Climate denialism a big problem in the US. Research finds difference in views among Democrat and Republican voters
Climate denialism has turned into a concerning problem in the US as nearly 15% of Americans don’t believe climate change is real, according to a recent study out of the University of Michigan. The research highlights a highly polarised attitude toward global heating.
Using AI, researchers analysed more than 7.4 million tweets posted by roughly 1.3 million people on X between 2017 and 2019. The posts were geocoded and classified as “for” or “against” the climate emergency using a large language model – developed by OpenAI.
Joshua Newell, co-author of the study and professor of environment and sustainability at the University of Michigan, said more than half of the tweets they studied “simply denied that climate change was real, that it was a hoax,” reported the Guardian.
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Trump emerging as one of the most influential figures
Climate denialism has been found to be the highest in the central and southern US, the study noted, highlighting that Republican voters were found to be less likely to believe in climate science. Former President Donald Trump emerged as one of the most influential figures.
His social media posts around a cold snap in Texas in December 2017, in addition to his missives denying the 2018 IPCC report released at the annual COP24 climate conference, were some of his most engaged uploads among climate change deniers.
Acceptance and belief in global heating is most prevalent along the west and east coasts, correlating with those regions’ high rates of Democratic voters. Still, clusters of climate denialism exist within blue states, like in the case of California’s Shasta county.
Skepticism remains regarding the ethics of using AI
Michael Mann, climatologist and geophysicist at the University of Pennsylvania, said: “It comports with my understanding that there is a small but very vocal and active minority of the public that still denies the overwhelming evidence of human-caused warming.”
The expert was recently awarded $1 million in a defamation lawsuit against conservative writers who called his climate change research “fraudulent”, comparing it to the work of a convicted child molester, according to the Guardian report published on February 14.
AI helped researchers classify millions of posts, saving time and expenses. But skepticism still remains regarding the ethics of using AI as the evolving technology has a history of bias, especially in facial recognition, highlighting the need for human intervention.
