London: Fake news on social media about climate change and biodiversity loss is having a worrying impact in the battle to halt the growing environmental threats to the planet, a group of scientists and analysts have warned.

Trust is essential for governments to make long-term decisions, the report argues. Social media and access to reliable knowledge is also highlighted as a barrier to progress.

“As the pressure of human activities accelerates on Earth, so too does the hope that technologies such as artificial intelligence will be able to help us deal with dangerous climate and environmental change,” said Co-author Victor Galaz, Deputy Director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre.

“Social media reports have created a toxic environment where it’s now very difficult to distinguish facts from fiction,” said one author, Owen Gaffney, of the Stockholm Resilience Centre. “One of the biggest challenges now facing humanity is our inability to tell fact from fiction. This is undermining democracies, which in turn is limiting our ability to make long-term decisions needed to save the planet.”

“That will only happen however if we act forcefully in ways that redirects the direction of technological change towards planetary stewardship and responsible innovation.”

Human actions are threatening the resilience and stability of Earth’s biosphere — the wafer-thin veil around Earth where life thrives, according to the report published for the first Nobel Prize Summit, a digital gathering to be held in April to discuss the state of the planet in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

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