The images that turn up in internet search results for the term “climate change” vary dramatically by country and tend to reflect prevailing views, a new study in Nature Climate Change finds.
The images that turn up in internet search results for the term “climate change” vary dramatically by country and tend to reflect prevailing views, a new study in Nature Climate Change finds.
In Argentina, where intense wildfires have burned in recent years and surveys show some of the highest levels of climate concern, top internet search results are likely to include images of burning homes. In Estonia, where surveys show relatively low levels of concern about climate change, internet users are more likely to see images of icebergs, polar bears, or scientific charts that may make climate change seem like a distant or abstract phenomenon.
“If the world wants to curb climate change, it will need a global response that cannot happen when people are not well informed. More relevant and objective search outputs are key to that informing process,” said senior study author Madalina Vlasceanu, an assistant professor of environmental social sciences at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and director of the Climate Cognition Lab.
Read more at: Stanford University
