Climate change is a worrying threat, but the social media companies are treating misinformation that surrounds it with far less urgency than other issues like political conspiracy theories, hate speech and lies about Covid-19.
Climate misinformation and skeptical views is increasing quite substantially, especially on Facebook. Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow showed that it urges governments to seriously consider the role of climate misinformation on social media in derailing the battle to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Indeed, despite government efforts, the problem of fake news on climate change has yet to be solved.
In a report published by the Royal Swedish Academy of Science, experts argue how measures needed to create a healthier, more resilient planet will be hard to enforce if they continue to be subjected to targeted attacks on social media.
A new report released in 2022 Q1 by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) investigates causes, impacts and solutions to climate change.
The study points out how a warmer world is affecting all species on Earth. The report shows that things are way worse than we thought: melting of the Greenland ice, the destruction of coral reefs, climate-related impacts are hitting the world much more quickly than previously assessed by the IPCC.
Right now, as the new report makes clear, around 40% of the world’s population is “highly vulnerable” to the impacts of climate change. But the burden is falling mainly on those who did the least to cause global warming. Despite the evidence provided by science, misinformation about climate change continues to spread on social media.
Global warming is an issue of concern not only to the younger generation and governments but also to artists. Nature has been a source of inspiration for artists since ever, as art styles like Impressionism or Naturalism show. Today, art is merged with digital, artificial intelligence, data and algorithms, but the artists’ sensitivity towards nature is still the same.
One of the projects participating in Media Futures’s first Open Call was Critical Climate Machine, a project that quantifies the mechanisms of misinformation on climate change. The project consists of a walk-in room with a data sculpture and a sound installation.
Using Artificial Intelligence, the sculpture represents myths about climate change. Its software monitors and debunks false arguments coming from social media. When the sculpture is active it overheats, warming up the space around it. Hence the temperature rise becomes a measure of the amount of online disinformation at any given time. Between digital and physical formats, the project brings into play the meaning and evolution of online misinformation.
The installation includes the production of a database in real-time. It is based on the frequent collection of tweets from 44 Twitter accounts linked to conservative think tanks and denier blogs.
The installation was designed by Gaëtan Robillard, a visual artist and researcher. Since 2007, Robillard has been developing digital installations in which algorithms, cognitive sciences and climatology are merged.
By Paola Meola
