What does Twitter say?

Here are some tweets to get you thinking about what different people think of climate change and how it is communicated on social media.

Leonardo DiCaprio

Actor Leonardo DiCaprio is perhaps one of the most famous celebrities to act against climate change. He is a United Nations Messenger of Peace, which means he has shared his opinions at important meetings which are attended by people from hundreds of countries. He has also set up the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, a charity which supports projects that protect wildlife and the planet. He has been involved with the film ‘Before the Flood’ in which he travelled five continents to witness climate change through his own eyes.

Before the Flood documentary trailer (PG)

He also features in Lil Dicky’s recent music video ‘Earth’, the profits of which are shared between various environmental organisations.

Screen shot of Lil Dicky’s ‘Earth’ music video which features DiCaprio!

In his tweet Leo is saying that we must act quickly, however he remains positive that action can be taken to solve or reduce the problem if people actually start acting.

Barack Obama

Here, ex-president of the US Barack Obama, focuses on young people and climate change. He frequently references future generations and the school strikes, and he was the president who signed the Paris Agreement. This agreement was signed by nearly 200 countries who promised to act to reduce climate change.

Donald Trump

Although it is important to understand the opinions of others, I cannot understand the logic of Donald Trump. In order to try and get more people to like him, he is repeatedly saying that we don’t need to act against climate change and instead states that the money should be spent on other things. These ‘other things’ may improve people’s lives in the short term (such as giving more money to school) but he is ignoring the effects of climate change, which will effect people most severely in the future (once he is no longer president!).

Here, he states that the Paris Agreement, which Obama agreed to, shouldn’t be spending large amounts of money that people want spent elsewhere. The problem is (in my opinion), by calling climate change a ‘hoax’ and ‘fake news’ he is being ignorant and short-sighted.

Here, in another tweet, Trump is claiming that cold weather disproves global warming.

But I’m not the only one to see flaws in this argument, and Twitter allows for conversations and debates to occur publicly…

Jeremy Clarkson

Here, Jeremy Clarkson (former Top Gear presenter) is saying that he prefers warmer, drier weather and therefore climate change is a good thing. This is another example of short-sightedness and a lack of understanding about the consequences of climate change. Climate change will warm the planet as a whole, but may actually cool the UK (due to the complicated weather patterns surrounding us). He is also ignoring other effects, such as rising sea-levels, more refugees etc. which are certainly not so positive!

Other tweets to get you thinking

What Can Twitter Tell Us About Climate Change Discussions?

Although Twitter may seem harmless or even useless, it can in fact be an interesting method of collecting data for social scientists (people who study other people and society). For example, in relation to climate change tweets, gender differences have been discovered. Apparently more women believe that humans contribute to climate change, whilst more men think its completely natural.

Another investigation revealed that certain key people and organisations dominate the Twitter debate on climate change more than others. In this 2016 report the climate change tweeters with the most connections and largest reaches were:

1^st Donald Trump (at the time was running for American President)
2^nd Narendra Modi (current India Prime Minister)
3^rd United Nations (almost all countries in the world belong to this organisation which aims to maintain international peace)
4^th Barack Obama (at the time he was American President)
5^th Hillary Clinton (at the time was running for American president)
6^th Leonardo di Caprio (famous actor and climate change activist)

Sadly the top climate scientist (Michael E Mann) is only in 33^rd position, eventhough he is probably the most knowledgeable!

It is also interesting to note that three of these key figures were main participants in the battle to become US president, which was occurring at the time this report was being written.

An interesting visual map of this project can be found on this website: https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-the-climate-change-conversation-on-twitter-in-2016

References (where I got the info from)

Mapped: The climate change conversation on Twitter in 2016