Scientists, but deny science? Climate change sceptics networks on YouTube led by scientists

Abstract

Introduction. Climate change debates have divided our society more than ever. Despite most scientists believing in anthropogenic climate change, a small group of people with scientific knowledge and reasoning are denying it.

Method. In this paper, we collect YouTube video comments’ data to study the content posted by climate change sceptical scientists and their impact on comment social networks.

Analysis. We apply natural language processing and social networks analyses to study those comments and networks.

Results. We find that denying scientists question the validity of anthropogenic climate change using objective terms such as ‘Co2’, ‘history’, ‘data’, etc., while non-scientists rarely mention these terms, instead frequently using words like ‘money’, ‘truth’. Scientists-led social networks are also more structured with significant core users, while non-scientists-led networks have smaller and fragmented groups, indicating scientists-led discussions on climate change are more stable and consistent.

Conclusions. Scientists who deny human-caused climate change cast greater influence on the climate change denying social networks. Their opinions using more scientific terms cause the networks to be more centralized and form more consistent patterns.