Credits: Social Media
States most likely to deny climate change revealed in new AI study
A new study that used Artificial Intelligence (AI) has revealed the States most likely to deny the existence of climate change.�
For the last few decades, the climate crisis has been an enormous topic of conversation. It touches almost every facet of our lives, and yet, some still deny its existence. Such individuals are prevalent through every level of society, from the average Joe to former heads of state, scientists to politicians.�
Oklahoma and Mississippi ranked high for denialism
The University of Michigan conducted a study using AI and discovered that around 15% of Americans dont believe in climate change. Thats around 50 million people!
They conducted their study by using AI to analyze social media data; a process usually conducted by human researchers. They then assigned labels to the geo-tagged posts as either for or against the existence of climate change.�
“Prior to the advancement of AI and social media data, this work relied on expensive and time-consuming surveys,” said study senior author Joshua Newell.
Their data suggested that belief in climate change is highest along the West Coast and East Coast. In contrast, 20% of central and southern states didnt believe in climate change. Such beliefs were most prevalent in Oklahoma, Mississippi, Alabama, and North Dakota.�
The research further identified a shift at the county level. While only 12% of California natives denied climate change, California’s Shasta County saw a massive increase to 52%.�
The denial of impending climate catastrophe was also linked to a general mistrust of science, as demonstrated by connections between denialism and low COVID-19 vaccination rates.
Study author Dimitrios Gounaridis added: “What this indicates is that communities with a high prevalence of climate change deniers are at risk of discounting other science-based health or safety recommendations.
What else did the study reveal?
Through Twitter (now X) analysis, the University of Michigan team was also able to identify key figures in climate denialism. Such people included former President Donald Trump and political commentator Ben Shapiro.
“During the 2017-2019 study period, the most heavily retweeted post includes one by Trump that questions climate change due to unusually cold weather in the U.S., and another where he casts doubt on a U.N. climate report,” Newell said. “In almost half of the tweets analyzed, the most common refrain was that ‘climate change was not real.'”
The authors have now called for platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter to crack down further on misinformation in the hopes of minimizing echo chambers where peoples misinformed opinions are repeated by influential accounts.�
