Wildfires and Climate Change: What does social media tell us on linkages and public understanding? (Preliminary White Paper, February 11, 2022)

TL;DR

This study examines how social media, specifically Twitter, reflects public and government understanding of the linkages between wildfires and climate change, revealing limited awareness and connection in recent events.

Contribution

It provides an analysis of Twitter data to assess perceptions of wildfire-climate change linkages among the public and officials, highlighting knowledge gaps.

Findings

Only 5% of tweets linked wildfires to climate change

Government tweets showed even lower linkage at 2%

Most users did not relate wildfires to climate change

Abstract

Wildfires are increasing in frequency and size across the western U.S., with some of the deadliest fires in recorded history occurring in the last few years. The public, as well as elected officials, use social media to convey opinions and knowledge on topics that are impacting their communities. We utilize the platform Twitter to assess connections of wildfire to climate change during recent events and evaluate the differences in knowledge between the public and their government officials. Results show some linkages of wildfire cause and effect, although this relationship was not large (only 5%) and was even lower at the governmental level (2%), suggesting that a broader number of the public and government did not relate climate change to recent extreme wildfires.