzales, who fought against the operation of <\/span>Sims Metal Management in the neighborhood, a scrap metal shredder with a history of <\/span>EPA violations<\/span><\/a>. \u201cI have trouble reading stuff about the environment online. I just give it up \u2026 And so if I don\u2019t understand it in English, how the hell are people going to understand it in Spanish?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

To fight for climate literacy in Latino and Hispanic communities, the <\/span>Gas Leaks Project<\/span><\/a>, a nonprofit focused on exposing the dangers of the fossil-fuel industry, launched a four-week-long digital educational campaign Feb. 3 in Chicago and New York City.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Available in English and Spanish, the campaign uses several techniques to combat misleading information on social media and streaming services including <\/span>videos<\/span><\/a>, a <\/span>landing page<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>graphics<\/span><\/a> resembling the traditional Mexican game Loter\u00eda.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Formed in 2022 by a coalition of communications professionals, the Gas Leaks Project aims to raise awareness on misleading information and guide the public toward a new way to look out for accurate educational content, Executive Director James Hadgis said. The campaign tackles both climate disinformation, which is deliberately intended to mislead, and misinformation, which is simply inaccurate information.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As <\/span>Meta<\/span><\/a> prepares to end its agreements with third-party fact-checking <\/span>organizations in March, Spanish-speaking groups in Chicago will <\/span>continue to be disproportionately impacted<\/span><\/a> by misleading health and climate campaigns online, according to a January article from POLITICO.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"chart<\/div>\n

More than 1 in 5 Hispanic Americans prefer social media to other platforms for news, according to a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center. (<\/span><\/i>Graphic<\/span><\/i><\/a> by Cathy Ching \/ MEDILL)<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cRoughly 1 in 5 of (Latino and Hispanic Americans) like to get their news from social media, and they\u2019re more likely to prefer that than any demographic group interviewed,\u201d said Javi Garcia, a communications manager of the Gas Leaks Project, referring to a Pew Research Center <\/span>poll<\/span><\/a> from last year. \u201cAs Latinos are the largest consumers of Spanish content in the United States, Spanish content is actually <\/span>less scrutinized<\/span><\/a> by social platforms.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The nonprofit highlighted five techniques in its educational campaign that perpetrators typically use: fake climate experts, illogical conclusions, impossible high standards of climate science, conspiracy theories and cherry-picking information.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hadgis\u2019 team chose Chicago as one of its two campaign sites because the city ranks <\/span>No. 5<\/span><\/a> with the largest Latino and Hispanic population nationwide. In Spanish-speaking families, misinformation can <\/span>spread<\/span><\/a> like \u201cwildfire\u201d because of close communication through tight-knit group chats, said Juan Pablo Alvarado, a climate <\/span>misinformation and disinformation program coordinator at GreenLatinos, a national nonprofit partner with the Gas Leaks Project for the campaign.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFrom extreme weather to pollution, our communities are being impacted by this, yet they are often excluded from the decision-making process,\u201d Alvarado said. \u201cDisinformation really does undermine our community\u2019s ability to advocate for their health, their safety, their environment and just makes it harder to achieve any true environmental justice.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Chicago also became a prime Gas Leaks Projects campaign site because of recent <\/span>escalating tensions with disinformation campaigns, Hadgis said.<\/span><\/p>\n

For example, Mayor Brandon Johnson\u2019s administration sued five of the world\u2019s largest oil and gas companies last year \u2014 including BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil and Shell \u2014 and trade group American Petroleum for \u201cdeceiving Chicago consumers about the climate dangers associated with their products,\u201d according to the city\u2019s <\/span>news release<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Additionally, the Chicago Chronicle, a now-defunct <\/span>fake news outlet<\/span><\/a>, spread misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines in the city. In October, the Washington Post reviewed documents obtained by a European intelligence service and found the creator of the fake news outlet was working for the Russian military\u2019s intelligence service.<\/span><\/p>\n

Offline, activists such as Gonzales are also helping to spread the message of environmental issues in their communities, striving to prevent further health impacts in the city \u2014 especially in areas lacking resources in their native languages.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want people to run away,\u201d Gonzales said, \u201cI just want them to know and say, \u2018Now, what battle can we take on?\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Cathy Ching is a health, environment and science journalism graduate student at Medill. You can follow her on Twitter at @bycathyching<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Cathy Ching Medill Reports Social justice leader Mary Gonzales fought for environmental justice in Pilsen for years. Breaking down the language barrier in climate-related issues for the Latino-dominated community is one of the biggest challenges of all, she said. \u201cMost websites dealing with things that are important to us are not in Spanish. Secondly, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1003,"featured_media":105023,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,29,5542,5487],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-interest","category-health-and-science","category-msj25","category-winter-2025"],"yoast_head":"\nGas Leaks Project breaks down climate change disinformation, language barriers in Chicago - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/climate-disinformation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Gas Leaks Project breaks down climate change disinformation, language barriers in Chicago - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Cathy Ching Medill Reports Social justice leader Mary Gonzales fought for environmental justice in Pilsen for years. 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