Sigh, another in a long line of “trying to understand” the motivations and reasoning for people who disagree with them, but in reality are likely more informed than them.
I don’t have much to say about this ugliness, but I’ll let their writing speak for itself.
Abstract
Using data from Twitter (now X), this study deploys artificial intelligence (AI) and network analysis to map and profile climate change denialism across the United States. We estimate that 14.8% of Americans do not believe in climate change. This denialism is highest in the central and southern U.S. However, it also persists in clusters within states (e.g., California) where belief in climate change is high. Political affiliation has the strongest correlation, followed by level of education, COVID-19 vaccination rates, carbon intensity of the regional economy, and income. The analysis reveals how a coordinated social media network uses periodic events, such as cold weather and climate conferences, to sow disbelief about climate change and science, in general. Donald Trump was the strongest influencer in this network, followed by conservative media outlets and right-wing activists. As a form of knowledge vulnerability, climate denialism renders communities unprepared to take steps to increase resilience. As with other forms of misinformation, social media companies (e.g., X, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok) should flag accounts that spread falsehoods about climate change and collaborate on targeted educational campaigns.
Introduction
Climate change denialism persists in the United States, with estimates ranging from 12% to 26% of the U.S. population1,2. It is more pronounced in some states and regions3. Reasons for this denialism are multifaceted: Political affiliation and ideology, income, education, and exposure to extreme weather events are all important factors4,5,6. Denialism is more prevalent where local economies are highly dependent on fossil fuels7, in rural communities, and in populations where mistrust in science is pronounced8,9. Social media reaches millions of users, providing a key mechanism for influencers to spread misinformation10. The ability of social media to influence and harden attitudes was apparent in the response to COVID-19 vaccines11.
Understanding how and why climate change opinion varies geographically and documenting it at an actionable scale is crucial for communication campaigns, outreach, and other interventions12,13. Most estimates of the extent and geographic configuration of climate change denialism rely primarily on national surveys, with the Yale Climate Opinion Survey being the only dataset that provides estimates at the state and county levels for the entire U.S.3. These survey efforts, however, are time-intensive and expensive and are therefore destined to cover short time spans and, often, limited geographic extent. The Yale Survey combines data from more than 2500 national surveys and uses multinomial regression modeling to downscale estimates to subnational levels. Independent representative surveys conducted in states and metropolitan areas validate the predictions from the Yale Survey models3.
Mining social media data (e.g., Facebook, YouTube, and X, formerly Twitter) is a tantalizing alternative to survey-based approaches14,15. X is a social media platform with an extensive data repository. By adjusting for the skew toward certain demographic groups in users, data from this platform is useful for estimating public views on an array of topics, such as politics, social issues, and COVID-19 vaccination rates16,17. Data from Twitter has also been used in predictive modeling of election outcomes18. Account holders can misuse it to oppose scientific knowledge and spread misinformation19.
This study used Twitter data (2017–2019) to: (i) estimate the prevalence of climate change denialism at the state and county levels; (ii) identify typical profiles of climate change deniers; (iii) understand how social media promulgates climate change denialism through key influencers; and (iv) determine how world events are leveraged to promulgate attitudes about climate change.
We used a Deep Learning text recognition model to classify 7.4 million geocoded tweets containing keywords related to climate change. Posted by 1.3 million unique users in the U.S., these tweets were collected between September 2017 and May 2019 (see Online Methods S1). We classified these tweets about climate change into ‘for’ (belief) and ‘against’ (denial). Our analysis resulted in a profile of climate change deniers at the county level, provided insight into the networks of social media figures influential in promoting climate change denial, and generated insight into how these influencers use current events to foster this denial.
After confirming the validity of using social media data instead of information collected through surveys to capture public opinion on climate change at policy-relevant geographical scales, we found that denialism clusters in particular regions (and counties) of the country and amongst certain socio-demographic groups. Our analysis reveals how politicians, media figures, and conservative activists promulgated misinformation in the Twittersphere. It maps out how denialists and climate change believers have formed mostly separate Twitter communities, creating echo chambers. Such information provides a basis for developing strategies to counter this knowledge vulnerability and reduce the spread of mis- or disinformation by targeting the communities most at risk of not adopting measaures to increase resilience to the effects of climate change.
Results
Where in the U.S. is climate change denial prevalent?
Our study found that 14.8% of Americans deny that climate change is real (Fig. 1A), a percentage consistent with previous national studies (Fig. S4). Using geolocation information, we determined that denialism is highest in the Central part of the U.S. and in the South, with more than 20% of the populations of OK, MS, AL, and ND consisting of deniers. Along the West and East Coasts and New England, belief in climate change is highest. However, climate change denial varies substantially within states, often clustering in geographic swaths across multiple counties (Fig. 1B). For example, in Shasta County, California climate change denial is as high as 52%; yet overall less than 12% of the population of California does not believe in climate change. Similarly, the average percentage of deniers is 21% in Texas, but at the county-level this ranges from 13% in Travis County to 67% in Hockley County.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-50591-6
The full study can be found here.
H/T mark-blr
They like their small number but polls consistently show about 50% of Americans are skeptics. Text analysis of highly censored Twitter posts is a ridiculous way to try to measure that fraction.
The language they employ betrays their bias, they use climate change to represent their biased view that Humans/CO2 are the sole cause. The fact is that virtually everyone I know and have read that are skeptics of this theory (aka the denialists) believe that climate change is real but that the causes of it are substantially natural, that CO2 has a minimal impact and this is born out by paleo-climatological studies that show warmer periods than todays with lower CO2 and glacial periods when CO2 was many times higher. Computer models are useful when you have a good understanding of the subject, which the war mists clearly do not.
I presented my PhD thesis on climate “denialism” — but nobody believed me!!
From the authors “X is a social media platform with an extensive data repository. By adjusting for the skew toward certain demographic groups in users, data from this platform is useful for estimating public views on an array of topics, such as politics, social issues, and COVID-19 vaccination rate.”
….
Here is a fundamental flaw.
When social media first appearewd, some of us decided we had more important ways to spend our time than playing childrens’ games on the internet. So we decided not to be part of social media.
(After several years of this, by now, I can happily report that I cannot find any harm has come to me by not joining in. There have been plenty of rewarding ways to pass the time).
….
How would this “study” look if it was realised that a slab of society, possibly including many of the busiest and/or smartest, were not in the X study group? Defective enough to be retracted?
Geoff S
It’s always amusing to see the religious overtones of the alarmists. Talking about the distribution of the non-believers:
“…4.8% of Americans do not believe in climate change.”
“…clusters within states…where belief in climate change is high.”
There is no nuance–you either believe, or you don’t. You’re either with us or against us. As an aside–why must we believe in “climate change” now, and not “global warming” like we used to?
I view climate alarmism as a pagan religion–we have sinned, and the climate is punishing us. We must appease the climate.
These Arbiters of Truth wander along their ignorant path, using trendy modern words like “multinomial” regression, long known as “polynomial” regression, mixing Greek and Latin origins.
Geoff S
“By adjusting for the skew toward certain demographic groups in users, data from this platform is useful for estimating public views on an array of topics, such as politics, social issues, and COVID-19 vaccination rates”
I found it interesting to note that the vax rates (A.K.A. Compliancy rates) assist to determine the amount of climate deniers in areas…. Which I realized would be useful when that info (vax or no vax) was put in with other info on drivers licenses at least in Vermont….
Records of our compliancy or the lack there of is of great importance
in the formation of tyranny/ in politics
WTF is that doing in Nature?
It isn’t science.
This is just more of ‘how do we get some of these research dollars?’. Government funded research working towards a better tomorrow. Yikes.
Another comment section 100% hijacked by Richard “Brilliant science free” “BS” Greene the Humorless.
Please stop melting my irony meter, BS.
Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments… and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity. –from “1984”, George Orwell
Now I see that France can arrest you if your words do not agree with the officially sanctioned conclusions of your rulers.
https://brownstone.org/articles/frances-pfizer-amendment-could-turn-mrna-critics-into-criminals/
Orwell never meant to compose a “Despot User’s Manual”, but here we are!
It’s not “climate change” people refuse to accept. It is human caused “climate change” that people reject since there is no direct evidence that the change in climate is solely due to human activity. The amount of natural climate change is not delineated and is assumed to be zero with humans being the sole cause.