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As world governments move forward with controversial climate policies, more young people are questioning the claims.
These young audiences are skeptical of what detractors of these policies say is climate “alarmism” according to a new survey from the liberal group Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) released Jan. 16. The shift concerns left-leaning groups and policymakers pushing for climate action.
According to the survey, YouTube material, viewed by these audiences, expressing the views “climate solutions won’t work,” “climate science and the climate movement are unreliable,” or “the impacts of global warming are beneficial or harmless” increased significantly between 2018 and 2023.
Climate change narratives were examined in transcripts from over 12,000 YouTube videos posted across 96 channels between 2018 and 2023 by CCDH researchers.
Researchers found that one-third of teenagers believe “climate policies cause more harm than good” or “climate change is a hoax to control and oppress people.”
CCDH considers the trend of videos on social media, including YouTube, dangerous to their goals to implement worldwide reductions of greenhouse gases and new taxes to dissuade the use of fossil fuels. It described the results as disturbing and is urging Big Tech platforms like YouTube to censor climate change content that “contradicts the authoritative scientific consensus”.
They discovered a strong rise in videos contradicting the narrative of global warming, characterized as three expanding narratives: “climate solutions won’t work,” “climate science and the climate movement are unreliable,” and “the impacts of global warming are beneficial or harmless.”
Between 2018 and 2023, climate-skeptical YouTube material increased from 9% to 30% for “climate solutions won’t work” narratives.
Content stating that “climate science and the climate movement are unreliable” has increased from 23% to 35%.
Overall, the opposing view to “climate crisis” now dominates climate-skeptical YouTube material at 70%.
According to a survey poll, 33% of teens believe “climate policies cause more harm than good” and 30% believe “climate science and the climate movement can’t be trusted.”
In response to the findings, Greenpeace USA senior strategist Charlie Cray said, “Climate deniers now have access to vast global audiences through digital platforms. Let them steadily chip away at public support for climate action, especially among younger people, and our planet’s future could be at risk.”
Groups, scientists and countries opposed to world governments implementing sanctions on citizens for their use of fossil fuels say having the opposing view available for discussion is a good thing. Many scientists who question how global warming data is collected and calculated say they’ve been censored or even blacklisted by governments and scientific governing bodies.
Many of those scientists joined over 1,600 others in signing a commitment declaring that there is “no climate emergency,” arguing that poor models and apocalyptic rhetoric have drowned out scientific reality for money and power.
“Climate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific,” states the declaration. Scientists should clearly address ambiguities and exaggerations in their global warming projections, while politicians should dispassionately weigh the real costs and imagined benefits of their policy solutions.
Steven Koonin, a professor of civil and urban engineering at New York University, was undersecretary for science at the Department of Energy and has a PhD in theoretical physics from MIT.
In a recent interview, he shot down the U.N. chief’s alarmism, saying climate change adaptation is a problem but not an emergency.
When asked by Mr. Peterson how many scientists “take an apocalyptic view” of climate change, Mr. Koonin answered 95 percent aren’t in the climate panic camp.
“None of them are kind of jumping off the roof and saying ‘My God, we’d better do something or we’re headed for the climate highway to hell’ or something, which is what the secretary general of the U.N. said a couple of months ago,” Mr. Koonin said, referring to UN General Secretary Guterres’ statement at the recent climate conference.
–Metro Voice and wire services
When someone loses the trust of people, like climate change fanatics.or those who challenge election results, as a last resort they try to jail and discredit those that do not believe, ignoring any evidence and insisting on silencing their opposition. Climate is a subscience of geology, because measuring tools did not exist before 1750 and the invention of the thermometer. It used to be that we were told “Nobody fools Mother Nature.” Now we have those who claim they can. Evidence?