Elon Musk’s Climate Denialism Cannot Be Ignored

by | Dec 14, 2022 | Commentary

Today, if you were to type the word ‘climate’ into Twitter’s search bar, you would likely have the hashtag #ClimateScam suggested as the very first option.

On October 27, Tesla CEO and billionaire Elon Musk acquired Twitter in a highly followed controversial deal that has since resulted in massive layoffs and resignations of employees of the platform.

Since Musk’s takeover, climate change disinformation has flourished on the site. Several big-name climate deniers and misinformation spreaders like Jordan Peterson and Steven Goddard (who goes by Tony Heller), whose accounts were banned under Twitter’s previous ownership, have been reinstated and are now racking up hundreds of new followers.

Reinstated accounts aren’t the only ones that appear to be benefiting under Musk. According to Media Matters, “prominent climate change skeptics — some of whom have been identified as ‘superspreaders’ of climate and energy-related delay rhetoric and disinformation — have enjoyed a large boost in followers. Using Social Blade, Media Matters found that the following climate change skeptic accounts experienced significant growth during November compared to the rest of the year.”

Micheal Shellenberger, an author and wannabe governor of California whose writing on climate change has been heavily criticized by experts, has gained nearly 17,900 followers in November, “about 1,000 more than his average monthly increase in 2022.”

Bjorn Lomborg, a Danish political scientist and author who downplays the threat of a warming climate “gained over 20,700 followers in November, more than five times his monthly average increase in 2022.”

Speaking with Mother Jones, Twila Moon, a scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center said, “Folks noticing a rise in climate denialism and disinformation is particularly worrying and I am concerned that it could slow climate action in ways that are devastating to economies, communities, and health.”

Mainstream media outlets are still hesitant to blatantly call Musk out for his damaging actions and continue to provide leeway for the billionaire (and billionaires in general).

On December 10, the New York Times published a piece claiming that Musk’s politics were “tricky to pin down” and “what he stands for remains largely unclear.” Rather than referring to Musk as a supporter of the right, it opted for “spiritedly anti-left.”

This article exemplifies how mainstream media refuses to take Musk’s increasingly right-wing tweets and actions at face value. In November, he called on “independent-minded voters” to vote Republican to curb a Democratic majority. Encouraging one’s following of over 121 million people to vote for the party of the right does not sound very “independent.”

“I think he’s intentionally empowering right-wing extremists,” J.M. Berger, a researcher on extremism on social media like Twitter, told Insider. “Any argument that he’s trying to empower the center is patently bullshit and should be treated as such.”

A recent article by the Washington Post titled “For better or worse, billionaires now guide climate policy” lauded the work of unelected private citizens using their unethically vast wealth to influence climate policy. Although the article almost exclusively criticized Musk among the named super-rich, it still made sure to paint billionaires influence over public policy as an overall positive.

Musk’s abundant “free-speech” declarations are emboldening newer climate misinformation superspreaders, and climate scientists, writers, policymakers, and activists are losing the communities they’ve built as some active users move to alternative sites.

 

More from The Edge

The Rise of Misogynoir Fascism

Pascism or Fatriarchy? We are fully in the throes of the 2024 Presidential Election. Kamala Harris says the present right-wing assault on our democracy must be stemmed. And Trump spits out authoritarian barbs and lies. A rising fascism is often named as our largest...

Rocking The Forest: Rockstadt Extreme Fest Pummels Romania

Nestled beneath lush pine forests of the Carpathian Mountains in the quaint Transylvanian town of Rasnov, Rockstadt Extreme Fest unleashed its tenth annual independent music festival, their website boasting, “The largest and most monumental heavy metal festival in...

Radicalize the Promise of Kamala

My purpose: to claim all possibilities for radicalizing Kamala Harris’s campaign to demand a ceasefire and not one more bomb, while making sure that Trump does not win. And to recognize how unique it is to see this band of warriors organizing around Harris as her...

No[n]Sense: Administrative Responses to Campus Protests

What happened on campus at University of Texas at Dallas on May 1, 2024 — and in its aftermath — makes no sense to me whatsoever. On that day, colleagues, students, community members and others were shackled and jailed. And while they were released within 24 hours,...

Op-Ed: Educators Are Not the Enemy

by Monica J. Casper, Meghan Eagen, Amy E. Farrell, Katherine Felter, Grace E. Howard, E. Goldblatt Hyatt, Erika Robb Larkins, Monica R. McLemore, Kyle J. Morgan, Kayti Protos, Stephanie Troutman Robbins, William Paul Simmons, Joseph Stramondo, Megan Thiele Strong,...

Anyone But Trump: Hoping, Fighting, and Voting Together

Before I start, let me say the world is messy right now. It is messy to think. It is messy to write. But I continue in defiance, with hope for our liberation. It is July 4. What better time to wonder about the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement that openly...

An Anticolonial Fight in the U.S. Heartland? No, But…

We focus on the fights. The left explodes in anger when someone from the right insults gender diversity or fails to criticize a racist statement. Understandably. The right stews in rage as the left scoffs at conservatives, speaking as if all are racist and homophobic....

For Patty Zimmermann, with Revolutionary Love

These words were written for a late-April weekend memorializing Patty Zimmermann, who was Editor-at-Large for The Edge, Director of the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival, Professor of Screen Studies at Ithaca College, and a fierce friend and ally.  ...