Abstract
Most scientists agree that climate change is the largest existential threat of our time. Despite the magnitude of the threat, surprisingly few climate-related discussions take place on social media. What factors drive online discussions about climate change? In this study, we examined the occurrence of Reddit discussions around three types of climate-related events: natural disasters (e.g., hurricanes, wildfires), political events (i.e., 2016 United States Presidential election), and policy events (i.e., United States’ withdrawal from Paris Climate Agreement, release of IPCC report). The objective was to understand how different types of events influence collective action as measured by discussions of climate change. Six large US cities were selected based on the occurrence of at least one locally-relevant natural disaster since 2014. Posts (N = 4.4 million) from subreddits of the selected cities were collected to obtain a six-month period before and after local natural disasters as well as climate-related political and policy events (which applied equally to all cities). Climate change discussions increased significantly for all three types of events, with the highest discussion during the 2016 elections. Further, discussions returned to baseline levels within 2 months following natural disasters and policy events but continued at elevated rates for up to 4 months following the 2016 elections. The findings suggest that collective discussions on climate change are driven more by political leaders’ controversial positions than life-threatening local natural disasters themselves. Implications for collective action are discussed.
Highlights
People may lack a sense of urgency about climate change for several reasons – the topic is abstract, changes in climate are slow-moving and not disruptive to people’s daily lives (Gifford, 2011)
While studies have looked at climate change engagement following natural disasters, it has not been compared with engagement following other relevant events
During natural disasters and policy events, climate discussions accounted for 0.25% of total discussions, with a significant increase from baseline for natural disasters [χ2(1) = 6.69, p = 0.010, and h = 0.02] but not for policy events [χ2(1) = 2.58, p = 0.108, and h = 0.02]
Summary
People may lack a sense of urgency about climate change for several reasons – the topic is abstract, changes in climate are slow-moving and not disruptive to people’s daily lives (Gifford, 2011). There is some evidence that extreme weather events increase people’s engagement in climate change issues (Bergquist et al, 2019). Google searches for climate change increased in the months following tropical cyclones in affected regions (Lang and Ryder, 2016), and Twitter mentions increased after Hurricanes Irene and Sandy and Snowstorm Jonas (Roxburgh et al, 2019). It is Climate Denial Motivates Climate Action possible that the occurrence of these events makes climate change more concrete in the minds of people instead of an abstract phenomenon far into the future, leading to more engagement. Exposure to IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) reports has been linked to greater perceived threat from climate change and increased climate concern (Ogunbode et al, 2020)
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