A plot from Grisham

We’ve spent a lot of time lately having to decide what’s real news and what’s fake, but we don’t expect to see outright lies passed off in these very pages. The claims in Walter Williams’ May 23 column that environmentally minded Americans are agents of Russia is one of the more absurd smears that could ever be dreamed up. A simple Internet search shows that report after report has proven these false attacks on environmental advocates and organizations are being pushed by some of the same political smear artists that used to do the dirty work of big tobacco.

What I and others across this state know to be a fact is that fracking and other fossil fuels are polluting our air and water, damaging our communities, and making climate change worse. We don’t need anyone else to tell us that — we see the problems every day. These false smears are distractions and lies that could come straight out of a John Grisham novel.

There are lots of people fighting to make our world a safer and healthier place to live, and it’s infuriating to me that anyone would lie to marginalize those efforts and positions. There’s such an enormous amount of information that the public needs to know about that we can’t afford to waste time on deliberate misinformation.

It is time we recognize and call out fake news based on false conspiracy theories, especially stories that are simply made up to stop people from taking a stand to protect our water and air for ourselves and for our children. SETH GATELY Little Rock