Climate Monitor: May 27th
A look at PragerU’s and Marjorie Taylor Greene’s climate misinformation, and Facebook ads from nuclear, biofuel proponents
Welcome to Climate Monitor, your weekly digest of the digital tactics and strategies that polluters and climate-action groups are deploying online to shift public opinion and move legislation. We’ve examined political ad spending on platforms like Facebook, Snapchat, and Google by over a dozen groups and corporations from the past week, as well as their activities on social media.
Here’s what we found:
Best performing Facebook post from DCC members: Yale Program on Climate Change Communication
Top ad spenders: Volvo, API, Exxon, NRDC, Ameren
Below are the top 25 spenders on climate-related Facebook ads last week.
Top social media posts: Memes, more memes, and cute wildlife pics
This past week, some climate groups found success on social media by using popular meme formats, and the American Energy Alliance made the tired argument that, even as the U.S. transitions to clean energy, that clean-energy tech is being hoarded by “wealthy coastal elites” at the expense of working-class Americans.
Here are the top 10 posts from climate and polluter groups on Facebook last week and the # of interactions each post got:
Here are the top 10 posts from climate and polluter groups on Instagram last week and the # of interactions each post got:
6.5 million people could be wrong, like Marjorie Taylor Green
Analysts at triplecheck found that 6.5 million people were exposed to misinformation about climate change and clean energy last week, no thanks to far-right members of Congress like Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert, as well as right-wing pundit Jordan Schachtel:
“Right wing pundits and members of Congress continued to promote the usual claims that climate change is a hoax (debunked here) and that the Green New Deal is the first step towards America abandoning democracy for socialism (this is ridiculous and has been debunked here and here). There was also a significant amount of content attacking the Biden Administration for its decision to waive sanctions for Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline into Germany, but refusing to allow the Keystone XL pipeline to be built in the US. Regardless of whether you agree with the Biden Administration’s decision, it had nothing to do with the Keystone XL pipeline.”
PragerU’s perennial quest against clean energy and climate action
Dennis Prager and his online media company, PragerU, have been polluting social media with their dishonest right-wing content for over a decade. Naturally, among the policy objectives they oppose is a rapid transition away from fossil fuels to renewable clean energy, especially now that a climate-minded Democrat is in the White House.
Since President Biden’s inauguration, PragerU has made at least 134 posts about clean energy and the environment on Facebook and Instagram, according to data from Crowdtangle, reaching nearly 6 million followers across both platforms just about every day with lib-owning content like the Instagram post below.
11 Facebook pages advertising for alternative renewable energy sources
There’s a significant focus on solar and wind energy among climate activists, but they’re certainly not the only sources of renewable energy. While biofuels and nuclear energy each have their unique pros and cons, we found 11 groups have been using Facebook ads to advocate for these alternative energy sources, almost all of which arguing that they’re essential to a cleaner, carbon-free future.
That’s it for Climate Monitor this week. As always, log in to climatemonitor.substack.com to see these updates in real time as we publish them throughout the week!
And if you have any comments or questions, feel free to drop us a line by shooting an email to ClimateMonitor@DCC.org.