
Climate change misinformation spreads online - Xixi
https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-how-climate-change-misinformation-spreads-online
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LatteLazy
I actually think there is very little misinformation led climate denial around
climate here in the UK. Plenty of people refuse to do anything. But that's a
decision they've made despite being informed, not because of misinformation. I
see evidence of the same attitude in the US, but I don't live there so I
cannot really comment.

Many of us from a educated or stem background mistakenly think people get
(large amounts of) information, digest it and then make the socially correct
decision. But that isn't what happens. Most people make the decision that
suits them personally, they do it within about 5 seconds of realizing a
decision is necessary (long before they can have been given any real
information). People then use any justification that fits the decision they
already made in order to defend that decision.

I actually think most climate misinformation is a result of people's climate
denial, not the other way around. People don't want to give up carbon so they
spread useful BS that helped them justify keeping emissions. They do this
because it makes them feel better about a decision they know has massive
negative consequences, just like people share cat pictures: they are not
sharing a picture of a cat they actually know, they're sharing "feels".
"Feels" in the form of cat pictures spread, so do "feels" in the form of
political humour or climate misinformation or vaccine denialism.

It is "feels" that have beaten facts, not lies. That's why more facts are not
solving this issue. Climate misinformation is just a small subset of the many
examples of this.

What we need now isn't more information or less mis-information (aka
moderation of social media). It's celebrities endorsing emissions cuts. A
Kardashian driving a Tesla or a photo of a single child that died from a
climate driven disaster will convince more people to vote green than 1001
research papers or carefully structured arguments or expert interviews or
statistics.

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aaron695
"There is a negligible amount of literature about climate alarmism compared to
climate scepticism, suggesting it is significantly less prevalent. As such,
the focus for this article is on climate scepticism."

~~~
Nevermark
I also noticed that sentence. Circular reasoning out in the open.

I don't personally see over-alarmist info as being as prevalent or as
effective as denialist info, in large part because simply prudently-alarmist
info in line with scientific predictions has enough trouble getting traction,
this was not the way to rationalize an exclusion of that topic from the
article.

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hatenberg
Sure. Right after covid scepticism is going well we will focus again on
ignoring the science on the next major issue to save the economy

~~~
Xixi
When western countries were hit by the first COVID-19 wave (Italy, France, New
York, etc.), seeing how irresponsible people were, I nearly lost all hope to
fight Global Warming. If supposedly educated people can't behave responsibly
when facing imminent danger, how are they going to behave responsibly in face
of a distant, somewhat more abstract threat?

It's not even so much that these countries were unprepared - can't say I was
expecting a pandemic like that one to happen. So I certainly didn't push,
directly or indirectly, my elected representatives to prepare for one. It's
the ruthless behavior of people ignoring warnings, casually carrying on as
usual until it was too late. Governments had to wave the proverbial stick
(read: fines) to get people to act responsibly. At least in France and, I
believe, Italy.

So I lost much hope: if we couldn't react in time for COVID-19, we won't react
in time for Global Warming. But I like to think of myself as an optimist:
maybe COVID-19 could be the warning we need to take Global Warming seriously.

And then here we are. Now COVID-19 is more or less a known quantity, we know
better how it spreads, how avoid it, its complications, etc. Masks and
ventilators are aplenty. We found some medicines that help. We are better
armed to deal with it in hospitals.

So we should be better off? Nope, we are all the way at the bottom of the pit.
UK. Sweden. Brazil. Texas. And then Facebook. Twitter. It's getting worse, and
it's getting worse faster. We, humans, are doubling down on killing ourselves.

So I'll keep wearing a mask, and traveling mostly by train/subway. But I don't
have much hope.

