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If you’re a climate change denier, you’re an idiot.
If that sentence made you feel defensive, angry or compelled to keep reading – congratulations, we just rage baited you! That reflexive response isn’t accidental; it’s the operating model of one of the fastest-growing corners of modern media.
Rage bait is deliberately designed to provoke outrage, fear or moral superiority to drive engagement. It doesn’t exist to inform — it exists to spread. The phenomenon is so popular that it was Oxford’s 2025 word of the year.
And unfortunately, sustainability and climate change content has become chock-full of this internet equivalent to bubble gum. That’s because sustainability is fertile ground for oversimplified claims like “ESG is dead” or “electric vehicles are worse for the planet.” The industry sits at the intersection of complex data, long-term goals, political identity and close-to-the-heart values, which makes it ripe for emotional and reflexive reaction rather than thoughtful, reasoned discussion.
And as the outright denial of anthropogenic climate change has become more difficult to defend, the age of “new denial” arguments has continued to undermine the work of undermining climate science and solutions. Such claims now account for 70 percent of all climate denial content on YouTube, doubling over the course of six years.
The formula
The rage bait formula is simple: make an exaggerated, loud and unsubstantiated assertion, remove relevant context, overstate the implications and present it as fact. Often these statements contain fragments of truth that are borderline defensible, presented as a conclusion aligned with someone’s preferred predetermined outcome. According to a recent Stanford piece, generative AI tools make rage bait easier and faster to produce.
A report published by Global Witness found that climate misinformation and disinformation spread unchecked on TikTok during COP29, mostly in user comments on videos such as climate change “isn’t real,” is a “hoax” or is a “made-up lie.” These comments, which largely went unchecked, were made on the channels of major news organizations, whose videos have collectively received more than 3 million views (as of the report).
Rage bait can also be more subtle, highlighting a tactic known as “feigned ignorance,” which is commonly deployed in climate change denial posts — like posting a snowy scene with the caption “proof that climate change doesn’t exist.” That said, under the current administration, climate-related rage bait is less subtle and not hidden from view as demonstrated by the president in a post on Truth Social in advance of the recent Winter storms:
“Record Cold Wave expected to hit 40 States. Rarely seen anything like it before. Could the Environmental Insurrectionists please explain — WHATEVER HAPPENED TO GLOBAL WARMING???”
Regardless of the format, the rage bait problem is growing exponentially based on how people consume news today. According to Pew Research Center, about one in five U.S. adults, and 37 percent of adults under 30 regularly get news from social media influencers.