I am collecting data on #climatechange to see how people are talking about climate change and climate-related issues.
Tracking environmental issues on Twitter would be interesting to me because I am passionate about the environment. I try to incorporate climate change into my studies as much as possible, and mapping and further understanding climate policies and online chatter would be interesting in myriad ways. I have always been interested in climate-related issues. I have published two articles in The European Financial Review (“The Rise of Shenzhen and BYD – How a Chinese Corporate Pioneer is Leading Greener and More Sustainable Urban Transportation and Development”, and “China’s Emerging Silicon Valley: How and Why Has Shenzhen Become a Global Innovation Centre”) that are on climate change, green technology and sustainable energy. Tracking how much people discuss these issues on Twitter and when, and finding correlations with current trends would be fascinating.
I noticed a lot of tweets about #climatechange were from smaller (less followers) accounts, and were tweeted at much larger accounts, namely @LeoDiCaprio, @realdonaldtrump, and @Greenpeace. This is basically what I expected to see on this #climatechange hashtag. A lot of the tweets seemed to be trying to make others aware that climate change is real, and it seems these users are trying to spread the word. For example, @Stacy_Auer said, “RT @LeoDiCaprio: #ClimateChange is real. Scientists agree. Get the facts. #climatefacts https://t.co/OsSxAJ6cdV” and @alevergara78 says, “RT @Altiziana: World surface temperature analysis: https://t.co/7NoZEjUa3F #climatechange #globalwarming #dataviz”, even referencing data visualization!
“#climatechange”
Farrick, Ryan J. “Trump Begins Disemboweling EPA.” January 29, 2017. Accessed February 1, 2017. http://www.legalreader.com/trump-begins-disemboweling-epa/.
Imbler, Sabrina. “#ClimateFacts is the best thing on Twitter today.” January 30, 2017. Accessed February 1, 2017. http://grist.org/briefly/the-dakota-access-pipeline-is-creeping-one-step-closer-to-completion/.
“Climate change”
Edelstein, Stephen. “China Happy to Become World’s Climate-Change Leader If U.S. Lags.” December 30, 2016. Accessed February 1, 2017. http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1108622_china-happy-to-become-worlds-climate-change-leader-if-u-s-lags.
Johnston, Ian. “World-Leading Climate Change Scientist Calls for ‘rebellion’ Against Donald Trump.” The Independent – Americas (Independent), February 1, 2017. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-climate-change-rebellion-michael-mann-global-warming-scientists-a7556696.html.
When I searched Google News for #climatechange, I found two articles on recent climate policies and political stances, one about President Trump disemboweling the EPA, and the other about how #ClimateFacts is trending on Twitter and what this means for climate change policy. This past week, both Bernie Sanders and Leonardo DiCaprio tweeted about how climate change is real, and how scientists unanimously agree. It seemed that when I searched for #climatechange, it lead me to articles that contained the term “climate change”, whereas when I searched for “climate change”, climate change was in the title of the article more often. Others around me feel climate change has always been an issue, but it is only coming to light as of late, likely because of so many speaking out about it, such as Leonardo DiCaprio.
troy. “East African Federation.” March 28, 2006. Accessed February 1, 2017. http://gadocartoons.com/east-african-federation-2/.
When I searched for #climatechange in January to March, 2006, I found one article that included the term #climatechange. Oddly enough, it was a cartoon about the East African Federation. The cartoon depicted a scene in “The Year 2500”, as if #climatechange was merely a thing of the far far future… It still is surprising there was not more talk of climate change, however this was just a search for a hashtag, and the era of hashtags was just getting going in 2006, so it does not come as much of a surprise.
I feel that I am collecting live data, and not connecting to the actual liveliness of climate change because, as Marres and Weltevrede says, liveliness has “…difficulties in terms of the limited life span and deterioration of ‘live’ data sets,” (Marres and Weltevrede, p.324). Climate change is not a topic that comes and goes as it does on social media. Climate change is always there, and therefore I am collecting live data and not just measuring how often it is talked about, as climate change is always an issue until it is heavily curbed.
Marres, Noortje, and Esther Weltevrede. 2013. “Scraping the Social?” Journal of Cultural Economy 6 (3): 313–35.
I think it is really cool how multiple celebrities and public figures are really active about this topic of climate change and largely seem to propel its debate within social media. This really shows that there is a lot of activism surrounding the support of this topic as a real issue that affects everyone and should be an area of concern, rather than just scientists reporting their facts about why people should care or pay attention. I wonder what the arguments are against climate change and the claim that its not a real topic or concern and how/if they are voiced through your twitter data? Furthermore, the relevance to how our current president regards the EPA and how his policies have rejected environmental goals and climate change practices, I find it interesting with his encouragement of the Keystone XL project and how perhaps #climatechange rises or lowers as his political advancements in this project are pursued.