The Dirty Strategies Behind Climate Misinformation

my story begins in

september 2018. my co-chair jake dubbins

and i have been running the conscious

advertising network for about six months

incredibly we were invited to launch it

at the un global compact or migration

in marrakech in december of that year

advertising had been recognized as one

of the

key funders of hate speech and one of us

was to go and explain to the conference

how this worked

obviously this was amazing and here’s my

co-chair sitting on a panel at the un

with some very distinguished people

he absolutely smashed it but was not

right in the run-up to the conference

it started when we went online and

searched for the global compact on

migration

as you can see the information we were

directed to was not from the un

or other knowledgeable institutions but

from the far right

rebel media stefan molyneux who

incidentally has now been banned from

multiple platforms

and it didn’t stop there our researchers

started finding information in multiple

languages

that suggested the global compact on

migration would in fact

make migration a human right spoiler it

already is

i mean jail terms for people that

criticize migration at all

which is just simply not true the

british press

even linked this to the eu it’s nothing

to do with them

in order to align it with the toxic

brexit debate on immigration

this had all the hallmarks of a

coordinated campaign

designed to create a negative public

reaction to the compact

and it worked countries started pulling

out austria bulgaria the czech republic

poland

and israel the belgian government

collapsed due to infighting

disinformation had derailed the compact

and the kicker in all of this this

disinformation

whether directly on news sites or

indirectly on social media platforms

was funded by advertising

now what does this have to do with

climate change i hear you ask

well in november of 2021 in glasgow

we will host cop26

the most influential climate change

conference of our modern times

and we think it might happen again in

june this year

the lord select committee on democracy

and digital technologies

reported that we face a pandemic of

misinformation

that poses an existential threat to our

way of life

commenting lord putnam chair of the

committee said we are living through a

time in which trust is collapsing

people no longer have faith that they

can rely on the information they receive

or believe what they are told

we used to think of climate

misinformation disinformation as

straight up denial from politicians

or corporate green washing from oil and

gas companies

back in the good old days coal was clean

flowers spewed forth from smoke stacks

in billboard ads

and fossil fuel companies lauded their

poultry investments in renewables from

the pages of newspapers

then came the internet and with it

brilliant things people held governments

to account on twitter

call out culture and expose the

hypocrisy like we saw above

but it also brought about data

extraction targeted advertising

and millions of sites with potential

advertising indus

inventory and that was game changing

the first thing you need to know about

our online spaces is that they are

geared towards serving you

advertisements it’s how the platforms

make money

it’s how new sites do from the writers

of blogs to to youtube stars they all

make money through advertising

and the more ads you watch the more

money they make

advertising funds the internet and it

has shaped it in its image

this changes how we have started to

receive information many of us get news

recommendations from our social media

feeds

from sources all over the world rather

than from just one of five newspapers

and the platforms behind those news

feeds are designed to keep us there

not designed to serve as fact checked

information

so how do they do that they service

information that keeps us scrolling

watching or clicking most of what we do

what we react to

what we’re interested in as you can

imagine this changes the incentives on

offer

instead of being served information with

integrity journalists and newspapers

have reputations to look out for

we’re being served stuff that makes us

react salacious content

is preferred to boring truths it keeps

us angry

engaged and online recommendation

algorithms learn what we like

and service more of it we stay online

and we watch more ads in the process

this has also created filter bubbles

communities online

that make us think everyone thinks the

same as us we get this positive

reinforcement for our ideas and opinions

and it radicalises us it polarizes us to

the point where we start to believe

things that might have seemed ridiculous

before

like satanic cabals of people running

the world

that repetition that confirmation it

changes our outlook and our minds

this week new zealand’s president called

out youtube as a key factor in

radicalizing the christchurch killer

where 51 people were killed in a racist

attack

on his gun was written your global

compact on migration

this disinformation doesn’t just derail

conferences

it costs lives and advertisers are

paying for this

hate speech and disinformation because

they fly so well through our online

spaces

now have a funding model through

advertising our favorite brands many of

whom have science-based

climate targets and some pretty strong

diversity commitments

are accidentally paying deniers and

hates preachers through their

advertising spend

to the tune of at least 235 million

dollars a year

including 25 million dollars on covert

19 disinformation

in 2020 alone according to the global

disinformation index

either through directly funding

disinformation via ads on a website

or indirectly through funding the

platforms that propagate these untruths

advertising is unfortunately paying

extremists

these factors are turbo type charging

climate disinformation

it’s no longer about corporate

billboards and politics

our research found that this information

has become far more sophisticated

entwined with things like conspiracy

theories and culture wars

why because those invested in the status

quo know that

conspiracy theories create frames which

are useful to climate deniers

don’t trust the cabal of scientists who

want to put chips in your brain

then why wouldn’t they lie to you on

climate how about the institutions or

the politicians that are supporting

cop26

if you don’t trust them then why

wouldn’t you suspect that they’re using

climate as an excuse to lock you down

and take away your freedoms we found

four types of dirty strategies in use

online

the big tobacco playbook which is as you

can guess based on tactics used by big

tobacco to deny or cast out on science

and scientists

its most famous face is corporate green

washing and delay

the messaging that tells us we shouldn’t

do anything until china acts or

technology will save us it gets nasty

when they

attack individual scientists in order to

discredit them

and as independent sage switches to

climate

they should be concerned the second was

conspiracy theories such as q and on

which has become entwined with anti-vaxx

narratives on which one of five of us

here in the uk believe some version of

these conspiracy theories layer and

build

setting frames which can be used again

and again

the third are culture wars where

political actors often pick groups

against each other

are you a migrant or a patriot a climate

alarm is scaring our children

or a concerned and rational parent these

divisive strategies are characterized by

dehumanizing a group

through name calling and reductive

arguments which ridicule them

they’re surprisingly effective

especially against snowflakes

like you and the fourth is often paired

with the above

individuals ais or group of people who

are self-organizing

acting as bots and trolls to skew

debates manufacture outrage

or amplify information on social

channels from the soap from the super

influences spreading 5g disinformation

to their followers

to paid people pretending to be hockey

moms to extinction rebellion east

midlands

these accounts create havoc and present

extreme points of view as mainstream

so what do we do with cop 26 the most

important climate change conference of

our time coming up

and climate deniers sharpening their

knives well if you’re an advertiser you

can get acquainted with the different

types of denial and delay messaging out

there

and make sure your advertising doesn’t

end up on it right now i can show you

big brands

advertising on content that says global

warming is a hoax and co2 is harmless

that needs to stop make good sight lists

ask your partners about their climate

policies get involved

now if you like i have friends who

believe conspiracies the advice is

different

talk to them establish some kind of

shared understanding and help them

question

why would this group do that are you

sure there’s not a simpler explanation

there are some great online resources

there to help you and if you’re a

climate activist who thinks it’s wrong

to engage with the opposition

then i say no get stuck in but read up

on troll traps and logical fallacies

before you do

your audience aren’t the trolls and

infuriating deniers you’re rebutting

they’re the people reading listening

learning and questioning

go on forums be nice engage and

diversify who you talk to

we won’t solve climate change by just

talking to each other

the time to act is now it’s a cold

december in 2020 as i record this and in

under a year

world leaders will gather for cop 26.

we’ve seen these agreements get derailed

by disinformation before

we owe it to ourselves and our future

selves

to get this right thank you