By Tom Ellison

Information manipulation by authoritarian states, extremist movements, and private interests is increasingly contributing to and capitalizing on extreme weather, undermining security and democratic discourse. 

That was one key message from a recent webinar from the Center for Climate and Security (CCS), which brought together national security, climate, and information experts for a discussion available to watch here. Deputy Director Tom Ellison gave an overview of CCS’s work on climate security, information manipulation, and democratic governance, with support from the John and James L. Knight Foundation. This work aims to close gaps at the collision of security, climate, and information issues, including analysis of how actors like Russia amplify climate disinformation to weaken democratic rivals, and exercises on how US states and cities can reckon with intensifying climate, security, and information challenges. 

A discussion among leading experts then explored the cross-cutting challenges and solutions to these threats. 

• CCS Advisory Board member, the Honorable Alice Hill, described how the information environment challenges disaster response, climate adaptation, and election integrity, drawing on her experience leading climate resilience work at the White House and Department of Homeland Security. 
• CCS Non-Resident Fellow and co-founder of Climate Action Against Disinformation, Jennie King, explained how authoritarian states and far-right movements operate at the intersection of the carbon and attention economies, and why solutions fixated on litigating pieces of content are inadequate. 
• Finally, Dr. Kate Starbird, co-founder of the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, offered insights from broader information integrity research, including the dynamics of online rumors during crisis and the mostly harmful implications of how chatbots are being deployed. 

Overall, the discussion and Q&A surfaced the importance of both systemic reforms to our information systems, as well as local offline cohesion and cooperation, in confronting the threats of climate disinformation. Over the coming year, CCS will continue to provide analysis, convene experts, and develop recommendations aimed at protecting security and democracy from climate-related information manipulation.