Humanity is facing an existential crisis: a worsening climate situation, increasingly lethal pandemics, and the rise of weaponized antiscience that is hindering efforts to overcome major challenges.
The ideologically driven attack on science is a threat to everyone. Climate change is causing severe heatwaves, wildfires, droughts, floods, and powerful storms. For example, Philadelphia experienced unhealthy air quality last month due to Canadian wildfires, and Texas had record-breaking heat earlier this year, largely due to human-caused warming. These are just some instances of extreme weather events intensified by climate change.
In addition to COVID-19, the world faces the ongoing threat of respiratory infections from avian or zoonotic influenza viruses, Nipah and Hendra viruses, and emerging coronaviruses in Asia. There’s also a rise in mosquito-borne viruses like dengue and yellow fever in South America, which can easily spread to places like Texas and Florida.
Furthermore, social media is being used to spread misinformation through bots, troll armies, books, articles, podcasts, and cable news, which downplay scientific warnings, portray scientists negatively, harass them, and even issue death threats. This has been experienced firsthand by us and our families.
A dangerous ecosystem of antiscience has emerged. COVID-19 resulted in a large number of deaths, many of which could have been prevented with vaccines, while climate change impacts are also causing fatalities.
Pandemic and climate denial are often attributed to general misinformation, but the reality is more alarming.
The Koch Brothers, for example, fund think tanks and front groups to disseminate climate change denial.
They also played a role in undermining public health messaging during COVID-19, fearing that lockdowns would reduce fossil fuel consumption. According to the Center for Media and Democracy, Koch-funded groups employed strategies similar to those of the Tea Party to create an academic network that would challenge COVID-19 mitigation policies using its own “science.”
Rupert Murdoch founded NewsCorp, which owns Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, both known for spreading misinformation about COVID-19 and climate change. Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, now X, has transformed it into a platform for science denial, amplifying climate and vaccine denial messages while suppressing credible scientific information. The Koch brothers have supported climate denial think tanks, while Fox News has actively promoted the idea that climate change and COVID-19 are hoaxes and that vaccines are ineffective or unsafe.
Petrostates, which depend on fossil fuels and often employ autocratic measures, also contribute to the spread of antiscience propaganda. Russia and Saudi Arabia have used online disinformation campaigns with bots and trolls to polarize the public and spread misinformation, and both have worked to undermine global climate agreements. Russia has also promoted anti-vaccine rhetoric online, potentially to destabilize Western democracies.
The U.S. is also now a major source of the problem. The Trump Administration and congressional Republicans have defunded climate and vaccine science and appointed climate and vaccine deniers to positions of power. Examples include U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who seems to be acting as an antivaxxer-in-chief, and Department of Energy secretary Chris Wright, who spreads falsehoods about wind turbines while advocating for fossil fuel extraction.
Antiscience has spread beyond the U.S. to Europe, Australia, and Africa. Addressing it requires significant commitment and collaboration between scientific organizations and governments.
We can and must stop it to protect the future of our civilization.
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