X
Keep up to date with Cornwall Climate Care news and releases
Despite all the evidence of rising global temperatures and climate-related disasters – and almost 100% consensus among the world’s climate scientists about what is causing this – there are still a surprising number of people who do not believe we are facing a climate emergency.
Climate conspiracies, whipped up by social media algorithms that push the most extreme viewpoints to the fore, have resulted in death threats being made against people like city councillors trying to introduce traffic reduction schemes and weather forecasters trying to keep people safe from hurricanes.
Join our young presenter Jaz as she sets out to discover why these conspiracy theories are so popular, whether any of them actually hold a grain of truth - or whether they are threatening our ability to deal with the greatest challenge humans have ever faced.
Tragically, this misinformation could be seriously affecting our capacity to deal with the biggest challenge modern humans have ever faced.
In this series we sort the facts from the fiction on over 30 topics, ranging from chemtrails to volcanoes, Earth’s past climate change, and whether the planet’s ice is really growing rather than shrinking.
We have listed some resources and sources of advice below for you to explore.
Some of the earliest research clearly proving the climate impact of human burning of fossil fuels was actually done by scientists working for oil companies like Exxon back in the 1970s. Click here.
When they realised the implications of this research, it was suppressed – and fossil fuel industry influence has worked to sow doubt and confusion over climate science ever since, as well as lobbying governments to water down climate policies, making donations to climate sceptic political parties and bankrolling slick campaigns by climate-denying politicians.
Nearly 2,500 oil industry lobbyists attended the 2023 international climate change conference, COP28, outnumbering the delegates from every nation state there, bar two.
While the scientific consensus on the causes of climate change is as strong as the consensus on cancer being caused by smoking, all these decades of oil industry interference have resulted in a public perception that climate science is still far from settled and repeatedly delayed urgent action.
Shifting away from fossil fuels will require a massive and concerted, international effort and the changes needed will provide fertile feeding ground for pushback.
It’s undeniable that, over the past couple of hundred years, fossil fuels have provided us with vast amounts of cheap energy, chemicals, fuel and fertilisers – enabling human populations to boom and consume resources way beyond the limitations of what the planet can naturally replace.
We have identified far more oil and gas than can safely be burned without the world overshooting its small remaining carbon budget.
But there are still a huge number of people profiting massively from the status quo. Fossil fuel firms are still making billions in profits (as well as receiving vast subsidies from our governments).
With little sign of strong international and government action to make fossil fuel investment less attractive than renewables, many oil and gas firms are now quietly abandoning even the small token gestures they were once making around shifting to greener forms of energy.
Scarily, in order to make ‘net zero’ sums add up, the delay in doing anything near enough to reduce fossil fuel burning means we are being forced us further and further down the route of reliance on future technologies or geo-engineering to suck excess carbon dioxide from the air.
The proposed techniques are already the subject of a whole set of conspiracy theories themselves…. (for example that too much CO2 will be removed, in order to kill plants and starve people – or that geoengineering is being used as a weapon to control the weather and scare people into submission - Read more here.
In reality, there is no evidence that such technologies will ever be able to have a meaningful impact on reducing greenhouse gases. However, they could also have other unforeseen and potentially devastating consequences.
As emissions keep increasing, it is more and more likely that – in desperation – geo-engineering techniques will be used. Some, being tested, have already caused huge controversy here in the UK, such as this plan (recently shelved and moved to another country) to use mining waste to alter the acidity of seawater, enabling it to draw down more CO2.
While it’s widespread, climate denial and scepticism may not always be easy to spot, as it can come in many forms and has often been tailored to appear very convincing.
The five main areas of climate denial include:
Read more about the main elements of this tried and tested playbook – and how to spot them – here: https://theconversation.com/the-five-corrupt-pillars-of-climate-change-denial-122893
See more resources here on conspiracy theories, what they are and how to spot them…
With social media algorithms designed to present us with more and more of the kind of information we’ve previously viewed, we’re rarely confronted with anything that contradicts our existing beliefs. This makes it’s quite easy to understand why some people may innocently end up absorbing misinformation.
Dangerous conspiracy theories have proliferated throughout history – from medieval witch hunts to the Inquisition. However, social media gives huge oxygen to lies and misinformation, which can now spread around the world in seconds.
Obviously this isn’t only in the climate space – we all saw how baseless hoax information spread on social media led to the anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim riots that took place all over the UK in the summer of 2024.
People and outlets spreading denial messages on channels like Youtube, such as Jordan Peterson, BlazeTV and PragerU, each have several million followers. Climate denial and anti-net zero content also has a lot of crossover with free speech absolutism and far right politics.
The monetisation of online content and engagement (with influencers or others being paid for the number of views/ clicks/ likes/ subscribes) has led to huge incentives to post ever more extreme, hateful and outlandish content.
The report Climate of Misinformation, produced by a coalition of dozens of climate and disinformation organisations, highlights how big tech has become a “complicit actor” in accelerating the spread of climate denial.
The report ranked X (previously Twitter) as the worst offender for allowing climate misinformation to go unchecked and not having clear and publicly available information on climate science. It also lacks clearly-articulated policies on how the company will act against the spread of misinformation and a clear reporting process for flagging misleading content.
Since Elon Musk’s takeover and the hollowing out of the platform’s moderators, X has gone from being a place of debate and discussion to a place where many climate scientists no longer feel safe. Large numbers have left X for other spaces, such as BlueSky.
The other characteristic of the Internet is that misinformation that should long since have been dead and buried can live and spread forever.
The 2009 ‘Climategate’ scandal is still rehashed online as evidence of a scientific conspiracy to falsify data and the scientists involved still receive hate mail. Even though an inquiry found no evidence of wrongdoing, and the ‘whistleblower’ who cherrypicked stolen data to ‘justify’ his claims later apologised and said the science was in fact correct, the harm had been done.
Perhaps the most worrying aspect of online climate misinformation is its impact on young people.
If adults struggle to control their own consumption of online information or to distinguish between reputable and conspiratorial sources, how are young people supposed to?
Perhaps unsurprisingly, a recent report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate found that one-third of young people now say they think the danger posed by climate change has been ‘over exaggerated’.
The rise of AI is likely to ramp up the capacity for production of highly convincing climate denial content still further.
The website Skeptical Science provides reputable information and a lot of useful advice on how to debunk common climate denial narratives.
This article by ACT Climate Labs on climate conspiracy thinking is really helpful for spotting the tell-tale signs of baseless conspiracy theories as opposed to conspiracies that really could rationally be true.
Some of these really do have a grain of truth in them, and in this series we sort the facts from the fiction on over 30 topics, ranging from chemtrails to volcanoes, Earth’s past climate change, and whether the planet’s ice is really growing rather than shrinking.
Much pushback against climate action revolves around stoking people’s fear of their freedoms being taken away.
Often, it is multinational bodies like the UN or World Economic Forum that are viewed as imposing these changes on the world in the form of supposed solutions to a ‘non-existent’ climate emergency.
For example, there’s a common narrative that the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals are really a smokescreen for taking control of the whole world and reducing our quality of life, for example by stopping people from flying or forcing them to eat insects instead of meat. Often, the story is that these large organisations are actually trying to kill us off in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
This overarching green tyranny narrative is very powerful – and has been woven together into a seductive logic that links together everything from 15-minute cities really being 15-minute ‘prisons’ to ‘chem trails’ being used to rain toxins down on the world to make everyone infertile and reduce global populations.
This has powerfully dovetailed with rampant hoax theories around Covid being an attempt to annihilate populations/ a ‘test run’ to frighten us into submission or a ruse to leave us infertile through toxic vaccinations, etc.
These fears of authority and control run very deep for many people.
It is true that tackling climate change will require big changes in the way we live…. and particularly in developed countries, which account for the vast majority of the world’s climate emissions.
Pushback is also brewing in response to the inevitable landscape changes that will be needed in some areas as we switch to renewables, for example the installation of pylons to transmit renewable energy from the places where it’s generated, or through mining of the minerals needed to produce renewables infrastructure.
While these arguments fail to take into account the much greater costs and environmental impacts of failing to act, it’s clear that ensuring public support is absolutely key, especially among the 69% of the population described as ‘persuadables’ (with no strong opinion either way on climate issues).
Useful reading/ watching
The rare earth minerals required to produce renewable technologies are not very abundant in the Earth's crust, and they're often difficult and very environmentally-damaging to extract.
However, we are going to need huge amounts more of them, quickly, if we are to meet global net zero targets.
Getting from the point of identifying mineral resources to developing operational mines takes a long time, so many experts fear there could be a serious shortfall in supply in the next couple of decades. It's also important to be aware that mining operations, if not well regulated, can seriously impact indigenous communities and ecosystems. This makes it really important to ensure that renewable technologies are 100% recyclable.
Currently, significant amounts of important minerals like lithium are being chucked away into landfill each year in the form of small batteries in domestic appliances and things like disposable vapes.
Listen to this great Accidental Gods podcast episode with physicist and geologist Dr Simon Michaux ‘Transforming Industry to Create a Genuine Green Revolution’ to learn more about the challenges of switching away from fossil fuels.
Everything has become very polarised – with some media and politicians painting anybody concerned about the climate crisis as ‘woke’, ‘eco zealots’ or ‘eco yobs’.
This can work the other way too – some people claim they are labelled as ‘deniers’ (with overtones of Holocaust denial) for asking legitimate questions about the many unknowns of how we can get to net zero.
However, there’s certainly been a concerted effort by the media and some in politics to portray non-violent climate activists as dangerous extremists – encouraging the public to view the protestors as the problem…. rather than the fact that they themselves have failed to meet their own climate targets or abide by scientific advice.
Whether you agree with climate activists’ tactics or not, the UK now actually has some of the world’s most draconian laws on protest.
In 2024, five non-violent climate activists from Just Stop Oil (juststopoil.org) were each sentenced to between four and five years in jail – longer that someone might get for a violent crime, and also longer than most of the rioters who took to the streets just a few months later.
The United Nations special rapporteur on environmental defenders called the sentences a ‘dark day for human rights’ and ‘not acceptable in a democracy’
Climate protestors would argue that they are morally in the right, and are the modern day equivalent of the suffragettes – who at their time were also widely despised.
But many people working on climate issues worry that the activists’ actions could be counter-productive.
Environmental Politics professor Clare Saunders, who appears in our film, points out that the best way to overcome polarisation, which is often artificially manufactured, is to break big issues down into smaller questions that both sides can often find agreement on.
Jennie King, another one of our film contributors, says it is often more effective to direct the conversation at a different level. Instead of talking about ‘the future of humanity’ it can be better to talk to people about the potential impacts and benefits of climate action for their local area.
Check out these great resources around combating climate polarisation:
With fossil fuels being so profitable it’s not hard to see why Big Oil has pushed back so hard against changes to the status quo.
But why are regular members of the public so ready to believe that it’s all a hoax – especially when we can see the evidence of what’s going on all around us?
Today’s world is scary……and conspiracy theories can provide a comforting worldview in which everything seems to have quite a logical alternative explanation that isn’t too far from the plot of The Matrix.
With huge distrust in politicians, particularly following the incompetence, cronyism and hypocrisy we saw during Covid, it’s probably unsurprising that trust in authority is at rock bottom.
But another key aspect of climate conspiracy theories is that they provide a reason why you don’t need to change anything at all about your life – because it’s all a lie and someone else’s fault!
Politicians have been frequently taken in too, particularly those (often) on the right wing buying into claims about net zero being an assault on individual freedoms. There have been numerous instances of MPs repeating utterly baseless claims and MPs in the UK have now been provided with a guide on how to spot conspiracy theories https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68990672
Check out sites such as MP Watch and Vote Climate to find out where your MP or political candidate stands on climate change.
Ideally, we’d all be reading the reports from the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change to make sure we’re getting the most recent, peer-reviewed, state of the art science on the subject of climate change.
But who has the time to do that??
In today’s world of super short reels, memes and outraged social media posts, which we consume in seconds, many people rarely get to read the full story behind the headlines…. and this can be a big problem.
A lot of stuff online can look very convincing and social media algorithms are designed to keep showing you more of the kind of stuff you’ve looked at.
These bitesize clips from Youtube give some good reminders about how to double check that what you’re reading is really the whole picture, before you share and potentially amplify misinformation.
Professor Clare Saunders, one of our #ClimateScam? film contributors, carries out an interesting exercise with her students, getting them to really dig down into the source of climate misinformation. Who is promoting it? What is their professional or academic background? Who is paying them? What might their interest be in supporting a particular narrative?
Desmog desmog.com is a fantastic resource for checking out the backgrounds of people active in the climate misinformation world… and who is funding them.
Not so long ago the Fridays for Future movement, spearheaded by young climate activist Greta Thunberg, was mobilising millions of young people and seemed unstoppable.
But that momentum seems to have died down, while Greta herself has become a figure of hate in many circles.
With crucial decades to act having been lost on the climate crisis and the situation becoming more and more bleak as we move closer to possible tipping points, it’s maybe not so surprising that 70% of young people report feeling anxious about the future climate – but also that many others may be seeking comfort in alternative narratives.
A recent report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate showed that one-third of young people in the UK now think the threat of climate change has been over exaggerated - read here
Today’s young people’s lives will be overshadowed by the climate crisis, despite having done little to add to it themselves. Given the scale of the challenges ahead, climate change still has minimal coverage in the UK national curriculum, and there is very little focus on preparing young people for huge range of green jobs needed that could enable them to be part of the solution.
Organisations like Teach the Future are campaigning for climate to be mainstreamed across the entire UK curriculum.
While that is still not the case, here at Cornwall Climate Care we offer wonderful FREE workshops for schools, youth organisations and homeschooling groups.
These workshops, delivered by our education coordinator Hayley, are focused around the themes of our films – providing young people with much-needed information about what climate change really means for the place where they live…. as well as showing them inspiring examples of local people working hard to confront these challenges in a positive way.
If you’re a teacher, or if you’re a parent or know of a school that might be interested in hosting our workshops, please contact Hayley via our education page here.
Some great resources
Everyone
Young people specific
As a project to document the facts around climate change in Cornwall, we take our own carbon footprint very seriously and aim to tread as lightly as possible.
We operate in accordance with an environmental policy that covers everything from our transport (which accounts for the bulk of our emissions) and banking to data storage and battery charging.
