Scientific evidence clearly shows the existence, today, of climate change due mainly to human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels. However, a part of the population continues to deny the reality of this exceptional climate phenomenon. The subsistence of climate change deniers is evident, for example, on social networks, but are they really a significant part of society?
A study published last December in the journal Nature Human Behavior highlighted three possible causes for the maintenance of denialism: the extremely persuasive nature of misinformation, social discontent and distrust towards politicians, institutions and public entities.
A survey by Sigma 2 for the AXA Foundation, the results of which were released last January, indicates that 84% of the Spanish population (89% in Catalonia) believes that climate change is occurring on the planet and, On the other hand, it quantifies less than 10% of the population of Spain as a whole that denies the existence of this global warming phenomenon.
The United States, led by former President Donald Trump, is one of the countries in which climate deniers make themselves felt most strongly, but in this case it is not clear what the real weight of this population group is.
A team of experts from the University of Michigan has now used artificial intelligence (AI) techniques as an alternative to traditional surveys to estimate the extent of climate denialism.
The results of this research, published in an article published in the journal Scientific Report (February 14), indicate that 14.8% of Americans deny that climate change is real. The new study with the help of AI offers statistical results that are very similar to those obtained with surveys but, in its favor, shows clarifying data about the network of people and entities that act as "key influencers and how they spread and consolidate misinformation about climate change by taking advantage of meteorological and global phenomena", as highlighted by the University of Michigan in an informative note of the results obtained by its experts.
The authors of the new study used data from Platform climate change.
"Before the advancement of AI and social media data, this type of work was based exclusively on expensive and time-consuming surveys," explained the study's lead author, Joshua Newell, professor and co-director of the Systems Center. Sustainable Developments from the School of Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan.
Using the language model of the artificial intelligence chatbot application ChatGPT, researchers classified more than 7.4 million messages spread on this social network on the Internet, geocoding their senders and classifying their message as "in favor" or "in against" the existence of climate change, with which they obtained an opinion map with results at the state and county level.
Next, the experts "used statistical models to determine the typical profile of someone who does not believe in climate change and performed network analysis to identify the structure of the social network for both belief and denial of climate change," details the University of Michigan.
"The study found that 14.8% of Americans deny that climate change is real, which is consistent with previous national studies, and also identified the demographic and geographic groups where denialism persists," highlights the conclusion of the research.
Analysis of the geocoded messages revealed that belief in climate change is highest along the West Coast and East Coast. Climate denialism is strongest in the central and southern parts of the United States, with more than 20% of the population in Oklahoma, Mississippi, Alabama and North Dakota.
The researchers also revealed that belief in climate change can vary substantially within states. For example, in California, where less than 12% of the population does not believe in climate change, Shasta County in Northern California had climate change denial rates as high as 52%.
Similarly, the average percentage of deniers in Texas is 21%, but at the county level, this varies from 13% in Travis County to 67% in Hockley County.
The findings show that political affiliation plays the most influential role in determining whether or not a person believes in climate change, and a high percentage of Republican voters have the strongest correlation with climate change deniers.
Additionally, researchers saw a strong connection between climate denialism and low Covid vaccination rates, suggesting widespread skepticism toward science. Other variables they found to influence opinion about climate change include education level, income, and the degree to which the regional economy relies on fossil fuels to produce energy.
"What this indicates is that communities with a high prevalence of climate change deniers are at risk of dismissing other science-based health or safety recommendations," said the study's lead author, Dimitrios Gounaridis, a researcher at the Systems Center. Sustainable from the University of Michigan.
The study is also the first to identify which individuals on platform X (Twitter) influence shaping climate change belief or denial and to what extent. Furthermore, it describes how climate change deniers and believers have formed communities on this platform, mostly separate, creating closed groups that do not interact with each other.
The findings show that Trump has the most influence, as do three influential groups that retweeted him heavily (The Daily Wire, Breitbart, and Climate Depot), as well as conservative political commentators like Ben Shapiro.
"During the 2017-2019 study period, the most retweeted post included one by Trump questioning climate change due to unusually cold weather in the US, and another in which he cast doubt on a UN climate report" Newell said. "In almost half of the tweets analyzed, the most common refrain was that 'climate change wasn't real.'"
Other common explanations were that humans are not the main cause and that climate change experts are unreliable.
Newell said that while there is widespread awareness of the fact that social media users like Trump can be influential, it is surprising how influential a role some individuals play in shaping and consolidating public opinion on crucial issues like climate change. .
"What's frightening, and somewhat disheartening, is how divided the worlds are between belief and denial of climate change," he said. "The respective X echo chambers have little communication and interaction between them."
Newell notes that the study did not look at newer social media outlets, such as Truth Social, a primary channel for Trump's recent social media posts.
"Influential people like Trump are creating their own echo chambers outside of X, which in many ways is even more worrying," he said. "People tend to selectively credit or discredit evidence based on their beliefs, which is how false experts come to serve as credible messengers.
"This is the basis of the theory of identity-protective cognition, which helps explain, for example, why Republican voters are more likely to believe Trump's tweets about climate change than other, more reliable sources: affirm identity."
With the election season in full swing, the study's authors suggest that social media companies should flag misinformation when it appears on their platforms and consider banning users who persistently spread falsehoods.
"The information revealed in this study provides a basis for developing strategies to counter this knowledge vulnerability and reduce the spread of misinformation or disinformation by identifying communities most at risk of not taking action to increase resilience to the effects of climate change." Newell said. saying. "We learned that a relatively small number of people are very influential in spreading misinformation about climate change.
"Social media companies have banned users for this type of behavior in the past, and for other issues, such as when the then-Twitter banned Trump due to tweets maintaining election fraud and supporting the attack on the United States Capitol. United on January 6 (his account has since been locked. "It has been restored). For the safety of others, these companies should consider developing similar policies to limit the spread of misinformation about climate change," highlights the University of Michigan in the release of the results of the new study.
