Remote sensing image evidence and social media communication essential to withstand the growing power of climate change sceptics

Earth is experiencing great change and great uncertainty presently, not only its climate and environment, but its people, politics and conflict. Environmental agendas are tumbling down the order of priorities, as self-interest, colonialism and isolationism rise to the surface. There is a grave danger that the sceptic lobby will seize the opportunity to overturn decades of environmental progress and steer us back to fossil fuel addiction.

To counter this, we need simple, understandable and convincing evidence of environmental change, and effective communication of this evidence to citizens around the world. We have the evidence – our 50+ year archive of civilian remote sensing imagery, starting with Landsat, but multiplying into numerous missions, technologies and formats of data. The environment is changing; it’s hard to argue with a perfectly painted picture.

The challenge now is to get this evidence to the people who matter, starting with the general public, who can apply pressure to legislators and businesses. The evidence must not only be academic papers and IPCC reports, which might well yield zero or even negative responses. The expert remote sensing community must now, like a map, simplify the problem and deliver intuitive images of environmental change and the threats that lie ahead. And we must go beyond our traditional academic channels and exploit, and respond nimbly to, the changing media landscape. Problems with leading social media apps are well known; there are plenty of alternatives, currently BlueSky, Mastodon, Reddit…