Alarmists Urge Social Media to ‘Flag Accounts’ of Climate Skeptics

The boot of censorship
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Thomas D. Williams, Ph.D.

Climate change alarmists are urging Big Tech to censor accounts of those who question the real danger that global warming poses to humanity.

Social media companies such as X, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok “should flag accounts that spread falsehoods about climate change and collaborate on targeted educational campaigns,” states a study published last week in Scientific Reports.

Without ever defining the term, the article states that climate change “denialism” persists in the United States, with estimates ranging from 12 to 26 percent of the U.S. population. The researchers separated the population into the binary categories of “believers” and “deniers,” with no possibility of more nuanced positions.

“Reasons for this denialism are multifaceted: Political affiliation and ideology, income, education, and exposure to extreme weather events are all important factors,” the article states, adding that denialism “is more prevalent where local economies are highly dependent on fossil fuels, in rural communities, and in populations where mistrust in science is pronounced.”

The article, authored by Dimitrios Gounaridis and Joshua P. Newell of the University of Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability, likens climate change skeptics to those who questioned the reigning theories on the coronavirus pandemic and encouraged broader debate on social media.

“The strong correlation between denialism and low COVID-19 vaccination rates indicated a broad skepticism of science generally amongst climate change deniers,” the piece proposes, “which corresponds to resistance to science-based public policies such as shelter-in-place COVID-19 mandates or mask usage.”

Levels of climate change denial vary with political affiliation, race, income, education level, COVID-19 vaccination rates (proxy for belief in science in general), degree of carbon-intensity of the regional economy, degree of urbanization (county-level), and local weather patterns, the authors assert.

“At both the county and state levels, populations with a high percentage of Republican voters had the strongest correlation with climate change deniers,” the piece declares.

Among the most influential of climate change deniers are “conservative media outlets that regularly broadcast contrarian views on climate change, including alt-right news and blogs such as The Daily Wire, Daily Caller, Breitbart and thebradfordfile,” the authors contend.

Combating “misinformation” requires effective refutation strategies, the writers argue, which includes the strategy of labeling denialism tweets as misinformation.

A preferable option is to “flag accounts that disseminate misinformation or dangerous information,” the authors suggest, just as Twitter “banned accounts for spreading COVID-19 misinformation.”

“As with COVID-19, climate change is a humanitarian crisis that will affect millions, albeit at a more elongated temporal scale,” they warn.

“Based on current policy, X (formerly Twitter) does not appear to be imposing account bans or suspensions for promoting climate change denialism,” the article laments. “This, and related policy changes associated with new ownership of the social media platform, may make it even more susceptible to the spread of misinformation.”

Curiously, the authors of the piece fail to acknowledge the growing opposition to climate change alarmism within the scientific community within the scientific community itself.

Last August, for example, a group of more than 1,600 eminent scientists, including two Nobel Prize winners, issued the “World Climate Declaration,” in which they stated outright: “There is no climate emergency.”

“Climate science has degenerated into a discussion based on beliefs, not on sound self-critical science,” the scholars asserted, enumerating a number of reasons for their criticisms.

Among other things, the Declaration states that climate models have proven inadequate for predicting global warming, that carbon dioxide (CO2) is not a pollutant, and that climate change has not increased natural disasters.

“The geological archive reveals that Earth’s climate has varied as long as the planet has existed, with natural cold and warm phases,” the Declaration notes. “The Little Ice Age ended as recently as 1850. Therefore, it is no surprise that we now are experiencing a period of warming.”

Moreover, the world has warmed “significantly less than predicted by IPCC on the basis of modeled anthropogenic forcing,” the text states, and the gap between the real world and the modeled world “tells us that we are far from understanding climate change.”

“There is no statistical evidence that global warming is intensifying hurricanes, floods, droughts and suchlike natural disasters, or making them more frequent,” it argues, whereas there is ample evidence “that CO2-mitigation measures are as damaging as they are costly.”

Since there is no climate emergency, there is “no cause for panic and alarm,” the document contends. “We strongly oppose the harmful and unrealistic net-zero CO2 policy proposed for 2050.”

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