We Need An Inoculation Against Climate Deniers’ Lies

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Misinformation is as old as information itself, and those seeking to address the climate crisis have been tackling it for decades. Yet today, more false or misleading content is spreading faster and further than ever before.

As social media platforms are the main conduit for misinformation, some are worried that young people — who spend a lot of time on YouTube and TikTok — are particularly vulnerable.

It doesn’t take long to find climate misinformation on TikTok. All I did was search “climate change,” scroll through a few videos, and there it was: Jordan Peterson, a Canadian academic who’s become a poster boy for climate denial, claiming that there’s no evidence that humans are warming the planet. Once I’d watched one, they came thick and fast, ranging from skeptical questions over climate action to full-on conspiracy theories (including several videos claiming that the reason behind an uptick in extreme weather is that the Earth’s climate changes naturally every 12,000 years). 

The video topics fit with new analysis from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which found that the types of claims have changed as it’s become increasingly hard to propagate the classics: that the weather is too cold; we’re heading into an ice age; or that the ice isn’t actually melting. Instead, denial messages now revolve around discrediting the science; claiming that global warming is actually beneficial and casting doubt over the solutions.

Research by the CCDH found that a third of UK teenagers believe climate change is “exaggerated.” This rose to 37% among those 13-to-17 year-olds who use any one social media platform for more than four hours a day. Does this mean that young people have a climate denial problem?

The short answer is: No. The long answer is that there aren’t any solid signs that our youngest generations are being radicalized into climate deniers by the likes of Peterson.

Rob Bellamy, a lecturer in climate and society at the University of Manchester, told me that studies have shown that age is of little relevance to whether or not you believe that climate change is real and caused by human activity. Looking at a bimonthly YouGov survey, older folk are only slightly more inclined to believe that global warming is due to natural causes rather than humans. Since the survey began in 2019, beliefs have also held fairly steady.

That doesn’t mean age isn’t important in other ways. Generational differences have been found in emotional engagement with climate change – with younger people more strongly feeling negative emotions of fear, guilt and outrage.

Climate denial is a serious problem and should be countered. Probably, the best tactic is to give everyone, not just younger generations, a sort of inoculation against false claims: training to help them spot misleading or incorrect information has been shown to be highly effective. Education on the basics of climate change would also go some way to protecting people from falsehoods.

Perhaps the main risk for young people is a different type of misinformation to that cited by the CCDH: Climate doomism. On TikTok, it’s easy to find content that deepens fear and apathy by claiming it’s too late to act and that societal collapse is imminent. Given their tendency to be more emotionally engaged with the topic, it’s no surprise that a survey of 10,000 people from 10 countries between the ages of 16 and 25 found high levels of climate anxiety. More than than 45% of respondents said these feelings negatively affected their daily life; while 55% believe that humanity is doomed.

Media and scientists have all been guilty of pushing apocalyptic messaging to shock and motivate, but research is finding that it may be counterproductive. Bellamy suggested that while such tactics may resonate with certain groups of people, such as those with an egalitarian worldview, doomist thinking merely alienates the groups we need to bring on board.

Seen in this context, perhaps the third of UK teenagers who believe that climate change is exaggerated are simply pushing back against doomist content. Believing that humans aren’t going to be wiped out entirely isn’t the same as climate denial.

The poll results may even be an expression of changing ideologies. An analysis by data columnist John Burn-Murdoch in the Financial Times found a widening gap between the ideologies of young men and women. In the US, women aged 18 to 30 are now 30 percentage points more liberal than their male contemporaries, who are trending towards conservatism and, as a result, may be more likely to feel alienated by certain climate messages. That’s a pattern seen in countries on every continent.

So while tackling climate denial is important, how we talk to teenagers and young adults about the climate crisis needs to change if we want to reach them, and avoid infecting them with climate anxiety.

We shouldn’t seek to minimize the crisis: Climate impacts are serious and present. Immediate action needs to be taken and we are likely to soar past the Paris Agreement target to limit warming to 1.5C, making life harder for people everywhere. But that doesn’t mean it’s time to give up, or that the planet is going to become completely uninhabitable. Every fraction of a degree matters. But creating a generation of anxious, depressed, apathetic or alienated young adults will do nothing to help our civilization make it through.

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This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Lara Williams is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering climate change.

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