Do I have time to build the ark calmly? Characterizing attitudes towards climate change via sentiment analysis of social media

Figures & data

Table 1. Description of the categories used to classify people’s reactions as expressed in their tweets. The categories were adapted from the study by O’Neill et al. (2015).

Reaction Category	Description
Sceptic	This person focuses on uncertainty—in terms of climate science, impacts or solutions. Such an individual may question the anthropogenic nature of climate change or discuss natural climate variation. This person perceives conflict concerning the way the world should work as well as the solutions or strategies used to address climate change (beyond disagreements concerning science). We cannot act, should not act, or will struggle to act. Such an individual does not believe in climate change fully; this person accepts the discourse pertaining to climate change but is critical regarding every aspect of this topic (e.g. ecological, social, political, and economic aspects).
Denier	This person absolutely does not believe in climate change and denies the existence of the phenomenon. “Climate change does not exist!”
Fatalist	The predicted impacts are dire. These impacts are numerous, discussed in detail, and threaten all aspects of life. Such impacts will worsen, and we are not well prepared. We are going to die soon, and there is nothing we can do. There is no hope for humanity.
Ironic joking	This person expresses a sense of irony towards scientific news and published results, making ironic comments and jokes regarding the effects of climate change. Are you kidding me?
Ironic serious	This person expresses feelings of irony towards people who make ironic comments about scientific news and published results but it is truly worried about the effects of climate change. To laugh is not to cry.
Realist	This person explores the role that science plays in society. Such an individual may debate transparency, funding or public awareness, especially in relation to institutions, e.g. IPCC. This person is aware of and informed about the current situation of the climate.
Surrealist	This person believes that scientific studies and images pertaining to the effects of climate change are pure science fiction or virtual simulations that recreate reality. Really cool, but this is not reality, this is a science fiction movie!
Conspiracy theorist	This person expresses a theory or explanation of climate change that is often based on political, economic or social motivations relating to power and attributes the causes of and responsibility for climate change to a conspiracy that is organised by sinister and powerful groups, despite the fact that the explanations of this phenomenon already provided are more plausible and reliable. They want to spy on all of us by using climate change as an excuse.
Verbal attacker	This person expresses verbal aggression and engages in destructive and provocative behaviours that aim to cause moral or physical pain to other users or people (i.e. insults, accusations, or the use of inappropriate words), e.g. Shut up, you dummy!
Environmental activist	This person emphasises the science of climate change and the importance of broad consensus among experts. Such an individual may provide considerable evidence concerning the need for action. Science has spoken, others must act. We need to act right now to fight against climate change and its causes.
Expert in everything	This person knows everything about all topics and expresses their thinking strongly and confidently.
Ambiguous	The position of this person is unclear, or this person adopts the position of one or more other categories. There are a lot of problems in the world, you know?
Moralist	This person expresses an explicit and urgent moral, religious, or ethical call to action.

Figure 1. Examples of tweets referring to the climate Central publication regarding sea level rise, including maps, links to research or gifs. Left: L1, first classification: realist, second classification: realist. Middle: L1, first classification: realist, second classification: realist. Right: L2, first classification: conspiracy theorist, second classification: denier.

Figure 2. Number of tweets per elaborated category.

Figure 3. Multiple correspondence analysis of the elaborated categories as classified by three raters (A, B and C). The colour of the labels indicates the contribution made by that category to the first two dimensions.

Figure 4. Correlation matrix of clustered categories using Spearman correlation.

Figure 5. Number of tweets per clustered category and the reaction types of tweets.

Table 2. Example of tweets showing different narratives in relation to sea level rise.

Category		Tweet body
Realist	A	“The dangers of rising sea levels due to the #Global Warming will also affect the coast of #Catalonia, the #Valencian Country and the #Balearic Islands. Find out in this article by ”.
	B	“A study by Climate Central simulates with shocking photos how sea level rise will affect almost 200 places in the world according to the different global warming scenarios, including #Sevilla and #Barcelona https://climatica.lamarea.com/sevilla-barcelona -sea-level/ … #climate change”.
	C	“The Ebro Delta, the Manga del Mar Menor, A Coruña, Pontevedra, Gijón, San Sebastián, Huelva… are areas in danger of flooding by 2050 due to rising sea levels according to the latest Climate report Central. https://buff.ly/2 WLbBWV via @europapress”.
	D	“And the real problem is not even us. The problem is the millions of people who will starve to death because the farmland is below the ground”.
Joking	E	“If I live at 1200 m, do I have to suffer, or do I have time to build the ark calmly?”.
	F	“I’m going to the Decathlon [a famous sports shop] for a little boat.
	G	“Come ooooon! We will have a beach in Cornellà [a noncoastal municipality]! What a dream”.
Denier	H	“Atlantis version 2.0. Only the mermaids and Neptune survive. What amazes me most is that smart, educated people swallow simulations at 80 years old. Man, please… let us leave the apocalypse and these things for religions, not science”.
	I	“These are assumptions to nail us with more taxes from separatist television! [referring to a Catalan public channel and the Catalan independence process]. Scare the public to gouge out our eyes, while advisers and politics are useless!”.
	J	“The lowest temperature in Antarctica has been recorded. Curious global warming”.
	K	“Do not suffer so much… the planet is getting colder, not warmer … More common sense and less of Greta’s blah blah [referring to activist Greta Thunberg]”.
	L	“And with 3.5 degrees, maybe I have a house on the beach front! I’m going to burn some coal and drive around”.
	M	“The same forecast that was made 30 years ago and in 2018 should have happened. It is not denialism, it is anti-alarmism”.
	N	“You’re absolutely right, all these apocalyptic predictions have been false. That is, not a single one has come true, and there are a few that have filled their pockets making them. This is not to deny climate change, it is to verify that the predictions were a fake”.

O’Neill S, Williams HTP, Kurz T, Wiersma B, Boykoff M. 2015. Dominant frames in legacy and social media coverage of the IPCC fifth assessment report. Nat Clim Chang. 5(4):380–385. doi: 10.1038/nclimate2535.

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Data availability statement

The data used in this study is available in a Zenodo repository at https://zenodo.org/record/6559169