This is Edition #4 of The Climate Laundry. Please subscribe if you’d like to read more, and please consider becoming a paid subscriber if you’re able to support my work.

Wanjiku “Wawa” Gatheru is something of a phenomenon. The first ever Black person to achieve the Rhodes, Truman and Udall scholarships, she is the founder of Black Girl Environmentalist, a non-profit organisation focused on empowering Black girls, women and non-binary people to join the climate movement. Gatheru graduated from Oxford in 2021 with an MSc in environmental governance, and has since won a host of awards and plaudits from institutions ranging from Harvard to Vogue.

When I interviewed Gatheru for a Forbes feature about social media giant Meta and its apparent suppression of climate content, she raised far more valuable points about climate justice than I could fit into one article. Here, then, is the full text of our conversation.

Dave Vetter: Wawa, I’ve seen you speak on plenty of subjects, but as a campaigner who uses social media to get her message out, I wanted to hear your views on the behaviour of these platforms. What was your initial response when you learned that Meta was intentionally limiting political—and potentially climate—content?

Wawa Gatheru: I wasn’t surprised. The experience I’ve had and that my friends have had is that when we start posting content that might be seen as political, or is explicitly political, we see a drastic decline in the folks that are seeing it. So finding that Meta has, behind our backs, been making political content less accessible on our feed was just proving what we all kind of already knew. And we’ve seen trends like that happen on other social media platforms. So it’s disappointing but not at all a surprise.

DV: Right. So what’s your understanding of their reasoning for doing this? Why have they taken this route?

WG: There’re always arguments about misinformation and what the role of Meta or any other platform should be around the information on their platforms. Ultimately, I think it's a cop-out. And I think this is particularly insidious, given that this year is one of the most important years for democracy around the world. We’ll have more elections this year than any year of the past few decades. [Time magazine notes that more voters will head to the polls this year than in any other year in history, with 64 countries holding national elections.]

The fact that Meta, which is holding so many platforms in their palm, which people are utilising to not only connect with one another but also to get information … the timing is very concerning to me.

DV: How exactly has your own engagement being impacted by Meta’s politics policy?

WG: Instagram is an app that prioritises face-forward content—so if you have a story that shows your face, you're going to see a spike in views. But I have seen when I post things that are interpreted as political, including climate information, there is a drastic dip in views. One might assume that that might have something to do with audiences and viewers being more interested in certain content. But if the numbers are declining so drastically, every single time, is the viewership even getting a chance to view that information?

DV: What, to you, could be the most significant consequences of this policy, and what do you worry about the most?

WG: I mean, there’s a number of things that I think we have to be really worried about. My attention is often on climate justice campaigns that are using social media and digital landscapes to accelerate on-the-ground campaigns. We saw this happen with the Willow project. [Willow refers to an Alaskan oil pipeline approved by the Biden administration. A Tiktok campaign to stop the project went viral, attracting the support of millions of mainly young people around the world.]

In a matter of weeks, [Willow] went from a campaign that even in the climate community wasn't at the top of folks' priority, let alone known by the grander movement, to a conversation that was being had on every major media platform in the country, and arguably the world—and that was because of social media. That was because of young people utilising social media, particularly Tiktok, and being able to amass millions and millions of views in a matter of hours.

“… the climate crisis is obviously an ecological crisis, but it’s also a narrative crisis. I think that we as everyday people are not equipped with the tools to be able to really connect the dots with how climate informs everything—whether it's creating new issues or exacerbating existing social ills.”

When we think about the ways in which these platforms can really connect people to issues that require urgent attention, one of the things that comes to mind is the recent success that we've seen in Louisiana's Gulf Coast. It was a coalition of local activists, most of the leaders being Black women. They were able to cultivate enough pushback on the Biden Administration for Biden to announce a pause on all LNG permit applications. [The success of the drive to stop new liquified natural gas facilities from being built on Louisiana’s Gulf Coast has been hailed as a milestone climate victory. ]

That push obviously had a lot to do with on-the-ground organising, but also the ways in which that campaign was able to spread within the climate movement and beyond using Instagram Reels, and using Meta's tools to communicate. And it's very frustrating to think about how there is no future for that [the pause in LNG exports] if the Biden Administration does not win the election in November. If there’s information that grassroots campaigners want to communicate outwards, it is very scary to think that audiences who might be swayed may not be able to access it.

DV: So has social media been a way of reducing power distance to be able to get your message out there?

WG: There are so many different examples of that. I've seen different campaigns that have gone viral because of Tiktok, because of Meta, because of [Instagram] Reels, and I think that could definitely hamper the future of climate campaigning.

DV: So if Meta’s policy disadvantages campaigners, who do you think it benefits?

If we're not talking from the point of view of someone like myself, who is very invested in climate justice and understands that information, everyday people might not be as up close and personal with climate justice concerns. I think that ultimately benefits the fossil fuel industry. For example, if more people don't know about the fact that the build-out of LNG exports [in the US] is currently the single largest [fossil fuel] expansion in the world, that benefits the industry and the corporations that are attempting to build them.

When you think about the Gulf Coast, I really do believe that that region is so critical for the success of climate justice. Think about the Gulf, the petrochemical corridor, Cancer Alley, and the ways in which the community has been hampered and abused by the fossil fuel industry. And the blind eye that our government has had for the experiences of these communities. [The petrochemical corridor is an 85-mile stretch of industry in Louisiana where a fifth of America’s petrochemicals are produced. It’s also know as Cancer Alley, because the predominantly Black residents have a 95% higher chance than the national average of developing cancer.]

Ultimately, campaigners have every right to be able to share their experiences through a [an Instagram] Reel. There's been organisers like Roishetta Ozane [founder of the Vessel Project of Louisiana] who is a very prominent activist from the Gulf Coast who makes tons of videos on Instagram where she is showcasing the actual industry in her backyard; she will position her phone so you can see those facilities, and it's a visceral reminder that these infrastructure projects have impacts that are felt by people. You can see it, you can feel it, you can experience the soot in your throat. When you're able to get first-hand experience from someone who's going through that every day and see through their eyes, that can sway people, and that's why these platforms are so critical.

DV: You’ll have seen climate researchers like Katharine Hayhoe say that Meta is classifying climate content as political, and therefore it’s being limited. Then, on the one hand, you’ve got critics saying “everything is political, therefore it’s ludicrous for Meta to try to limit political content”, while on the other hand some people suggest that Meta ought to reclassify climate change not as political content but as science-based content, to ensure it gets out there. What are your thoughts on that?

WG: I'd honestly have to defer to the first argument. Like if you come from a sociological perspective, everything is political, right? Science is political. The role of the researcher and the question in the scientific method inherently requires bias, right?

So whatever Meta is parsing out as political or not has a bias, and choosing to limit political content is inherently political in and of itself. I think on the question of whether or not climate information should be labelled as science ... well, on Tiktok, for example, they have a “STEM” feed and then they have “For you”, and other ways for you to sort out the type of content you want to see, but I don’t see a lot of climate on there.

One of the reasons why I started making content online was because every time I was seeing climate content, a lot of it was misinformation. Now, do I believe that Meta would be able to parse climate content that is misinformation? Do I trust meta as an institution to do that now? No.

DV: In journalism we say that every story is a climate story. So if everything is political, everything is also climate, right?

GW: I agree with you. I mean that's ultimately why, and I've said this many times, the climate crisis is obviously an ecological crisis, but it’s also a narrative crisis. I think that we as everyday people are not equipped with the tools to be able to really connect the dots with how climate informs everything—whether it's creating new issues or exacerbating existing social ills. And I think that's why we need journalists, content creators, influencers, climate activists, whoever it might be, to connect the dots for everyday people.

“We have entire environmental justice curriculums being taken from universities and schools in the United States right now, so it leaves the question of where exactly are people supposed to be educated?”

So the argument someone might have is “okay, why don't you just leave Meta; leave these social media platforms”. But when we look at where people are going for their information, and when we think about the urgency of the climate crisis and how important it is for people to have more insight into, for example, how heat can intensify violence in the summer; how it can impact the health of pregnant women and intensify the Black maternal health crisis … these are connections that everyday people may not be informed enough to make. And I believe that we deserve access to the people that can make these connections, because our school system certainly isn't going to be the one that's going to be sharing this information with us. We have entire environmental justice curriculums being taken from universities and schools in the United States right now, so it leaves the question of where exactly are people supposed to be educated?

At the end of the day, I don't think Meta is the be-all-and-end-all; I don't think these digital platforms are the be-all-and-end-all. But if people aren't congregating on Meta, where are they congregating? People are still going to turn to the digital space, and then you get into the Dark Web and QAnon. And that’s scary to think about.

I don’t think what Meta is doing right now works in their own best interest. Long-term, people are becoming increasingly frustrated on their platforms, particularly on Threads, about the ways in which their information is being suppressed. So I do think that there is a rightful argument that the people who use these platforms should push back. Let them know that this is unacceptable. Ultimately they will have to listen. And at the same time, we must communicate amongst ourselves on what strategies we can employ to use these platforms for community building offline.

Thank you for taking the time to read The Climate Laundry, which is a reader-supported publication. If you like what you’ve read, and you have the means, please consider becoming a paid subscriber.

Elsewhere in climate news …

Please do check out my Forbes article on the Meta vs Kansas Reflector / climate content meltdown, starring the indomitable Marisa Kabas, politics researcher and author James Dennis, and Wawa Gatheru herself. Plus some not very helpful responses from Meta’s communications people. (Forbes)

Once you’ve done that, head on over and subscribe to The Handbasket, where Marisa Kabas slays giants, demons, and other enemies of humankind. Among her many notable achievements, Marisa was recently at least partly, if not mostly, responsible for preventing the fabulously ghoulish Ronna McDaniel from joining NBC, for which Luke Skywalker himself thanked her. (The Handbasket)

One of the biggest and best stories of the week is that the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the Swiss government had violated the human rights of its citizens by failing to do enough to combat climate change, in a case brought by more than 2,000 Swiss women. By making the ruling, the ECHR has set a precedent for climate litigation around the world. As Estelle Dehon KC told the BBC, the case “comprehensively dismisses the argument that courts cannot rule on climate legal obligations because climate change is a global phenomenon or because action by one state is just a 'drop in the ocean'.” (BBC)

On The Conversation, researcher Bill Laurance reveals the vast network of “ghost roads” that is enabling the further destruction of pristine rainforest. “When ghost roads appear, local deforestation soars – usually immediately after the roads are built,” Laurance writes. “No matter how one assesses them, roads are forest killers.” (The Conversation)

Heated brings the explosive news that the fossil fuel industry has bought 20 Republican state attorneys general in an attempt to squish the the first climate liability lawsuit against fossil fuel companies to be greenlit for trial. Arielle Samuelson and Emily Atkin show that RAGA, a group of attorneys funded by oil and gas, is petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to step in and stop the extremely significant City & County of Honolulu v. Sunoco LP case from moving forward. (Heated)

Carbon offsets salespeople are delighted with the decision of the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) to allow firms to use carbon credits to offset greenhouse gas emissions from their value chain—but pretty much everyone else is horrified, including the staff of the SBTi. As Reuters reported this week, SBTi personnel have called for the org’s CEO, Luiz Fernando do Amaral, to be removed from his position. Researchers and NGOs have also condemned the SBTi move, pointing out that vast swathes of the carbon offsets market are, at best, sketchy—and often entirely fake. (Reuters)

At The Climate Brink, proper science guy Andrew Dessler has posted a concise, useful summary of where humanity is at with nuclear power as a source of steady, non-fossil power generation. Online nuclear power discourse is generally quite silly, being dominated by either ideologically driven opponents, or financially driven grifters. This piece is from someone who isn’t either of those things, and is consequently refreshing and valuable. (The Climate Brink)

Hello again. As mentioned previously, The Climate Laundry is a reader-supported publication. To support it, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.