#ClimateScam: denialism claims flooding Twitter
have scientists worried
Many researchers are fleeing the platform, unnerved by
the surge in climate misinformation since Musk’s chaotic takeover
Oliver
Milman
@olliemilman
Fri 2 Dec
2022 07.00 GMT
Twitter has
proved a cherished forum for climate scientists to share research, as well as
for activists seeking to rally action to halt oil pipelines or decry
politicians’ failure to cut pollution. But many are now fleeing Twitter due to
a surge in climate misinformation, spam and even threats that have upended
their relationship with the platform.
Scientists
and advocates have told the Guardian they have become unnerved by a recent
resurgence of debunked climate change denialist talking points and memes on
Twitter, with the term #ClimateScam now regularly the first result that appears
when “climate” is searched on the site.
Under the
often chaotic leadership of Elon Musk, Twitter has fired content management
teams, dismantled the platform’s sustainability arm and lifted bans on several
prominent users with millions of followers, such as Donald Trump and the
rightwing commentator Jordan Peterson, who has espoused falsities about the climate
crisis. The changes have been too much to bear for some climate experts.
“Since
Musk’s takeover I have ramped down my own use of Twitter, using it less both to
look for news and to share science,” said Twila Moon, a scientist at the National
Snow and Ice Data Center who said she was worried that years of connections
formed between scientists could “crumble” if trust in Twitter collapses.
“Folks
noticing a rise in climate denialism and disinformation is particularly
worrying and I am concerned that it could slow climate action in ways that are
devastating to economies, communities and health,” she said.
Michael
Mann, a prominent climate scientist at University of Pennsylvania, said he has
no immediate plans to depart Twitter but he’s noticed that climate
disinformation has “become a bit more on the nose, with climate deniers who had
been deactivated making a reappearance, and climate denial getting somewhat
more traction”.
Mann has
created a profile on Mastodon, a new social media site seen as an alternative
to Twitter, and has been joined by a cadre of other climate scientists dismayed
by Musk’s tenure. “I don’t think I’m getting much value from being on Twitter
now, there are more interesting conversations happening at Mastodon,” said Bob
Kopp, a Rutgers University climate scientist who expressed alarm at Twitter
ending its policy on Covid-19 misinformation, which he said “tends to go hand
in hand” with climate denialism.
Musk, a
self-proclaimed defender of free speech and previously lauded by
environmentalists due to his leadership of the electric car firm Tesla, has
said that Twitter “obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape”. But his
recent actions suggest “that he is interested in creating a massive, worldwide
cage fight. If it comes to that, we’ll take a pass,” according to Ed Maibach,
an expert in climate communications at George Mason University who claimed that
many people in the climate community have discussed leaving the site.
There has
been an uptick in Twitter content referencing #ClimateScam, “climate scam” or
“climate is a scam” since July, three months before Musk’s $44bn takeover of
the site, with more than 500,000 mentions of these terms since then, according
to an analysis by the Climate Action Against Disinformation coalition. The
opaque nature of Twitter’s algorithm makes it unclear why this has happened,
the coalition said.
“There’s no
evidence there are more posts with ‘climate scam’ than ‘climate emergency’ or
other terms, or that they are getting more engagement, so it’s a bit perplexing
why it’s the top search term, we are scratching our heads at it,” said Jennie
King, head of civic action at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, part of the
coalition.
“I can understand
climate scientists saying this is not a productive place for conversations with
each other any more. They’ve become lightening rods for hate speech and death
threats, we are seeing a real escalation of threats against them, intended to
drive them off the platform.”
King said
there was a “renewed energy” coursing through the effort to spread baseless
claims about the climate crisis on Twitter, particularly by high-profile
accounts that fold the issue into other major clashes, such as over abortion or
LGBTQ+ rights.
Peterson,
the Canadian psychologist and media personality who was reinstated to Twitter
by Musk following a ban, has recently become fixated upon climate change, often
firing off a dozen tweets or more in a single day on the issue to his 3.5
million followers.
The
rightwinger has shared debunked theories that excess carbon dioxide is
beneficial to the world, that “automotive freedom” is under threat from efforts
to reduce pollution from cars and that climate campaigners want to “wreak
envious and narcissistic havoc”.
“Peterson
is a big one because his brand extends beyond the environment but now he’s
doubling down on climate,” said King. “We’ve seen time and again these accounts
that espouse climate denial and delay also spread misinformation on other
topics, such as electoral fraud, racial politics or reproductive rights.”
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While false
claims about the climate crisis have been deployed for decades by the fossil
fuel industry and various conservative figures, there is some evidence there
has been a rise in polarization over climate on social media over the past two
years. A recent study by researchers in the UK and Italy found there was a
fourfold increase in “contrarian” rightwing climate conversations on Twitter
during the UN Cop26 climate talks last year, compared with the same summit held
in 2015.
The
increase in minority voices on climate, who make claims such as that people
favoring climate action are somehow hypocrites or that reducing emissions is
pointless or expensive, is being fueled by well-known rightwing politicians in
the US and Europe turning their fire on climate activists who have become more
prominent in recent years, the researchers said.
“We’ve
entered a new era of conversation around climate change, where there is
diminished trust and no interaction between groups who disagree,” said Andrea
Baronchelli, co-author of the study and a researcher at City University London.
“If you’re in one camp, you aren’t necessarily exposed to the views of the
other camp, other than to mock them.”
For climate
scientists, this breakdown has raised fears that previously mainstream online
spaces like Twitter will be ceded to conspiracy theorists and others without
any expertise of global heating. Kim Cobb, a climate scientist at Brown
University, has moved to Mastodon, too, but lamented that it feels “fairly tame
and pretty nerdy” compared with Twitter.
“As someone
who followed lots of women scientists, and scientists of color, I’m noticing
the absence of these treasured voices,” she said.
“Maybe
they’ve left Twitter, or maybe they’ve fallen silent, or maybe the network has
deteriorated to the point that I’m just not seeing them being retweeted by
mutuals. Twitter is a shadow of its former self when it comes to climate
change.”
This
article was amended on 2 December 2022 to correctly identify Michael Mann’s
place of work.
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