In celebration/commiseration of Earth Day on Friday, the article in the url below appeared in the daily
Bloomberg Green newsletter that I enjoy receiving (you can sign-up
here). This particular post argues that a big part of the problem with conveying the urgency around climate change is not the science behind it so much as the way in which the consensus findings are advertised:
"More than 5 billion mobile subscriptions and 3.6 billion social-media accounts globally are adding up to a massive disruption in human communities' evolutionary context. … Increasing the scale of human interactions by eight orders of magnitude in less than two decades makes even run-of-the-mill misinformation easier to disseminate, more influential, and—a crucial driver—more lucrative than ever."
In other words, simple, dramatic lies spread faster and easier over social media than the complicated, nuanced truth. What does this mean for the science community, in practice, and in particular in relation to the facts of climate change?
"This new global digital landscape is hostile to antiquated 20th-century science communication approaches, up to and including the upcoming United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports, which comprise multiple volumes, each hundreds or thousands of pages long. 'This is why some people have argued the IPCC should have been dissolved,' said Jennifer Jacquet, [an] associate professor of environmental studies at New York University. Physical science is central to the fight against climate change, but 'it's not really giving us new tools to make a social difference.'"
There is growing evidence that social media has significant negative side effects in terms of enabling communication globally, and this article correlates that harm with the inability of scientists to effectively communicate the implications of their work:
"Amid emergency heat, flooding, and famine, it's even more critical that people recognize and agree at least on the big picture. And yet, as recent history has shown us time and again, they don't. Much of that can be blamed on the pandemic of misinformation—concerning climate change, Covid-19, vaccines, and so much more— now running rampant on social media."
Specifically, while social media is supposed to connect us; in fact, it loosens the quality or strength of those ties:
"The development of digital communications has eroded or vaporized community protections developed over millennia to ensure at least a minimally healthy flow of information, which leads to healthy decision-making. … Think of it like this. If you wanted to make the most obvious statement in the world, you could do worse than: 'Technology now allows people to communicate instantaneously and across great distances.' Yet if you wanted to elicit the most tortured answer in the world, you might ask something incredibly similar: 'What happens when people can communicate instantaneously and across great distances?'"
As a result, some scientists have proposed "a new academic discipline" to describe this phenomenon:
"As physiology has medicine and climate science has emissions-mitigation and adaptation–planning, they argue, the digital-misinformation pandemic requires an applied science—or as they call it, a 'crisis discipline.'"
A specific label suggested for this new discipline is "agnotology, the study of the creation of ignorance," and it is "a useful and much-needed new lens for understanding the modern world:"
"It also has much more to explore. The authors focus on channels of communication—digital media—but the complexity and diversity of modern audiences and messengers also require study."
Take care
David
David Chandler
Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility: Sustainable Value Creation (5e)
© Sage Publications, 2020
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As Climate Change Fries the World, Social Media Is Frying Our Brains
By Eric Roston
June 29, 2021
Bloomberg Green Daily Newsletter
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-29/as-climate-change-fries-the-world-social-media-is-frying-our-brains
