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Who is talking about climate change on social media?

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Every day, journalists across the globe publish new stories on climate change that spark meaningful conversations. We live in a new social web ecosystem. This means that thousands of users view, share, and engage with content every minute. With billions invested in climate change research, there is no shortage of new information. Synthesio analyzed the way that this information is shared on the internet and how it affects the path of discourse online. In our in-depth climate change report, Synthesio's game-changing social media monitoring software detected significant insights into global warming discussions.

Who is talking about climate change?

A great way to understand audiences who are concerned about climate change is through social media monitoring. The chart below shows that young people between the ages of 18 and 35 lead the online conversation.

This trend is partially due to the wide-scale usage of these age groups of social media, but also because this generation feels a great deal of environmental responsibility.

Before today's internet savvy generation, the repercussions of climate change were widely unknown and not discussed publically. Thanks to dedicated individuals sharing their opinions about the environment online, news media has increased coverage of global warming. These outlets serve to further disseminate the information to others.

What are they talking about?

We used Synthesio's sophisticated social media monitoring software to query for top hashtags in the past year related to climate change. Our dashboard showed us that #ClimateCrisis, #Drought, #ClimateAction, #ClimateEmergency, and #RenewableEnergy were some of the most popular.

Tracking hashtag usage is an effective way of seeing trending conversations on social networks. These key phrases indicate people's worry about all angles of global warming. The use of specific words like "crisis" and "emergency" convey the urgency of the quickly worsening reality. "Drought" and "action" suggest that people are actively turning to social media to organize events with tangible effects.

But people still don't believe it's real, right?

In spite of extensive scientific recording, there is a small but present population of people who don't believe that climate change is real. According to a 2016 Ipsos of 17,179 adults across 23 countries, the highest percent of people who say that "human activity does not cause global warming," came from the U.S. However, the 22% reported by Ipsos may not be entirely accurate today, as evidenced by the shifting timeline below.

Who is buying into this whole "hoax" thing?

As it turns out when we queried for the keywords "hoax," "conspiracy," and "myth, a particular demographic emerged. The majority are middle-aged, between 45 and 55 years old. Additionally, 76% of online users posting in conjunction with these queried words are male.

In the age of misinformation, it is more important than ever that people get news from reliable, accredited sources rather than just listening to online noise.

If you're looking for more information fueled by the world's most advanced social listening platform, download the full Climate Change Report .

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Social Media Monitoring Software Uncovers Buzz Around Climate Change Causes

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Every day, journalists across the globe publish new stories on climate change that spark meaningful conversations. We live in a new social web ecosystem. This means that thousands of users view, share, and engage with content every minute. With billions invested in climate change research, there is no shortage of new information.

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How social media is driving the climate change conversation

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How social media is driving the climate change conversation

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NEWSWHIP | Sep 26, 2019

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Just ahead of the UN's Climate Action Summit, photos from climate strikes around the world emerged on all platforms, demanding action on the impending climate crisis. We wanted to take a look at how the conversation has shifted in the past few years, and how the conversation is taking place on different platforms.
Last Friday, millions around the world joined together to voice concerns about impending irreversible climate change. Outraged over lack of action on the part of governments to help solve the problem of global climate change, people of all ages took to the streets, demanding a commitment to a solution. Many have credited the young Greta Thunberg, only 16 years old, with launching this movement globally, setting an example for others who believe the actions of one individual can have an impact.

First up, engagements to climate change content generally have fluctuated greatly in the past couple years, though it has been a public conversation generating millions of engagements per year as far back as 2014. As detailed in the chart below, we seem to be in the pinnacle of coverage and content for climate change. It is only September and there have already been over 132 million engagements to articles focused on climate change this year, blowing previous entire years' totals out of the water.

2019 has had more articles (270k) written about climate change and climate-related initiatives than any previous year. With coverage about climate change comes a lot of conversation on all social platforms, but first we wanted to see which stories are rising above the rest in terms of engagement.
Top 10 articles on climate change by engagement
The most engaged article about climate change this year was CNN's coverage of the fires consuming Brazil's Amazon rainforest. It garnered 1.3 million engagements across the web and social and was shared over 265k times on Facebook.

The second most engaged article was from publisher Naturalnews.com (which has actually failed several 3rd-party fact checkers' criteria for credibility) claiming that NASA admitted global warming occurs because of Earth's orbit, not fossil fuels. What's particularly distressing is how quickly the story spread through various networks, racking up almost as many engagements as coverage of the Amazon burning.

For content focused on the climate strikes around the world specifically, the top ten articles were as follows:

Top 10 articles on climate strikes by engagement

Greta Thunberg is key figure featured in nearly every article covering the strike last Friday. The most engaged article showed how far she's come in inspiring change around the world, and most sites featured photos of the strikes happening in over 156 countries .

The strikes are getting global coverage, but engagement is lower than stories just focused on climate change. The strikes were more engaged on social platforms, with Facebook and Twitter really driving the conversation in real-time as strikes around the world progressed.

Reactions to these stories were varied, and while most of the top them had a higher proportion of Loves than Angries, climate strikes and coverage thereof have increasingly divided audiences in Facebook's comment sections.

Top Posts for Climate Strikes on Facebook

While the top ten most engaged Facebook posts seemed to feature positive coverage of the strikes, comments devolved into chaos, ranging from support for the resolve of today's youth to shaming them for not being in school.

Critics and climate change deniers are particularly hard on Greta Thunberg, attacking her personally on Twitter and arguing in threads on whichever platform they can get a response.

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How social media is driving the climate change conversation - Newswhip

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Just ahead of the UN's Climate Action Summit, photos from climate strikes around the world emerged on all platforms, demanding action on the impending climate crisis. We wanted to take a look at how the conversation has shifted in the past few years, and how the conversation is taking place on different platforms. Last Friday, millions around the world joined together to voice concerns about impending irreversible climate change.

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Justin Lewis |  September 28, 2018

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Here’s How to Use Social Media to Combat Climate Change | Gia Chinchilla | TEDxPlaceMuseuxSalon

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Here’s How to Use Social Media to Combat Climate Change | Gia Chinchilla | TEDxPlaceMuseuxSalon

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TED x Talks | Aug 18, 2020

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Here’s How to Use Social Media to Combat Climate Change  | Gia Chinchilla | TEDxPlaceMuseuxSalon

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IS SOCIAL MEDIA FUELLING THE SPREAD OF CLIMATE CHANGE MISINFORMATION?

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IS SOCIAL MEDIA FUELLING THE SPREAD OF CLIMATE CHANGE MISINFORMATION?

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EURONEWS | 02/11/2020

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Social Solutions for Climate ChangeHow to Inspire Action Through Social Media

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Social Solutions for Climate ChangeHow to Inspire Action Through Social Media

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Sherry Nouraini | December 7, 2016

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Is Social Media Causing Climate Change? | Kyle "KC" Legacion | TEDxMahtomedi

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Is Social Media Causing Climate Change? | Kyle "KC" Legacion | TEDxMahtomedi

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TED x Talks | Nov 27, 2019

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Is Social Media Causing Climate Change?  | Kyle "KC" Legacion | TEDxMahtomedi

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Social media seems to be everywhere these days with over a billion people on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat and other social media platforms. In fact, it's hard to overstate the power of social media in our society.

For the issue of climate change to be front and center in the lives of everyday Americans and people around the world, we can leverage the benefits of social media in connecting like-minded people and creating a larger awareness of the climate change crisis. Anyone even mildly interested in social media can learn how to better use it as a tool to spread the word about climate change. Here are some ways social media can increase awareness of climate change and maybe even spur people to become involved in climate change activism at some level:

Change how people view climate change by posting images, facts, statistics and hyperlinks to relevant articles and by featuring in your posts people who are taking positive steps to address it.

Create engagement with friends/followers and shares/likes - people want to be engaged and feel connected. That's why social media is so popular.

Build a support network around this issue - create a web of people to spread the word to their friends and followers and follow this issue that they care about, thus building bigger networks of change-makers.

Extend the reach of your posts to people beyond your usual circle by including relevant hashtags and tags.

Possibility of post going viral - viral posts have upwards of thousands or even millions of views, shares, and likes. With that kind of visibility and exposure, more people will start to contemplate your climate change message who might not otherwise even be aware of climate change.

Important features to make your post more effective

Humans are visual beings and are more likely to pay attention to posts with images or videos (also see memes, below).

Hyperlinks to webpages are important to include if referencing a recent study, blog post or news story, for example.

A hashtag is an easy way for people to categorize, find and join conversations on a particular topic. Hashtags can give your post more visibility, especially if you use hashtags that are popular or are "trending". A hashtag by definition starts with the # sign and must contain no spaces. They can be made up on the fly. Established hashtags related to climate change activism include the following:

#ActOnClimate #DivestNow #BanFracking #PlantBased

By using a tag, you can also increase a post's visibility. "Tagging" individuals or organizations is done by using their social media "handle" (essentially their username for the social media platform) in your post preceded by the @ sign. It works a little differently on different social media platforms. To tag SanDiego350 or the local organization Climate Action Campaign or SANDAG on Twitter, include @SanDiego350 or @sdclimateaction or @SANDAG respectively in your post.

You can usually get an organization's Twitter handle by going to their website and clicking on their Twitter link from there. Tag your friends, elected officials or media outlets to get their attention for your post (they'll see the post in their feed and get a notification).

Facts, quotes, and statistics/numbers can be included in social media posts by using a meme. A meme is an activity, concept, catchphrase or piece of media which spreads, often as mimicry, from person to person via the Internet. Memes are hugely popular and sometimes spread like wildfire on social media. You may remember the Ice Bucket Challenge video meme from 2014. However many memes are simply images with a quote superimposed on them.

Memes can be created quite easily using online editor apps such as Canva, Picmonkey and Pixlr. To create a meme even more quickly while on the go, you can download the Wordswag or Typorama applications on your phone. Many times these online editors and apps provide free backgrounds and pictures on which to place your quote/words. You can also use your pictures from your camera or find free domain pictures from websites such as Picjumbo, Pixabay, Freefoto and Wikipedia Commons.

A trending topic is a popular hashtag (i.e. keyword or phrase) that people are using to search the social media engine. Conversely, if enough people are searching for the same thing, then the hashtag becomes "trending." Trending topics are the hot topics in society that are in the forefront of social media search engines, generating buzz such as #EarthToParis and #ClimateRedLine from December's international conference on climate change in Paris. Climate change is a hot topic (no pun intended:)) and for raising awareness, wouldn't it be great if we could have it "trending"!

Social Media In Use

Climate activist Fenton Lutunatabua from Fiji uses social media to great effect. In 2014, in Newcastle, Australia, he tweeted, Instagrammed, Flickr'ed, and blogged the protest by Pacific Climate Warriors who were in wooden canoes, blocking a giant freighter that was trying to leave the biggest coal port in the world. With his real-time posts, Fenton got the unfiltered voices of the Pacific Climate Warriors rocketed to the internet and grabbed headlines around the world. See Fighting climate change with Snapchat? Meet the Pacific Islander trying it out. Snapchat enables you to easily post mini videos of yourself talking or of a scene unfolding. Lutunatabua has also documented fierce storm weather related to climate change as well as the threat of rising sea levels on Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, and Twitter. Lutunatabua has created quite a following in raising the awareness for climate change, on his personal social media pages and for 350 Pacific.

Social Media in Your Hands

Being active on social media need take only a few minutes any time you have the opportunity. Even if you are just sharing what SanDiego350 is posting on your social media news feed, that's very helpful. If everyone in SD350 who's on social media were to post, share and like each other's climate change posts, then our numbers and influence would grow, impacting our overall social media presence for climate change. It is particularly powerful to create original posts and/or memes about the events you take part in. For example, posting photos of yourself during a climate change action event or livestreaming an event on facebook are great ways to publicize climate change activism.

You might even have a post go "viral" which is when upwards of thousands or millions of people like or share the same post! A post may go viral if other people find it interesting, funny, entertaining or unique in some way. Usually it is a meme, picture, or video that goes viral along with interesting stories/blog posts. It's impossible of course to determine in advance which posts will go viral (or else every post would be viral!). A viral post would also be sometimes be found under "trending" topics.

In short, there are many ways to grow the climate change movement by taking advantage of social media. If you haven't already, start by liking/following some of SanDiego350's social media sites - listed below. Also try actively engaging through likes, shares and comments. By increasing our numbers and presence on the Internet, we can effect real change, bringing the climate change movement to the forefront of people's lives. Finally, viral posts and trending posts are considered the "jackpots" of the social media sphere. Let's aim to hit them!

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SanDiego350
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SanDiego350
Instagram: http://instagram.com/sandiego350/
Google+: http://bit.ly/gplusSD350
Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/136603939@N08/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/SanDiego350dotorg

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Social Media and Climate Change Activism - SanDiego350

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Social media seems to be everywhere these days with over a billion people on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat and other social media platforms. In fact, it's hard to overstate the power of social media in our society.

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Environmental Impact Through Social Media and FOMO | Carlos Zuluaga | TEDxYoungCirclePark

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Environmental Impact Through Social Media and FOMO | Carlos Zuluaga | TEDxYoungCirclePark

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Dec 18, 2019 | TEDx Talks

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#Trashtag: Environmental Impact Through Social Media and FOMO | Carlos Zuluaga | TEDxYoungCirclePark

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Cities Today - Connecting the world's urban leaders

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How social media influencers are helping push the climate change agenda
Andrea Learned, a climate action-focused writer and strategic communications consultant helping business and nonprofit influencers develop authentic, high impact, leadership platforms*
The momentum for climate action has recently shifted to a more local level. That's why the team at Onalytica and I chose to zero in on the power and potential of Twitter influencer engagement around the #Cities4Climate tag. It is no surprise that C40Cities has lead the charge and built upon the broader conversation. And, just past the reality check of November's US election, that organistion's December 2016 conference generated a flurry of Twitter activity.

Now that it seems likely the US government will not follow through on their piece of the Paris Agreement, many of our cities' mayors, chief sustainability officers and chief resilience officers are heeding the call. Both in the US and globally I'd argue, Twitter has the potential to be seen as a key tool. As we witnessed during COP21, tweets from key individuals (@Cfigueres, @PaulPolman) and key brands (@UNFCCC, @CDP ) raised a digital roar that influenced real-life connections and sparked conversations for the greater good.
Mapping the community
The potential for the #Cities4Climate hashtag to have a similar congregating, supporting and amplifying effect could be exponential. Let's take a look at who is already involved and where the opportunities lie.

In order to identify the social influencers and brands we started by extracting over 25,000 tweets tweets from 1 November to 1 December 2016 mentioning the key words: #Cities4Climate and #C40Cities. We then added these tweets and accounts into our database, categorised and curated a top 100 list of influencers and brands ranked on a combination of the four r's (resonance, relevance, reach and reference). These accounts were then added into Onalytica's Influencer Relationship Management software ( IRM).

This network map shows the number one influencer Anne Hidalgo, the Mayor of Paris at the centre, and all the #Cities4Climate and #C40Cities conversations to the influencers in her field. It's interesting to note the thicker line between Anne Hidalgo and C40Cities showing a stronger relationship and more communication between these two accounts:

A network map created with IRM shows the number one brand, C40Cities, at the centre:
Building momentum
Cities Today is a top ten brand influencer

Great information and new city influencers are not only for climate action during conferences like @C40cities or @compactofmayors events. Big events help #climate4cities influencers discover one another and 'start' conversations, but then the energy seems to be lost. Climate action can no longer allow for that fade in interest.

The influential organisations in the climate action space are fairly obvious, and so easy to find and follow (which is a great thing). However, the power from here may be in the individual authentic engagement of key #cities4climate leaders. People like Matt Petersen, the Chief Sustainability Officer of Los Angeles, Stephanie Stuckey , the Chief Resilience Officer of Atlanta and Daniel Zarrilli, New York City's Chief Resilience Officer are already leveraging their influence for positive, climate impact.
Top 10 brands: * This is an edited version of the article that originally appeared on 's website. To read the full article and report, see: http://www.onalytica.com/blog/posts/cities4climate-power-influencer-engagement/. Further details on the author can be viewed at learnedon.com
The more a thriving Twitter ecosystem of organisations and individuals exists to 'love up' and support one another's progress in this cause, the better. Now more than ever-and again with perhaps a bit of extra emphasis on the US-amplifying the entire conversation reflects the strength of the climate action cause. Building solidarity between real-time climate action events or marches will help keep us energised.

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How social media influencers are helping push the climate change agenda - Cities Today - Connecting the world's urban leaders

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How social media influencers are helping push the climate change agenda By Andrea Learned, a climate action-focused writer and strategic communications consultant helping business and nonprofit influencers develop authentic, high impact, leadership platforms* The momentum for climate action has recently shifted to a more local level.

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How to protect the environment with digital technology | Climate change prevention

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How to protect the environment with digital technology | Climate change prevention

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Dec 24, 2019 | DW Shift

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How to protect the environment with digital technology | Climate change prevention

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No One Cares About Climate Change

Considering the level of impact that climate change is already having on humanity and how it will affect the future of life on earth, versus, say, the impact that "Games of Thrones" will have, there's a shocking disconnect in the amount of attention people are paying to this vital topic.

Using - which captures user actions such as likes on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and other social platforms - from Epic Beat's analytics platform, social media applause data we compared user engagement from two environmental topics - "climate change" and "environment" - to a range of popular culture topics to frame the society's relative interest in environmental issues.
Our results were very discouraging. Tinder receive more social attention than environment and climate change combined. Combined.
Could it be that the average human mind has simply failed to wrap itself around the enormity of the crisis we face? Or does this lack of attention reflect a sense of fatalism born of helplessness - if we cannot wipe left on rapidly melting glaciers and record-breaking hurricanes, do we simply look away?

In a world where journalism is funded by companies whose ad buys are based on metrics such as page impressions and social listening, the lack of attention people are paying to this topic and the lack of news coverage create a self-reinforcing circle.

Without in-depth storytelling that personalizes the wonk-level science and helps paint a picture of how climate change does affect people, personally and in the present tense, it's difficult to make the case to them about why they should care, let alone why and how their individual choices can make a difference. And without ratings driving coverage, crucial environmental journalism takes a back seat to trivial pop culture.
It's a bit like watching people vote for their favorite performances on "The Voice" while milling about on the deck of the Titanic. Can we interest anyone in a life raft? RELATED RESOURCES:
As the organizers of an environmental journalism award , we are inspired by Media Matters excellent coverage of climate change and the media .

We also believe that highly shareable, easily digestible graphics are needed to get any meaningful attention for environmental topics. Media Matters work here has been an inspiration.
This graphic succinctly captures the absurdly limited coverage of climate change: only 50 minutes of coverage in an election year.
To encourage additional social sharing to bring attention to this vital topic, we have also included alternative graphics from our social attention analysis below.

Please tag our accounts when sharing so we can amplify your efforts:

Twitter: @SEALAwards

Instagram: @sealawards
AMAZON RECEIVES 20 TIMES MORE ATTENTION THAN "CLIMATE CHANGE" + "ENVIRONMENT" COMBINED
Facebook: @SEALAwards
ANDROID RECEIVES 11 TIMES MORE ATTENTION THAN "CLIMATE CHANGE" + "ENVIRONMENT" COMBINED THE VOICE RECEIVES 3 TIMES MORE ATTENTION THAN "CLIMATE CHANGE" + "ENVIRONMENT" COMBINED NETFLIX RECEIVES 3 TIMES MORE ATTENTION THAN "CLIMATE CHANGE" + "ENVIRONMENT" COMBINED
We are also trying to produce environmental content that has a greater chance of "breaking through the noise" using more popular topics as messaging angles - see our exploration of Tupac's 'Changes' as a blueprint for climate action.
SEAL Analysis of Epic Beat Database Notes: Dataset covers May 2017 to May 2018. Social applause presented in millions. SEAL Contributors: Amber Buchholz and Matt Harney

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No One Cares About Climate Change - Social Media Engagement Study

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Considering the level of impact that climate change is already having on humanity and how it will affect the future of life on earth, versus, say, the impact that "Games of Thrones" will have, there's a shocking disconnect in the amount of attention people are paying to this vital topic.

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The Power of Social Media to Fight Climate Change

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ASEAN Climate Change and Energy Project (ACCEPT)

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The Power of Social Media to Fight Climate Change - ACCEPT

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Climate change remains a looming humanity issue because of how complicated and unintegrated the actions are. In 2015, when the world leaders collectively adopted the Paris Climate Accord, it seemed the world was together in fighting the inevitable enemy facing our next generation: climate catastrophe.

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Students should start a social media campaign demanding declaration of climate emergency by the government in order to stop the march of climate change, said former Union Minister Anbumani Ramadoss.

Speaking at the launch of a campaign at the Meenakshi College in Chennai to declare climate emergency in the country, Dr. Anbumani said climate change was likely to lead to inundation of coastal cities such as Chennai, which is a few feet above mean sea level.

"Social media has led to revolutions including the Arab Spring a few years ago. Students should make use of social media to exert pressure on the government to make policy decisions," said Dr. Anbumani.

Pointing to work in the neighbourhoods of the city by a team of volunteers during the Chennai floods in 2015, Dr. Anbumani said: "we got an opportunity to rescue residents affected by floods near Meenakshi College.

"The government should take a policy decision to promote public transport. This will reduce global warming. Chennai has 3,500 MTC buses. But we need 8,000 buses and announcement of free bus rides to attract commuters from using private vehicles to start using buses," he said.

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Use social media to highlight climate crisis, says Anbumani Ramadoss

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Students should start a social media campaign demanding declaration of climate emergency by the government in order to stop the march of climate change, said former Union Minister Anbumani Ramadoss.

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The Social Dilemma | Official Trailer | Netflix

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Planting 20,000,000 Trees, My Biggest Project Ever!