In 1995, a group of leading scientists organized by the United Nations recognized a “human influence” on global temperatures with “effectively irreversible” impacts. Over the following years, 99.9 percent of scientists would come to agree that the burning of fossil fuels has disrupted the Earth’s climate. Yet, nearly 30 years after this warning, during the hottest year on Earth in 125,000 years, some people continue to argue that the science is unreliable, or that the threat is real but nothing needs to be done about climate change. According to a recent report by the coalition Climate Action Against Disinformation, conspiracies about climate change are thriving online. Posts with the hashtag #climatescam have received more likes and retweets on the platform X than ones with #climatecrisis or #climateemergency.
Almost anyone looking out the window can observe signs of climate change, such as flowers blooming earlier and lakes freezing later. However, approximately 15 percent of Americans still believe that global warming isn’t happening. The Mental Immunity Project aims to protect people from manipulative information. According to the project’s co-founder Andy Norman, people may tend to overlook inconvenient facts when they encounter arguments that align with their beliefs, due to the quirks of psychology. Additionally, the appeal of believing in a conspiracy lies in the idea that one is privy to a world-transforming secret, as is the case with Flat Earthers.
When the U.N. climate conference convened in Dubai, a surge in misleading information on social media usually coincides. Conspiracy theories circulated during COP28 suggested that governments were attempting to provoke food shortages through land seizures from farmers under the guise of climate change. The spread of these lies can further divide society and undermine public and political support for climate action. At the same time, climate scientists who are active in the media face online harassment, with 73 percent having experienced abuse.
A recent study in Nature Human Behavior found that climate change disinformation is more persuasive than scientific facts. In an experiment with almost 7,000 participants from 12 countries, “pre-bunking” attempts to vaccinate people against fake news did not yield the desired results. The flood of fake news had a significant effect on people’s opinions. The only paragraph that helped people recognize falsehoods was one that prompted them to evaluate the accuracy of the information they were seeing.
The efforts to stop the spread of climate change disinformation are complicated, as decades of oil-funded disinformation campaigns have already impacted public opinion. Many people doubt climate change not because they lack awareness of the scientific consensus, but because they question the motivations and trustworthiness of scientific authorities.
Resistance to climate change stems from a variety of reasons, some of which are outlined in Emma Frances Bloomfield’s upcoming book Science v. Story: Narrative Strategies for Science Communicators. These include the role individuals perceive themselves playing in the environmental crisis, as well as the sacrifices and ethical dilemmas involved in addressing climate change. By contrast, embracing climate denial allows people to identify as heroes and avoid making any changes to their behavior, ultimately offering a comforting narrative.
Fossil fuel companies, social media trolls, and certain countries are known to amplify tensions around climate change or spread doubt. These actors spend less to push doubt than to confirm scientific consensus and gain acceptance. The most effective way to combat disinformation would be to stop it from occurring, but achieving this is difficult and would require comprehensive regulatory interventions.
