Fake News: AOC Did NOT Push For Killing More People to Save the Planet

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk
Fake News: AOC Did NOT Push For Killing More People to Save the Planet

Did Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez push for killing more people to save the planet? No, that's not true: an article about AOC backing a report that calls for various measures to tackle climate change misrepresented the "population control measures" the report actually contained by claiming it included killing people. In reality the report called for measures to reduce fertility.

The story originated from an article published by Life News on November 7, 2019 titled "AOC Pushes Population Control to Stop Climate Change: Kill More People to Save the Planet" (archived here) which opened:

Several high-profile Democrats who back the so-called Green New Deal are now apparently supporting a new report calling for a dramatic reduction in the world's population to stave off a climate crisis.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey retweeted links to a report signed by more than 11,000 scientists who argue that the population "must be stabilized--and, ideally, gradually reduced--within a framework that ensures social integrity."

Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail:

AOC Pushes Population Control to Stop Climate Change: Kill More People to Save the Planet

Several high-profile Democrats who back the so-called Green New Deal are now apparently supporting a new report calling for a dramatic reduction in the world'

The actual report can be found here, there is a PDF link there you can click to download the full thing:

World Scientists' Warning of a Climate Emergency

Scientists have a moral obligation to clearly warn humanity of any catastrophic threat and to "tell it like it is." On the basis of this obligation and the graphical indicators presented below, we declare, with more than 11,000 scientist signatories from around the world, clearly and unequivocally that planet Earth is facing a climate emergency.

Here is the section on population control:

Population

Still increasing by roughly 80 million people per year, or more than 200,000 per day (figure 1a-b), the world population must be stabilized--and, ideally, gradually reduced--within a framework that ensures social integrity. There are proven and effective policies that strengthen human rights while lowering fertility rates and lessening the impacts of population growth on GHG emissions and biodiversity loss. These policies make family-planning services available to all people, remove barriers to their access and achieve full gender equity, including primary and secondary education as a global norm for all, especially girls and young women (Bongaarts and O'Neill 2018).

Nowhere in that does it advocate for killing people, which would certainly not be something that would "strengthen human rights" or "ensures social integrity". And population stabilization, with "ideally" a gradual reduction is not the "dramatic reduction in the world's population" the LifeNews article claims is being proposed.

NewsGuard, a company that uses trained journalist to rank the reliability of websites, describes lifenews.com as:

A website that covers abortion legislation and politics in the U.S. and internationally with a strong anti-abortion slant. It is upfront about its perspective, but has reported unsubstantiated health claims and does not always correct errors.

According to NewsGuard the site does not maintain basic standards of accuracy and accountability. Read their full assessment here.

We wrote about lifenews.com before, here are our most recent articles that mention the site:

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  Maarten Schenk

Lead Stories co-founder Maarten Schenk is our resident expert on fake news and hoax websites. He likes to go beyond just debunking trending fake news stories and is endlessly fascinated by the dazzling variety of psychological and technical tricks used by the people and networks who intentionally spread made-up things on the internet.  He can often be found at conferences and events about fake news, disinformation and fact checking when he is not in his office in Belgium monitoring and tracking the latest fake article to go viral.

Read more about or contact Maarten Schenk

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