Information Pollution Undermines Progress in Addressing Climate Change
By: Lili Fuhr and Stephanie Hankey
Stephanie Hankey is the co-founder and co-director of the Tactical Tech Initiative, a visiting professor at the University of Applied Sciences in Potsdam, and the editor of the upcoming book "Handbook on Digital Impact and Climate," set to be released in September 2025.
The flash floods that hit Valencia, Spain, in 2024 were so devastating that some images sparked a global debate over their authenticity. In an era where artificial intelligence technologies can produce incredibly realistic fake images, the sight of cars piled atop one another in narrow, mud-filled streets was shocking enough to be hard to believe. Sadly, these images were entirely genuine.
Climate activists have long believed that when the effects of climate change become immediate and undeniable—not just in the Global South but everywhere—public pressure for bold political and corporate action will increase. Indeed, surveys show broad public support for such measures. However, alongside this expectation, another urgent challenge has emerged: the information environment we rely on to understand the world has become dangerously polluted.
The use of the term "pollution" is fitting here, as it reflects the chaos and toxicity of today’s information landscape, dominated by a handful of big companies that treat human attention as a commodity and inundate us with low-quality, artificially generated content—dubbed "AI mush"—designed to mislead, distract, and distort the truth.
This pollution is particularly evident in the discourse surrounding climate change. While misleading information about the climate has always been a concern—and often escalated into full-blown conspiracy theories—the situation has now deteriorated to a point where the term "misinformation" no longer suffices to describe the scale and complexity of the threat, nor does it point to viable solutions.
It is often said that the technologies needed to combat climate change already exist and that what is lacking is the political will to implement them. However, as technology is marketed as a solution to the crisis, it is also being used to slow the momentum needed to address it. "Tech oligarchs"—who have close ties to governments and immense financial interests—control platforms that shape public opinion, from Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) to Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post, allowing them to influence environmental policies and the discourse surrounding them.
As the information crisis accelerates due to artificial intelligence, climate issues are increasingly reduced to cultural battles. This trend is fueled by data brokers who treat user opinions on climate change as indicators of their political identity, exacerbating division and polarization in service of targeted advertising.
During the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, user-generated content on Instagram and TikTok shifted from documenting destruction to promoting conspiracy theories about weather manipulation and secret geoengineering projects, inciting panic and destabilizing an already fragile information environment. The same scenario occurred during recent power outages in Spain and Portugal, where misleading narratives blamed renewable energy sources before any official investigation could determine the actual causes. These rumors often lead to threats and harassment of scientists and activists, creating a "chilling effect" on research and advocacy, even as public support for climate action remains strong.
Of course, the anti-climate movement often arises from a vocal minority, but it is amplified by a media environment that thrives on outrage. Worse yet, there is a convergence of interests among far-right ideologues, big tech companies, and major oil corporations—all of whom profit from climate chaos, information pollution, and political instability—contributing to the rise of what can be termed "dirty tech" and accelerating the erosion of democracy and the rule of law.
In the United States, the increasing relationship between the tech sector and far-right politics underscores the critical role of platforms that shape public discourse and, consequently, the future of climate action. Civil society organizations concerned with digital rights and democracy have been addressing these issues for years. Yet, much like microplastic particles, the problem has fragmented into countless small shards, making it more challenging to contain.
With power concentrated in the hands of those benefitting from information pollution, it often feels as though we have hit a dead end. However, despite the confusion prevailing on social media platforms today, the sources of this pollution can be identified—just as with environmental pollution—enabling accountability for the actors involved. The new digital regulatory framework in Europe—including legislation concerning digital services, competition, data protection, and artificial intelligence—along with the recent proposal for a "European Democracy Shield" to counter foreign interference in information—is a crucial first step towards addressing the systematic impact of misinformation and the business models of big tech companies on public discourse.
Nonetheless, the effectiveness of these laws remains uncertain, and because their scope of enforcement ends at Europe’s borders, broader actions are needed. Eliminating profitability from misleading climate information and applying the "polluter pays" principle in the digital realm could help hold tech companies and advertisers accountable for the damage they inflict on the climate-related information system.
Protecting freedom of expression means defending the right to speak freely and the right to access accurate and untainted information. If we do not confront information pollution directly, we risk not only hindering progress in addressing climate change but also reversing it altogether.
However, quality information does not rise to the forefront on its own. Those working to combat climate change and resist reckless technological solutions like geoengineering can no longer merely focus on delivering their messages to a wider audience or improving their phrasing.
Environmental activists must unite with digital democracy advocates to confront the algorithm-driven business models that exacerbate both the climate crisis and information pollution in tandem. The full consequences of the convergence of these two crises are just beginning to surface, but if we do not take serious action, the future looks distinctly bleak.
