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