Strong increase of racist tweets outside of climate comfort zone in Europe
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 15549367 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Annika Stechemesser (0000-0002-8306-1735, University of Potsdam), Leonie Wenz (0000-0002-8500-1568, Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change, corresponding author), Maximilian Kotz (0000-0003-2564-5043, University of Potsdam), Anders Levermann (0000-0003-4432-4704, University of Potsdam) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 16 |
| Issue | 11 |
| Pages | 114001-114001 |
| Publication date | 2021-09-21 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Environmental Research Letters (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1748-9326 • E-ISSN: 1748-9326 |
| Publisher | IOP Publishing (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1088/1748-9326/ac28b3 |
| OpenAlex | W3199723535 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 61 |
Ambient temperature has been identified as a potential cause for human conflict in a variety of studies. Conflict is no longer limited to the physical space but exists in the form of hate and discrimination on social media. Here we provide evidence that the amount of racist and xenophobic content posted to the social media platform Twitter is nonlinearly influenced by temperature. Exploiting the linguistic plurality of Europe, we statistically analyze daily temperature data and more than ten million racist tweets from six different countries spanning several climate zones for the years 2012-2018. Using a fixed-effects panel regression model that utilizes exogenous variation in local weather and controls for unobserved omitted variables, we identify the effect of population-weighted daily average temperature on the daily number of racist tweets and likes. We find a quasi-quadratic temperature response of racist tweets that is inversely proportional to the temperature distribution. Fewest racist tweets and likes are found for daily average temperatures between 5 C and 11 C, i.e. temperatures that are frequently experienced. Temperatures warmer or colder than that are associated with steep, nonlinear increases. Analyses at the country-level confirm this climate comfort zone of 5 C-11 C across different European climatic zones. In the Southern European countries this is colder than the most frequently experienced temperatures, pointing to possible limits of adaptation. Within the next 30 years, the number of days outside this climate comfort zone, weighted by the identified temperature-racist-tweet response curve, will increase across parts of Europe, indicating that rising temperatures could aggravate xenophobia and racism in social media
Climate change · Climatology · Demographic economics · Econometrics · Economics · Geography · Mean radiant temperature · Political science · Population · Social media · Sociology · Statistics · Climate Change Communication and Perception · Climate Change, Adaptation, Migration · Climate variability and models · Environmental Science · Mathematics · Demography · Ecology · Geology
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| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2 |
| Citation span | 2024 - 2026 (3) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |