Technology

58101 readers

3961 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

1204

Climate scientists flee Twitter [to Mastodon] as hostility surges (www.france24.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by [email protected] to c/technology

143 comments fedilink hide all child comments

EDIT: I didn't notice in the original post, the article is from 2023

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/19707239

Researchers have documented an explosion of hate and misinformation on Twitter since the Tesla billionaire took over in October 2022 -- and now experts say communicating about climate science on the social network on which many of them rely is getting harder.

Policies aimed at curbing the deadly effects of climate change are accelerating, prompting a rise in what experts identify as organised resistance by opponents of climate reform.

Peter Gleick, a climate and water specialist with nearly 99,000 followers, announced on May 21 he would no longer post on the platform because it was amplifying racism and sexism.

While he is accustomed to "offensive, personal, ad hominem attacks, up to and including direct physical threats", he told AFP, "in the past few months, since the takeover and changes at Twitter, the amount, vituperativeness, and intensity of abuse has skyrocketed".

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] tux7350 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

What do you mean? If it makes you feel any better, the Earth will be fine. Has been for a couple billion years. We did this to ourselves :(

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago

I'm mean life on Earth, obviously. No one is saying that the planet is going to explode or disappear or anything like that. We're talking about the climate, and life that depends on that climate.

And before you start coming at me with some "but but such and such life will still..." I'll clarify again that there is a matter of scale here. A very large number of species that have been around for a very long time will soon be extinct (many have been lost already). So although we might still have mosquitos and jelly-fish for a long time to come, a lot of the complex life that is currently enjoying a comfortable and otherwise-sustainable life on Earth will no longer be able to do so; because of us. That's what I'm referring to.

Yes, humans have does this to 'ourselves', but we are nowhere near the worst effected life in this situation. In fact, most of the ill effects on humans are just knock-on effects from other life failing. (In particular, reduced capacity to grow food is likely to be a problem for humans.)