Internet Blogs, Polar Bears, and Climate-Change Denial by Proxy

Abstract

Increasing surface temperatures, Arctic sea-ice loss, and other evidence of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) are acknowledged by every major scientific organization in the world. However, there is a wide gap between this broad scientific consensus and public opinion. Internet blogs have strongly contributed to this consensus gap by fomenting misunderstandings of AGW causes and consequences. Polar bears (Ursus maritimus) have become a “poster species” for AGW, making them a target of those denying AGW evidence. Here, focusing on Arctic sea ice and polar bears, we show that blogs that deny or downplay AGW disregard the overwhelming scientific evidence of Arctic sea-ice loss and polar bear vulnerability. By denying the impacts of AGW on polar bears, bloggers aim to cast doubt on other established ecological consequences of AGW, aggravating the consensus gap. To counter misinformation and reduce this gap, scientists should directly engage the public in the media and blogosphere.

Online misinformation about climate change

“…It is also the means of establishing a controversy.” Begley (2007) refer to the “paralyzing fog of doubt around climate change”. This doubt takes three main thrusts: doubt about the reality of climate change, doubt about the urgency, and doubt about the credentials of climate scientists (Boussalis & Coan, 2018; Dunlap & McCright, 2011; Harvey et al, 2018; Moser, 2010).…”

“…A summary of the potential ways to counteract misinformation found in the literature, along with their criticisms and caveats [1: Cook et al, 2018; 2: Zucker, 2019; 3: Roozenbeek & van der Linden, 2019; 4: Epstein et al, 2019; 5: Lutzke et al, 2019; 6: Sullivan et al, 2014; 7: Hess & Collins, 2018; 8: Bedford, 2010; 9: Bedford et al, 2014; 10: Bedford & Cook, 2013; 11: Legates et al, 2013; 12: Legates et al, 2015; 13: McNeal et al, 2014; 14: Cook et al, 2017; 15: Cook et al, 2015; 16: van der Linden et al, 2017; 17: Shao, Ciampaglia, et al, 2018; 18: Safieddine et al, 2016; 19: Pennycook & Rand, 2019; 20: Fernandez & Alani, 2018; 21: Vicario et al, 2016; 22: Leetaru, 2018; 23: Pew Research Center, 2017; 24: Mavrovic, 2018; 25: Henley, 2018; 26: European Commission, 2018; 27: Lawrence & Estow, 2017; 28: Kahan, 2017; 29: Benegal & Scruggs, 2018; 30: Harvey et al, 2018; 31: Nyhan & Reifler, 2010; 32: Garrett & Weeks, 2013; 33: Anderson et al, 1980; 34: Thorson, 2016; 35: Funke, 2019; 36: ALA, 2019; 37: Tompros et al, 2017]…”

Social weather: A review of crowdsourcing‐assisted meteorological knowledge services through social cyberspace

“…identified that such professional news and weather agencies played a dominant role as information sources and information diffusers to the public (Kim et al , ). However, blog owners that deny or downplay global warming attempted to disregard the overwhelming scientific evidence, such as Arctic sea‐ice loss and polar bear vulnerability, to cast doubt on other established ecological consequences of global warming, thereby aggravating the consensus gap (Harvey et al , ). A case study on the question–answer community Quora also suggests that emphasis on specific subjects but not popular knowledge of climate change could draw more public attention on the issue of climate change (Jiang et al , ).…”

The Circulation of Climate Change Denial Online: Rhetorical and Networking Strategies on Facebook

“…This blog post has several links back to polarbearscience.com, including a link to a page with Crockford's publications, in an attempt to represent her as a neutral scientist and her attackers as biased. The post is a response to a Bioscience article on blogs and climate change denial (Harvey et al, 2018), and while the Bioscience article is discussed and debated, it is not linked to, nor is a complete citation provided.…”