The scenes are simply devastating. Catastrophic flooding in Pakistan has killed more than 1,100 people and destroyed millions of acres of crops. One third of the country stands underwater following a monster monsoon ten times heavier than usual. More than 6.4 million need aid.

Pakistan’s misery is just the latest climate disaster in a year that has seen record heatwaves, drought, storms and wildfires around the world. This is what our changing climate has in store for more and more people as the atmosphere heats up. Yet still there are those seeking to delay action.

This is nothing new. Decades of denialism by the fossil fuel industry have left their mark on a die-hard minority of climate change deniers. Aggressive efforts to sow doubt have eroded trust in climate science, and even facts in general. COVID showed us just how scarily widespread this is.

But climate disinformation has long moved on from straight-up denial. Now the ‘inactivists’ use a host of tricks to delay and distract, from targeting activists with smear campaigns, to funding think tanks to elevating fringe theories that are then repeated by media in a misguided bid for balance.

Yet the climate disasters are getting harder to ignore, and more people are demanding action. In response, the lobbyists have dialed up the heat, co-opting the culture wars, identity politics, reproductive rights, and vaccine debates, to belittle and undermine activists in the public eye.

Research shows these narratives present activists as elitist, and efforts to reduce emissions and decarbonize economies as unworkable, costly, or impractical. The cost-of-living crisis is particularly fertile ground, with bad actors spreading disinformation falsely blaming renewables for soaring energy costs or job losses.

And all the while, time is running out. The science is clear: the world must cut global emissions by 45 percent this decade to keep the 1.5°C limit agreed in Paris within grasp. We need everyone on board to succeed. We just can’t afford to keep letting bad actors undermine our efforts.

During the COVID pandemic, my team and I at the United Nations worked on ways to fight back against disinformation, encourage conscious sharing, and flood news feeds with reliable, accurate information in shareable nuggets. These methods can also be applied to the climate issue.

We are also consulting widely on the issue of disinformation, talking to experts and civil society groups, states, regulatory bodies, and the tech giants. We’re seeking changes to social media platforms so that they stop hosting harmful content such as that aimed at delaying climate action.

We must get better at holding those intentionally spreading harmful lies to account, and push for better enforcement of pledges by big tech companies to ban or flag climate disinformation on their platforms. We need platforms to unequivocally abandon all profits from ads denying climate change.

And we communicators must keep raising awareness. We all need to be able to debunk conspiracy theories, spot false content and identify tell-tale signs of disinformation, to counter the drive to deflect, deny, and delay climate action. Around the world, the cost of doing nothing is clear to see.

A Summer of Disasters and Disinformation was originally published in We The Peoples on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Mis- and disinformation spread online are harming our world. We see the most obvious examples every day in the headlines. But the United Nations is also seeing this globally. We are most concerned about the impacts in three areas: COVID, climate, and conflict.

Social media has connected people in amazing ways. It has given people hope as they struggle with rare diseases, given voice to people who were previously unheard, such as in the Black Lives Matter or MeToo movements. It helps the UN to connect to people all over the world directly, get their feedback and make them feel heard. But in its current form I’m not convinced it’s doing us any good. Elon Musk likes to refer to social media as the global town square. But is this a town square we really want to be in? I’d argue it’s actually quite dystopian.

We go to the town square because we don’t want to miss out. This is where you can join conversations, discover the latest news and trends. But things aren’t what they seem. We may think entry is free, but our data is being monetized. And the noise is deafening.

Everyone is shouting — those with good intentions, and those with bad. But the sound system is rigged — against good actors and in favor of bad actors who are very good at spreading lies for nefarious ends. They profit from fear, they sow discord, they confuse and obscure the facts.

The platforms actively reward this behavior, with algorithms hard-wired to amplify provocative material. The result is a polluted information environment that augments voices that intentionally mislead us. It’s putting our health, peace, and the future of the planet at stake.

Take COVID, for example. When the pandemic hit, an infodemic of harmful mis- and disinformation flooded social media. We saw wild conspiracy theories, from claims the pandemic was a hoax to dangerous fake cures. Soon, the new vaccines became the target.

Research showed antivaxxer disinformation was coming from snake oil salesmen and entrepreneurs, quack doctors, alternative practitioners, and publishers. They peddled fake cures, books, courses, and DVDs. Many of them were based in the US.

But the global power of social media meant conspiracy theories dreamed up in Florida were being seen on the other side of the world. Many people refused to get vaccinated after believing lies they saw online. It was deeply frustrating. Countless lives were at stake.

We came up with a response, a way to fight back. Together with communications agency Purpose, we developed the Verified initiative to drown out and debunk lies by getting reliable health guidance onto social media feeds. Our sharable content reached millions of people.

But then the COVID conspiracy theorists switched tack. Sensing a new opportunity to profit from growing alarm at the crises facing the planet, they expanded their narratives to encompass not just the pandemic, but also climate change.

Disinformation was now not only undermining public health, but climate action too. The latest UN IPPC report was the first to state this unequivocally, blaming “deliberate undermining of science financed by vested interests” for “delaying climate action and preparedness.”

Disinformation is also causing immediate harm in conflict situations. Our clearest example of this was in Myanmar. In 2018, the UN found that disinformation spread on Facebook played a significant role in the extreme violence against the Rohingya minority.

Facebook, meanwhile, was looking the other way. At the time, the platform employed just five Burmese speakers to handle a community of 18 million users. Mark Zuckerberg later called what happened in Myanmar a “terrible tragedy” and said his platform “needed to do more.”

Facebook says it has since ramped up moderation, but the problem is baked into the design of social media. Five years later, the UN is still monitoring a surge in online lies and hate and their destabilizing effects on peacekeeping operations around the world.

We see it in the DRC, where disinformation has triggered attacks against UN staff. Online rumors and threats were followed by real world violence. UN bases were set on fire, offices looted. Three peacekeepers and numerous civilians were killed when a protest turned violent.

These aren’t isolated incidents. In a recent internal survey, 44 percent of UN peacekeepers said mis- and disinformation was having a critical impact on their work. A similar number said it was severely impacting their safety.

Innocent lives are at stake, but we aren’t sitting idly by. Whether it’s on COVID, climate, or conflict, good actors are actively pushing back. Yet we often struggle to cut through the noise, partly because our content is down-ranked.

The platforms won’t tell us how widespread this practice is. But we know for sure it happens on Facebook, which promotes posts from family and friends at the expense of civic institutions. Reliable sources are often buried, and false content amplified. In a crisis, that can prove deadly.

There’s a fierce debate about how to mitigate against the harm caused by mis- and disinformation spread online. Many say we shouldn’t suppress harmful content because that would threaten freedom of expression. We don’t need less speech, they say, but more.

Yet social media business models and algorithms mean the game is rigged against us. No matter how much good information we post, it doesn’t reach users who need it most. That hampers our efforts to fight climate change, build cohesion, and protect people from pandemics.

Unsurprisingly, there is no silver bullet. But we are working to develop new approaches. My team and are working on a Code of Conduct for Integrity in Public Information. We are consulting experts and civil society groups, states, regulatory bodies, and the tech giants.

Our aim is to hold the social media industry responsible for the dangerous side effects of its business models. We’re seeking changes to platforms so that they no longer host harmful content. Where appropriate, that could mean government regulation.

This is already happening in places. The EU Digital Services Act is one example, as is similar legislation proposed by the US. These approaches are relatively new — only time will tell whether they reduce the harm we’re seeing.

Ultimately nothing will meaningfully change unless the platforms agree to help build a more humane internet. A start would be to dramatically increase moderation in vulnerable countries. The business model must change if the town square they manage is to become civil.

Social media has the potential to be what it claims to be — a space of connection, community and exchange. But that can’t happen until platforms dismantle the tools being used to harm society. If they don’t, they must be held accountable.

Online Lies are poisoning our societies was originally published in We The Peoples on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Almasa Salihovic was just eight years old when her brother, Abdulah, was murdered. He had sought shelter in a UN compound near the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica as thousands of his neighbors fled the advancing Bosnian Serb army (VRS) through the surrounding woods and hills.

After two days, on July 13, 1995, Abdulah and 6,000 others were made to leave the relative safety of the compound. Before leaving, the 18-year-old put his name on a list compiled by Dutch peacekeepers, hoping it would somehow save his life. It didn’t. Led away by VRS soldiers, he was never seen again.

Since then, Abdulah’s sister Almasa has lived with the burden of his senseless death. Now aged 35, she is public relations officer at the Srebrenica Memorial Center on the site of the former UN compound, where we met during my recent visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina. The testimony I heard shook me to my core.

Almasa’s memories of the genocide are as graphic as they are devastating. In vivid detail she described how after sleeping rough alongside 20,000 others outside the UN base, she was deported from Srebrenica with her mother and two siblings on a bus for women and children. The VRS filtered out men and boys for execution.

Children threw rocks at Almasa’s bus as it passed through Bosnian Serb-held territory. An armed soldier boarded to demand valuables and hurl violent threats at the passengers. Almasa, petrified, offered him her only possession, a ragged doll. The soldier backed down only after the bus driver intervened.

Mercifully too young to understand the full horror of what was happening, Almasa remembers the bus then passing a meadow full of kneeling men, their hands tied behind their heads. Women on board screamed as they recognized their captured loved ones and understood they would be killed.

“I felt fear throughout my body, almost like an out-of-body experience,” Almasa told me. “You can’t forget those images. They are there when you close your eyes, as if it were yesterday. They bring up so many questions. The biggest one is: Why?”

Almasa and her surviving family made it to safety, together with more than 25,000 deported women and children. Her brother Abdulah was among more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys systematically slaughtered by the VRS, then buried and reburied in mass graves in a bid to conceal the crimes.

The grim confirmation of Abdulah’s death came in 2008. The family’s DNA matched with remains found in a mass grave. Only 30% of his body was recovered. Reluctant to wait longer, Almasa helped bury her brother at the Memorial Center cemetery during the annual commemoration that July.

Twenty-seven years after the Srebrenica genocide, survivors are still searching for answers. Remains belonging to 6,900 people have been identified, but the graves are almost all incomplete. Every July, more funerals are held, and more bones are added. Around 1,700 people are missing without trace.

The excruciating search is made only more painful by those denying the genocide, says Munira Subasic, president of the Mothers of Srebrenica survivors advocacy group. Having personally lost more than 20 family members, she is fighting hard to keep their memories alive.

“Many years have passed,” Munira told me when we met during my visit. “And some people have started believing that [the genocide] didn’t happen and are trying to convince others that it didn’t happen. We see sympathies towards the perpetrators. The world has learned nothing here.”

Yet testimonies such as Almasa’s and Munira’s act as a bulwark against those who seek to deny the truth. That’s why Emir Suljagic, director of the Srebrenica Memorial Center, is overseeing projects both to monitor genocide denial and collect oral histories for storage in digital and physical archives.

Among the videos is testimony from Almasa’s elder sister, the last to see Abdulah alive. As Almasa lead me through exhibits in the rusting UN compound, its walls still bearing Dutch graffiti, it was the story of her brother’s last hours that brought the tragedy home. It will stay with me for years to come.

The UN has acknowledged it failed to protect the people of Srebrenica. We have an enduring responsibility to help the world understand what happened here and to prevent that truth being distorted or denied. That’s why the Memorial Center in preserving survivors’ testimonies in their own words, however painful they are to hear.

Walking through the exhibits, listening to Almasa, Munira, and other survivors, I was filled with shame, sorrow, and regret at that historic failure by the UN. I apologised to the victims I met, echoing apologies from every Secretary General since 1995. We are working to do more.

My team and I at the UN Department of Global Communications are stepping up our efforts to fight war crimes and genocide denial, the glorification of war criminals and hate speech. Teaming up with Alice Wairimu Nderitu, the United Nations Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, we are helping coordinate an international No to Hate campaign.

That also means amplifying voices of those seeking justice. The United Nations ICTY verdicts conclusively found that war crimes and the Srebrenica genocide occurred during the 1992–1995 war. These legal facts were substantiated by hundreds of thousands of pages of painstaking forensic evidence and testimonies.

The message of these verdicts, and of the United Nations International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals, is loud and clear. Genocide and other atrocity crimes will be punished. War criminals will be brought to justice. The world must not tolerate impunity nor glorification nor revisionist histories.

All this underscores why it is so important to stand by the Memorial Center this July 11 as it marks the 27th anniversary of the genocide. I was honored to join the ‘Mother’s Scarf’ initiative, an installation of scarves donated by survivors and volunteers. I donated a treasured scarf of mine; one I’ve owned since 1991.

These powerful symbolic acts, these heart-wrenching stories, are the key to keeping this vital memory alive. Walking among the cemetery’s white graves, each dedicated to one of the thousands of victims, I felt heavy with our solemn duty to remember, to reconcile, to face our responsibilities.

I’m grateful to the Memorial Center, to Almasa, Munira, and the Mothers of Srebrenica, for helping us to not only understand, but feel, the true human tragedy of Srebrenica. To remember without hate, seek reconciliation without whitewashing the past, and to face the weight of our own history.

Never again. It’s a response we reach for instinctively whenever we are confronted with the sickening facts of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. But what does it really mean? Even if we recognize the warning signs, what can we do concretely to prevent hate from spilling over into violence?

These questions haunt scholars and practitioners working across the world hoping to prevent future atrocities. They certainly hung heavy in the air during a recent visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), where I met many courageous men, women and young people, including relatives of the victims of the Srebrenica genocide. I was there to listen, and to learn.

I was both moved and disturbed by what I heard during my visit. The crimes and lessons of the brutal 1992–1995 war in BiH must never be forgotten. Yet nearly 30 years on, there are still those seeking to deny the war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide that have been clearly proven under international law, and glorify the war criminals who perpetrated them. Revisionist narratives are rife as political leaders propagate war-time agendas of division. An atmosphere of fear and mistrust was palpable.

Downplaying or denying atrocities are among the worst forms of hate speech. BiH has laws banning speech inciting violence and discrimination, the denial or war crimes, including genocide, as well as glorification of convicted war criminals. But systematic enforcement is often patchy, while hate speech, denial and glorification are ubiquitous.

That has set alarm bells ringing. After all, words matter. This country, with its ghosts, traumas, and unreconciled narratives of the past , knows that more than most. Words stir fear; they deepen suspicions and undermine trust. Hate spews from politicians, is repeated in the media, and amplified online. Efforts to build empathy and mutual respect struggle to take root.

I’m not talking about mere insults here. One lesson that we have clearly learnt is that Othering, or dehumanizing language, often serves as a precursor to atrocities. It can happen anywhere, but the alarms ring louder where blood has already been spilled; where justice is outstanding and ‘truths’ clash. Such places offer fertile soil for hate.

As one Bosnian proverb, “Ubi te jaka rijec” goes, “the strong word kills you.”

Tackling hate speech in all forms is an urgent priority for the United Nations across the world. Growing numbers of countries see mounting attacks on societal groups just for being who they are. Because of their religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, color, descent, sexuality, or gender.

I was shocked to hear the price paid by those taking a stand against such hate in BiH. Journalists, CSOs, associations and even individual “local champions of peace” who dare to investigate, critic and speak truth to power face campaigns of denunciations and threats to themselves and their families, with some even facing physical attacks. Complaints go unanswered. One Bosnian called it a “conspiracy of silence.”

But these brave souls told me they won’t be cowed. They will continue working for their higher cause, convinced, as I am, that democracy can’t function without a free press. Those doggedly seeking the truth and to deconstruct narratives of hate in BiH need and deserve protection, support, and sustainable funding.

There were other glimmers of hope, too. I was cheered to hear from young activists finding new ways to counter hate, work across ethnic divides, slow the brain drain, and build a more cohesive future. And I was inspired by Sto Te Nema (Where Have You Been), an artistic initiative where artists have spent decades forging a global community around the memory of Srebrenica. The 31-year-old female mayor of Sarajevo who delivers a constant stream messages of unity and solidarity, ignoring the hateful and threatening attacks she receives online every day. The Director of the Sarajevo Film Festival, which started as a form of resistance during the brutal siege of Sarajevo, spoke of tens of thousands of festival visitors who travel here every August to celebrate film and the resilient ‘heart’ of this multi-ethnic city.

These efforts are not just inspirational individuals and initiatives. They are vital in holding back the rising tides of hate. Because it isn’t enough just to recognize the warning signs. We must find ways of putting the brakes on when societies risk tumbling back down the track towards violence and conflict.

The challenges BiH is facing nearly 30 years after the end of the war demonstrates how much sustained, active attention is required of international and local peacebuilders to ultimately bring about a genuine, durable peace. I heard many times over that the world took its eyes off BiH much too soon after the conflict.

The people I met in BiH told me of a society not only fractured by a bloody past, but suspended in division, with competing views about the past, the present and the future; with divergent political agendas and narratives. Such divisions can make it tempting to blame the ‘others’ for all of society’s ills. This is fertile ground for those seeking to peddle in hate. We must therefore all own the problem.

Hate speech puts us all at risk. That’s why it’s down to all of us to stand more resolutely against it. Whether regulators or broadcasters, social media bosses or influencers or just ordinary people online — we can and must do more to stop hate speech.

Walking among the white graves at the Memorial Center Srebrenica, I reflected on the power of memory. To read the names of the victims listed there is to deny those who sought to exterminate them and then hide their crimes. Never again means to face up to the past, and our roles within it.

In 2012, Holocaust survivor, author and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel wrote: “‘Never again’ becomes more than a slogan: It’s a prayer, a promise, a vow … never again the glorification of base, ugly, dark violence.” I am disturbed to see the scourge of Holocaust denial is also growing and infecting the internet. My team and I are stepping up our efforts to keep the facts of the Holocaust and the memory of the victims alive.

We communicators have a special responsibility to fight it. We must amplify the voices of survivors and support institutions recording their stories for the generations to come. We must fight against revisionism, glorification, denial; we must push back against messages that sow mistrust, fear and suspicion. We must amplify the positive stories of everyday people re-building bridges within and between war-torn communities. We must offer positive counter-narratives to diminish the impact of hate. And we must tirelessly tell and retell the horrific truth about war, in the hope that all who hear it will recommit to stand against hate.

On June 18, my colleagues and I at the UN will mark the first International Day for Countering Hate Speech. We are asking people everywhere to join us via our online #notohate campaign and raise their voices for peace and cohesion. To not just say never again, but to be part of ensuring again never happens.

Never Again? How ‘the strong word kills you’ was originally published in We The Peoples on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Days ago, Buffalo was just another city. Then, in one murderous afternoon, it joined Christchurch, Charleston, and El Paso on the list of places synonymous with hate crimes. That the list keeps growing is testament to our failure to tackle hate speech. We must act now, before the next atrocity.

Hate speech — hostile words or speech promoting intolerance — is as old as hate itself. But since the advent of the internet, it has found a potent amplifier. Chat forums, including on the dark web, are powerful tools for those seeking to infect minds with hate and incite them to violence.

This, investigators believe, was the process behind the Buffalo shooting, an attack UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has called a “vile act of racist violent extremism.” Posts linked by police to the 18-year-old suspect suggest that he radicalized himself with hateful content he found online.

The suspect is believed to have plotted for months, spending hours on forums where racist language is widespread. There, in chat rooms, he first stumbled across white supremacist conspiracy theories and hate-filled terrorist manifestos. There, in chat rooms, he formed his plan to kill black people.

Emboldened, he wrote openly about his intentions, discussed tactics and weapons with other users, and meticulously documented his preparations. He even planned to inspire others to follow in his footsteps. On streaming sites, he weighed up how to maximize an audience for a live massacre.

This was no lone wolf. The suspect was engaged in a community. Platforms that connect the like-minded across borders and time zones are in themselves no bad thing. But when they legitimize the beliefs and actions of violent racists, they present an urgent problem. That demands a response.

We can’t afford to let this continue. The platforms share some of the blame for allowing this hate to proliferate. Those who preside over sites where such content is shared must be held responsible for monitoring it, just as live streaming sites must respond immediately to stop violent broadcasts.

We know that the platforms are abjectly failing to hold back the tide of online hate. One recent report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate found that social media companies were collectively failing to act on 89% of posts promoting white supremacist conspiracy theories.

That’s not to say we can place the sole onus on the platforms. Uncomfortable though it is, the truth is that the poison has already spread far and wide. The kind of language that inspired the Buffalo attack is now just as present on prime-time television as it is on the darker corners of the web.

Allowing hate to dominate in this way is extremely risky. We must wake up to the reality of millions of minds being fed distorted, hateful, and racist ideas and of what we will lose if we give in to those seeking power by instilling fear of the other. If hate is a poison, we urgently need an antidote.

Moderating hate speech at source is one tactic. But we need wider strategies to win this battle. We must get better at debunking hate and elevating the alternative, whether that means tweaking algorithms or speaking up in editorial meetings, on online forums and in face-to-face conversations.

At the United Nations we are urgently seeking strategies to tackle hate head on. Launched in 2020, our Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech lays out guidance to address the root causes and drivers of hate speech, and to empower people to recognize, reject and stand against it.

Building a better response must be our urgent priority. We can no longer tolerate such flagrant touting of racist ideas. It’s time for communicators and leaders to wrest back the megaphones, stand up to hate, and find better ways of spreading messages of peace and social cohesion.

Hateful people will always exist. But we can deny them the mass tools to infect other minds and incite violent acts. When our values are being put to the test, inaction is no longer an option. Failure to act will only breed more division, more victims, and more place names on that shameful list.

Tackle hate speech, before the next Buffalo was originally published in We The Peoples on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Time is slipping away from us. There is no doubt the world must act now to avoid catastrophic ecological collapse. But climate action is being undermined by bad actors seeking to deflect, distract, and deny efforts to save the planet. Disinformation, spread via social media, is their weapon of choice.

Recent floods, droughts, wildfires and heat waves have made it harder deny the existence of climate change outright. So peddlers of climate disinformation have turned to other methods to delay efforts to decarbonize the global economy. And their tactics are growing increasingly sophisticated.

One recent example saw several climate scientists say they were tricked into taking part in online conferences hosted by a group that denies human activity is to blame for climate change. Offering “the truth,” the group describes the climate crisis as the “CO2 fraud” and the “scam of the century.”

The group, which reportedly has links to conspiracists, engages high-profile speakers to address its events. Some guests later told the BBC their words had been manipulated, taken out of context, or that they hadn’t been made aware of the group’s views. The organization denies any wrongdoing.

These underhand tactics are by no means unique. Those with a vested interest in keeping us hooked on fossil fuels are spending huge sums on think tanks and influencer campaigns to sow doubt about climate science, spreading everything from distorted stories to conspiracy theories and outright lies.

Analysis by our partner, First Draft News, shows that climate disinformation is being shared widely on a range of platforms. From vicious attacks on activists, to divisive content intended to confuse and deflect attention, campaigns all seek the same outcome: a deadly delay in climate action.

Much of this content comes from just a few sources. A recent report by non-profit Center for Countering Digital Hate found that 10 publishers are behind 69% of all climate change denial content on Facebook. Ad revenue, the report added, even makes these lies a lucrative outlet for these firms.

Renewable energy is a clear target of these campaigns, which seek to muddy the water, undermine consensus, and sow division. Similar tactics were pursued by big tobacco while suppressing findings which linked smoking and cancer. The internet has only supercharged their reach.

And the fossil fuel lobby is using every trick in the book. A 2021 report found that bots deployed on social media were generating and amplifying lies, automatically joining and dominating online conversations. The content is then shared by users unaware they are spreading misinformation.

Recent studies show these tactics work. The latest UN IPCC report was the first ever to call out climate disinformation, stating that a “deliberate undermining of science” was contributing to “misperceptions of the scientific consensus, uncertainty, disregarded risk and urgency, and dissent.”

And all the while, time is running out. The science is crystal clear: the world must cut global emissions by 45 percent this decade to keep the 1.5°C limit agreed in Paris within grasp. We need everyone on board if we’re going to make it. That’s why climate disinformation is so dangerous.

We know there are no silver bullets to tackle this. We must do better at holding those intentionally spreading harmful lies to account, and push for better enforcement of Google, YouTube and Meta and Twitter’s pledges to ban or flag climate disinformation. But taking down lies is only half the battle.

Our focus must equally be on raising awareness. My team and I at the United Nations have been working with social impact agency Purpose on ways to fight back against disinformation, encourage conscious sharing, and flood feeds with reliable, accurate information in shareable nuggets.

Communicators can help audiences spot false content and the tell-tale signs of disinformation. Every person with the skills to call out fake experts, conspiracies, and massaged facts is one fewer to fall for the old tactics of deflect, distract, and deny. One thing is clear. There can be no more delay.

Rampant climate disinformation online is distorting dangers, delaying climate action was originally published in We The Peoples on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Today we celebrate World Press Freedom Day. It’s a cause close to my own heart, given my background in journalism and career devoted to communications. Despite progress, journalists continue to face a multitude of threats, including censorship, intimidation, and physical attacks.

Many work in the fog of wars, and they risk their lives to uncover the truth.

Practicing journalism is made all the harder by our increasingly polluted information environment. Whether it’s COVID, the climate emergency or the war in Ukraine, bad actors exploit demand for information, reaching millions of people with false, misleading, or distorted content.

Some of these disinformation actors aim to create confusion and a state of information paralysis. Others are just exploiting public sympathies for financial gain. This barrage of lies aimed at warping our understanding makes it even harder for journalists to unearth and unveil the truth.

Nearly all journalists surveyed by PEN America recently said disinformation has a deep impact on their work. About half of the respondents felt frustrated or overwhelmed, while more than 40% felt they had lost the trust of a portion of their audience.

Shockingly, three out of five journalists surveyed said they had been threatened, harassed, trolled or catfished during their work, or were so concerned for their personal safety they followed security precautions on a daily basis. Women in particular are being targeted online and silenced.

Disinformation exacerbates society’s worst problems. It erodes trust, distorts public debate, and undermines our notions of objectivity and truth. It impoverishes the media landscape, making it less diverse. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called it “an existential risk to humanity.”

The problem is more severe in the digital realm. Digital platforms have proven themselves invaluable tools in our lives. They connect us when we are forced to distance, and they bring us close to events as they unfold in real time. They are the medium of information for most anyone who wants express views.

‘Citizen journalists’ can be a critical resource when they bear witness in places where media is missing. But is the journalists who deliver not just the view from the ground, but the wider context and the credibility of a trusted media outlet. They are an antidote to disinformation and hold people in power accountable.

So, on this World Press Freedom Day, I’d like to express my solidarity with journalists and media workers everywhere. Let’s never forget the sacrifices they make, day in, day out to deliver accurate and transparent information about the world we live in. We need them now more than ever.

Well, I dodged it for two years, but COVID finally got me. My three vaccine doses and a course of anti-viral drugs have kept me out of danger, making me one of the lucky ones. But it felt like anything but mild. For me, it’s a wakeup call: We all want to move on, but COVID isn’t done with us.

I was shocked how powerfully it hit me. My symptoms, which first developed the weekend before Easter, have ranged from crippling fatigue to a severe headache, muscle aches, and a cough that wouldn’t let me sleep. And that’s not to mention the psychological hit.

I’ll admit it’s been a scary experience. All the old fears from the early pandemic have reared their ugly heads. Apart from death, it’s always been long COVID that scares me most. Hearing accounts from a colleague who suffers brain fog and has only half his previous energy levels, my daughter’s friend with high blood pressure and smokers lungs, and countless other accounts of people suffering from lasting debilitating after effects fills me with dread.

But my biggest initial worry was infecting others. My UN colleagues — all the way up to the Secretary General, with whom I always mask up — are thankfully all negative. I wore a mask at home once I tested positive but passed it on to my husband before I knew I had it. I also gave it to my son. Both developed hefty symptoms too.

Getting COVID now caught me off guard. Things had almost seemed back to normal at the UN headquarters. The vast halls filled with determined diplomats, the small talk in the lines for the reopened coffee bar, the return of in-person meetings — masks optional. The Russian invasion of Ukraine dominated discourse — the war is the UN’s new global crisis. COVID-19 seemed to be fading into the past.

Meanwhile, it felt like the whole of New York has been reawakening with the arrival of spring. Maskless faces have appeared in the streets, revealing facial expressions after years of lost nuance. Social life has returned, and with them invitations — a dinner here, a reception there. We no longer had to flash our vaccination status to enter restaurants.

But all this time COVID hadn’t gone away. It was always there, stalking the periphery, waiting to pounce. In recent days the city’s rising caseload had me worrying. The surging, highly contagious Omicron subvariant, BA.2 was seeking out people like me — the cautious so-far uninfected. More and more of my contacts were positive. I’d work out when I last saw them, wonder when my turn would come. Then, at last, it did.

Let me be clear, I don’t think the answer is to stay locked down forever. The presence of the vaccines and the anti-viral drugs for the at-risk have taken the sting out of COVID for most. But it is still dangerous for the many unvaccinated — by choice or not — and for those with existing conditions.

One third of the world’s population has not received a single dose, including an eyewatering 83% of Africans. It is utterly shameful when wealthy countries are so awash with doses. The new antiviral drugs on the market are free for people with prescriptions in New York City, but unavailable or unaffordable to most parts of the world and for those who need them most. I find it just as hard to fathom why so many refuse to protect themselves, risking their lives due to conspiracy theories.

The pandemic isn’t over. How can it be when so many are dying every single day? I see some of their faces on my Twitter feed. Many of the victims are young, their whole lives ahead of them. They leave behind countless more whose lives have been blown apart by tragedy. How can they move on?

We’re all desperate to start a more hopeful chapter. But getting COVID at this moment brought home just how much pain and loss the pandemic has caused. Those who’ve so far escaped tragedy must acknowledge the grief of those who have lost loved ones. One million people are being mourned in the U.S. alone. We must be patient, for their sakes.

This is a difficult moment. We can’t hide forever, and thanks to science, if you’re fully protected, you’re now unlikely to end up in hospital. But take it from me, COVID is no common cold. So, stay vigilant, if not for yourself, then for the vulnerable. Every death is a tragedy. Many can be prevented.

Sickening violence against innocent civilians in Ukraine has shocked the world and left many feeling helpless. But there are many ways we can help Ukrainians. Online especially, we can hinder the spread of harmful lies.

Disinformation monitors say fake and misleading content about Ukraine is flooding the online sphere. A range of bad actors are exploiting the huge demand for news about the war, circulating old and misleading content to warp our understanding of events. They are getting millions of views. Disinformation actors aim to create confusion about perpetrators and a state of information paralysis. Scammers are exploiting public sympathy for financial gain or even worse, taking advantage of vulnerable refugees.

Videos are particularly affected. Clips of past conflicts and even computer games are being passed off as on-the-ground reporting, often appearing alongside appeals for donations. In one case, a video filmed in Palestine in 2012 claimed to show a girl confronting soldiers in Ukraine.

In this polluted information environment, even the smallest actions by online users can have massive impacts. Sharing or commenting on a distorted content, even in good faith, can lend credibility and add to the tsunami of misinformation about Ukraine.

Social media platforms are taking steps to block or flag fake posts and their creators, but harmful, outlandish content is still breaking through. As individuals, there are some simple steps we can take ourselves to stop false information and conspiracies in their tracks.

First and most importantly, we can learn to recognize the tell-tale signs of disinformation. If something looks odd, we can take a moment to verify content before passing it on to others. It’s really that simple.

But recognizing false content can be harder in the heat of the moment. Often, fakes go viral because they trigger our deepest emotions — anger, fear, compassion. Most of us know we can’t believe everything we see online, but if a post gets us worked up, we might share it without checking whether it’s true.

Disinformation about Ukraine is everywhere. That’s why it’s important to keep a cool head online. So, next time you’re about to react to or share some urgent-seeming update, stop. Take a breath and ask yourself these simple questions. If any content seems at all suspicious, don’t share it.

1. Who says?

Take a very close look at the account that shared the post. Read their profile, search for their name online. Can you find any evidence that this person is qualified to share information about the situation in Ukraine? Are they a trusted expert on the region, or a news reporter on the ground? Or are they just another user — celebrity or not — sharing emotive content? If a friend or trusted contact shared the content, still check the original source. Be aware of bots — often very new accounts with few followers, or parody and other fake accounts. Though not a catch-all for disinformation spreaders, a blue tick beside the name means the user’s identity has been verified.

2. What do they say?

Disinformation is cynically designed to reach a wide audience. One warning sign is if a post seems too desperate, using too many hashtags or throwing in unrelated trending keywords. Look at the language. Does it seem emotive, hysterical even? Are there sections in all caps, are there exclamation marks? If so, alarm bells should be ringing. Keep asking yourself, what is the poster trying to get you to do? Make sure you can identify the time and place a video or photograph was taken, ensuring the narrative aligns with the facts. Using Google’s reverse image search can show if the image is actually from another context; YouTube Data Viewer can do the same for videos.

If someone is asking for donations, be especially careful. The war in Ukraine is generating millions in humanitarian funding from the public, but also creating opportunities for scammers. To avoid scams, be sure to donate only to recognized organizations before you part with any money.

3. Do sources agree?

Does the post author name a reliable source for the information? If they don’t, consider asking them for one. If they can’t verify the information, they may take it down. Do your own search online. Are there lots of news articles about what you are seeing? Seek out and cross check the information against reputable news sources. Many media outlets now have dedicated fact-check teams, including Reuters, The Associated Press, BBC, and Agence France-Presse. See if they have already debunked the content as a fake. With images, look out for missing date or geographical information. Consider double checking the source using Google’s image search function.

In this information war, we can all be online peacekeepers. By taking a breath before sharing on social media, and also encouraging others to pause, we can allow the facts to dominate in the fog of war.

Check out the following guides for more in-depth advice on how to spot and stop lies.

Our addiction to fossil fuels is risking nothing less than life on earth. As if that wasn’t enough, our reliance on coal, oil and gas undermines our ability to stand up to aggressive regimes. With prices soaring, these dangerous fuels aren’t even cheap. We already have a way out — it’s time we took it.

Switching to clean energy was always sensible. Now it’s a no-brainer. Renewable power generated by the sun and wind doesn’t emit harmful greenhouse gases that cause global warming. It also frees nations of relying on foreign fuel imports. And, after initial investments, the costs are low.

We know the stakes couldn’t be higher. The climate emergency is already here. Our planet has already warmed by around 1.2 degrees, and the devastating effects are everywhere. Climate disasters forced 30 million people to flee their homes in 2020 — three times more than the number displaced by war and violence.

There is much worse to come if we fail to limit warming to within 1.5 degrees. This week, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued the world with a final warning, with the world’s top climate scientists saying we must act “now or never” to secure a liveable future on the planet.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said that “litany of broken promises” had put the world on a “fast track to climate disaster” — a planet ravaged by unbearable heat, rising seas, deadly storms, water shortages, and mass extinction. The science is clear, he added, we are “sleepwalking into climate catastrophe.”

But we are distracted. Just as we reach this critical juncture, multiple geopolitical shocks are undermining our resolve to tackle emissions. Russia’s war in Ukraine has caused turmoil on global energy markets, sending major economies scrambling to replace gas as prices soar and threats are made over supply.

The crisis has seen many nations backtracking in the wrong direction, falling back on coal — the most polluting of all fossil fuels — to meet energy needs. This quick and dirty fix is driving global energy-related carbon emissions to record highs, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

We can’t afford this misstep. Our window of opportunity to stave off the worst outcomes is closing. The 1.5 degree goal remains just within our grasp. Reverting to coal is tantamount to abandoning it. It’s not too late, but we must act now. And we really have our work cut out.

On current commitments, carbon emissions are projected to climb by almost 14% this decade, with most of that down to coal burning. Governments are reneging on pledges, even as the world hurtles towards tipping points that could trigger cascading and permanent damage to our only home.

The IPCC says global temperatures will stabilise when carbon emissions reach net zero. To keep 1.5 alive, emissions must fall by 45% by 2030, and we must achieve carbon neutrality by mid-century. If we triple the speed of the energy transition, and shift investments from dirty fuels to clean, we still have a chance.

The UN has been resolute in calling for change. We have no choice but to urgently phase out coal and massively increase investment in renewables. We must come together to do so, with a global coalition of wealthier countries and global finance helping nations make the switch to clean energy.

Going green makes economic sense too. The cost of renewables have plummeted, making solar now the cheapest electricity source in history. And the benefits don’t end there. A recent US study suggested renewables could help avoid blackouts, create millions of jobs, and improve public health.

One thing is clear from recent events. Our addiction to fossil fuels makes us more vulnerable to geopolitical shocks. The IEA says there will be more turbulence to come unless we fix the broken global energy mix. The current crises must drive us forward into a carbon free future.

The case for renewables has never been stronger. They can help secure our energy supply, free us from our dependence on aggressors, and protect economies from global shocks. We have the power to regain control. We have the power to secure the future of life on earth. The time to do so is now.

Time to ditch our dirtiest addiction was originally published in We The Peoples on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.