Climate Anxiety and the Objectivity Crisis
Published February 28, 2025
Despite remarkable environmental improvements in air quality, water pollution, and biodiversity, widespread pessimism persists about our planet's future. This disconnect may stem from environmental researcher that increasingly uses subjective, alarmist, and otherwise biased language that gets more citations and attention than objective analysis. Scientific objectivity in environmental communication must be restored to ensure policies are guided by evidence rather than emotion.
Dominic (Nick) Parker is the Ilene and Morton Harris Senior Fellow (adjunct) at the Hoover Institution and serves editorial roles at three leading journals on environmental economics. Parker joins Hoover senior fellow Terry Anderson in directing Hoover projects on Renewing Indigenous Economies and Markets vs. Mandates, which analyzes incentives for improving environmental quality.
Check out more from Dominic Parker:
- Watch "Markets vs. Mandates" from Dominic Parker & Terry Anderson here.
- Watch "Environmental Science vs. Environmental Advocacy" from Dominic Parker as part of the Hoover Institution's Summer Policy Boot Camp here.
- Read "The Creation and Extent of America's First Environmental Agencies" from Dominic Parker and Dean Lueck here.
The opinions expressed in this video are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Hoover Institution or Stanford University. © 2025 by the Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University.
>> Dominic Parker: Despite many reasons to be optimistic about the future of our environment, a recent study reports that 75% of young adults find the future frightening due to climate concerns. 45% of that same group reported that climate anxiety negatively impacts their day-to-day lives. Where does this pervasive pessimism about our environment come from?
In fact, the United States and other countries have made great strides when it comes to air pollution, water quality, biodiversity, and even climate mortality. Since the 1960s, sulfur dioxide emissions in the US dropped from 30 million tons to 2 million tons annually. The percentage of rivers considered too polluted to fish improved from 40% to 15.
Endangered species like bald eagles, and gray wolves have made remarkable comebacks. Even the California Condor has returned to the skies after nearly a century long absence. And globally, climate related deaths resulting from hurricanes, floods, and other disasters have declined over the past 100 years. So why the disconnect?
Why do we see such widespread environmental pessimism in the face of measurable progress? The answer may lie in how environmental information is communicated. A troubling pattern has emerged over the past 30 years. Environmental science research papers consistently use more subjective language than non environmental papers. This subjectivity manifests in three specific through personal feelings, or biased language, using words like alarming, through unclear metrics, using words like massive, and through normative policy prescriptions with phrases like urgent action is needed.
My ongoing research suggests this tendency towards subjectivity is rewarded. Articles using more subjective language receive more citations than articles that don't. The boost from doubling subjective language is equivalent to the boost from doubling a researcher's experience. In other words, subjectivity appears to be worth as much as the scientist's experience in his or her field.
This suggests that environmental science is operating within a system that rewards language linked to emotion, to advocacy, and to activism as much as it rewards experience conducting science. Such a system can erode public trust in science, and ultimately can lead to misguided policies. In today's world, researchers often face pressure from journals, media, and even financial backers to emphasize punchy, and dramatic narratives over objective analysis.
Even the academic publish or perish model can encourage advocacy that might be subtle, imperceptible, or unintentional. To the scientists using subjective language, a new technology may offer a way out. My research team is developing machine learning tools that detect and measure subjective language in scientific papers. These tools could help journal editors maintain higher standards of objectivity and allow for systematic auditing of scientific communication.
Scientific objectivity is vital for effective policymaking, especially if we are to learn the best ways to promote a healthy environment. When science the communication of it becomes conflated with advocacy, the chance that well-meaning policymakers make decisions based on emotion instead of evidence increases. The stakes are high because environmental policies can cost trillions and have legacies spanning generations.
Objective analysis helps us recognize, and competently address problems like air pollution that pessimists of previous generations thought were intractable. We need similar clarity to rightly tackle new and emotionally charged environmental concerns in the 21st century. If we don't prioritize objectivity, we risk misallocation of resources by overemphasizing certain problems while overlooking others.
We risk further eroding public trust in scientific institutions that would make it harder to use discipline, and prudence when prioritizing and addressing environmental challenges. We also risk a self reinforcing cycle where pessimism drives alarmist communication, which in turn breeds more pessimism. The path forward requires a return to fundamental scientific principles.
Science advances through the disciplined focus on proposing falsifiable claims that can be tested and potentially rejected, not through subjective statements that can never be proven or disproven. The good news is that large language models can be used to identify and promote objectivity and scientific communication. This tool could help ensure environmental policy is guided by evidence rather than emotion, leading to better outcomes and a more optimistic outlook for our planet.