Progress Florida, a liberal non profit organization with a stated goal of “creating hard-hitting traditional and new media coverage,” proved just how hard they intend to hit when they attacked Florida Governor Rick Scott using misleading images of a 2011 algae bloom in Lake Erie.
On social media, the group posted an image of an algae bloom that, according to University of Michigan, was caused by unusually heavy rainfall in 2011:
The researchers found that a series of intense spring rainstorms and runoff events resulted in record-breaking levels of phosphorus, a nutrient in crop fertilizers that also fuels rampant algae growth, washing into western Lake Erie.
That set the stage for an algae bloom that covered about 2,000 square miles by the time it peaked in early October 2011. That’s more than three times larger than any previously observed Lake Erie algae bloom, including blooms that occurred in the 1960s and 1970s, when the lake was famously declared dead.
Yes, you read that right. Environmental activists have been dealing with these types of algae blooms for more than four decades, but Progress Florida wants people to believe they are caused by Governor Rick Scott’s environmental policies.
Here’s a link to the original image, which is hosted on a federal government website. It has appeared on Huffington Post, been cropped, flipped and doctored by lib groups for years. Below, the label has been magnified, proving that Progress Florida grabbed the image and made the attack without concern for the source.
