We are experiencing a climate and information crisis. The digital information landscape is fast becoming a toxic wasteland. The distortion of knowledge is accelerating polarisation, radicalisation, and confusion — endangering our ability to respond to climate change. The question is, what can we do?
The RePlaybook gathers insights from 30 organisations and practitioners at the forefront of the response. From attention-sucking algorithms to AI-generated slop, it explores how our information environment is shaping and influencing opinion on climate and offers strategies to decode disorder, challenge tech paradigms, and counteract division.
This collaborative guide combines thought leadership and practical approaches. It equips communicators, campaigners, journalists, and researchers with fresh
tools for navigating complexity and strengthening climate discourse in an age of cultural divides and contested truth.
The RePlaybook, A Field Guide to the Climate and Information Crisis Cover.
Sample of The RePlaybook, A Field Guide to the Climate and Information Crisis.
“I warmly welcome The RePlaybook and its effective, creative, and hopeful ways to tackle the climate and information crisis…The approaches throughout The RePlaybook ultimately support hope and agency, which are indispensable for co-developing meaningful and fair climate solutions to the benefit of present and future generations.”Elisa Morgera, UN Special Rapporteur on Climate and Human Rights
Replaybook Foreword
I warmly welcome The RePlaybook and its effective, creative, and hopeful ways to tackle the climate and information crisis. I celebrate the research, innovations, skills, tools, alliances, and mindsets that are offered here. The 30 chapters that make up the book decode, challenge, and counteract patterns of online behaviour that influence public opinion for profit-making purposes — at the expense of protecting everyone’s human rights in the context of climate change.
COUNTERACT DIVIDED DISCOURSE
Counteracting the divided discourse we are faced with is essential, as we get better at decoding the problem. And, while we wait for technology systems to change, we have to break through the noise, stand up and support strong, resilient actions, and light the path to a better future.
“This is disordered discourse: a system where truth is irrelevant, facts are flexible, and conspiracy becomes common sense. If we are to fight for climate action, we must also fight for a shared reality.”Eliot Higgins, Bellingcat
“Climate misinformation thrives on speed, confusion, and emotional manipulation. Real-time monitoring uses speed and ongoing awareness in digital spaces to neutralise false narratives at the source.”Maria Amelie & Max Voievoda, Factiverse
CHALLENGE TECH PARADIGMS
This section gets at the base of the current problem, building critical digital
literacy, fluency, increasing agency, and demanding accountability, in order to shift the system that facilitates the problems we face.
Featuring contributions from authors such as Adrienne Russell from the University of Washington, Carlos Hernández-Echevarría from Maldita.es, Abbie Richards from Media Matters, Sean Buchan & Dana Schran from CAAD, and Marek Tuszynski from Tactical Tech, the section provides practical tactics, among others, on how to:
- use of AI to analyze climate discourse
- use open-source intelligence to trace dis/misinformation supply chains
- use AI to do real-time monitoring of climate disinformation at moments of crisis
- map and reverse engineer digital advertising on climate
“This is disordered discourse: a system where truth is irrelevant, facts are flexible, and conspiracy becomes common sense. If we are to fight for climate action, we must also fight for a shared reality.”Eliot Higgins, Bellingcat
COUNTERACT DIVIDED DISCOURSE
Counteracting the divided discourse we are faced with is essential, as we get better at decoding the problem. And, while we wait for technology systems to change, we have to break through the noise, stand up and support strong, resilient actions, and light the path to a better future.
