"Global Hating: How online abuse of climate scientists harms climate action", 04 April 2023

Introduction

Imagine that you’ve spent years studying glacial retreat in the Arctic. You believe you have a duty to share your findings that reveal how our world is changing with a wider public. But you remember having trouble sleeping after getting hateful messages on Twitter the last time you published your work there, and the death threat your colleague received after talking about her work online. Do you hold off from posting? 

For decades, scientists have been documenting changes in the earth’s climate and warning of the effects. Their findings underpin government declarations of climate emergency and policy responses.  But our new investigation reveals that online harassment and abuse against climate scientists imperils their work and ways of communicating. 

In a survey of 468 scientists around the world working on climate topics, we found online abuse is common, and for many takes a mental and physical toll that inhibits climate discourse. Yet there are ways to stem it. Most abuse took place on Twitter and Facebook, platforms that can instead make reforms to protect scientists and enable informed publics and responsive climate action.

What we found

Half of climate scientists surveyed with more than 10 publications have faced online abuse

The survey found that level of exposure to harassment was linked to amount of academic publications and frequency of media appearances.

Women more targeted on appearance and threatened with violence

Most recipients of abuse have had their credibility (81%) or work (91%) attacked, but for those scientists who identified as female, personal characteristics were also common targets. Their sex or gender was targeted a great deal or a fair amount for 34% of affected women and only 3% of affected men. Similarly, women were three times as likely as men to receive a great deal or a fair amount of harassment on the basis of their age (17% to 5%), and received more threats of sexual violence (13% of affected women) and physical attacks than men. Almost a fifth (19%) of women and 16% of men who had faced harassment had received threats of physical violence. 

Harms to scientists hurt us all

These trends present concerns for the global ability to act on climate change. If scientists are unable to do their work because of stress and fear caused by harassment, the critical evidence that undergirds climate action and solutions is put at risk. 

Similarly troubling is the possible chilling effect online abuse has on scientists’ participation in public discourse. 41% of affected scientists polled said their experience had made them less likely to post on social media about climate issues. However, 23% of affected scientists reported that their experience had made them more likely to do so, which suggests many scientists are determined to communicate climate topics on social media in spite of the risk they may receive harmful content.  

It shouldn’t be like this: all climate scientists should feel able to share their work online, not just those prepared to deal with ensuing abuse.

Reforms and recommendations

We’ve been here before – but tech companies have the power to change the record

Harassment of climate scientists and experts is not new. It has included email intimidation campaigns and abuse of Freedom of Information requests to impede the work of noted climatologists. A 2018 article suggested sexist attacks against climate scientists were on the rise. Recent studies into the experiences of Covid scientists found similar results connecting media exposure to harassment or abuse including death threats.  

Although the responses to our survey showed attacks also took place in channels such as emails, blogs and comment sections, the most commonly reported venues were social media platforms. For the scientists surveyed who said they had experienced abuse, Twitter (44%) was the most cited platform on which abuse had taken place, followed by Facebook (31%). And the Pew Research Centre found in 2021 that, “while these kinds of negative encounters may occur anywhere online, social media is by far the most common venue cited for harassment.” These companies also have the power to tackle the spread of harassment on their apps. 

The way forward for technology and climate

These companies must cease the surveillance of people’s activity and amplification of harmful content. The climate and digital rights movements share common cause in this goal, and need to work together to achieve it. At stake are the democratic processes, from electoral integrity to civic discourse, that are essential to enabling climate action and the protection of human rights worldwide.