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.
“The information ecosystem is determining the solutions we get on climate, the decisions we make, and the future we are collectively building. By joining forces across sectors, we can build stronger solutions. This playbook is a guide to making that happen.”Stephanie Hankey, Tactical Tech-Editor of the RePlaybook
Foreword of The RePlaybook by Elisa Morgera, UN Special Rapporteur on climate change.
“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.”Elisa Morgera, UN Special Rapporteur on climate change
DECODE INFORMATION DISORDER
By better understanding the dynamics of climate discourse - the who, what, why and how, we can design sharper counter-tactics and collaborate across-disciplines on future strategies.
This section gives insights as well as practical tools and tips on how to build an evidence-base to inform your actions and develop future strategies. Featuring contributions from authors such as Eliot Higgins from Bellingcat, Joey Grostern from DeSmog, and Sam Jeffers from Who Targets Me, the section provides practical tactics, among others, on how to:
- Experiment with AI to analyze climate discourse
- Use open-source investigation techniques for tracing dis/misinformation supply chains
- 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
“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
We depend on digital systems to share, discuss and debate climate solutions, form our opinions and decide what to buy, how to vote and who to trust. But when the systems we depend on are making things worse, what can we do?
This section shares provocations on critical digital literacy, policy and regulation and making technological choices. 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:
- Understand the impact of gen-ai on climate information
- Navigate tiktoks algorithms when communicating on climate issues
- Work together to strengthen accountability and regulation
- Choose the right digital tools and experiment with independent infrastructures
“In a world where big tech’s decisions on AI are going to critically affect information acquisition for everyone, we need more information about how they make their choices, which information they look at when doing so, and which safeguards they put in place to ensure factual information about the climate is not sidelined by propaganda.”Carlos Hernández Echevarria, Maldita.es
“We have constructed a world in which engagement-based algorithms tell us what we want to hear, with nominal regard for reality. An information system designed to soothe our most primitive emotional needs will fail us during times of crisis – it already does.”Abbie Richards, Media Matters-Ecotok
COUNTERACT DIVIDED DISCOURSE
In an increasingly confusing, polarised and overwhelming information environment, climate communicators have to find ways to break through the noise, build resilience, be tactical and light the path to a better future.
This section collates inspiration, insights and hands-on advice across disciplines. Featuring contributions from authors such as Matthew Phillips from Global Optimism/Groundswell, Meenal Thakur from Solutions Journalism Network/Transitions, Lucy von Sturmer from Creatives for Climate and from Charlotte Levitt from Blab, the section provides practical tactics, among others, on how to:
- Find what resonates between greenwashing & greenhushing
- Deal with trolling and harassment against climate action
- Activate influencers and strengthen their work on climate change
- Work with solutions journalism techniques that focus on hope
“The challenge ahead of us is this: can we reclaim the mainstream with a climate story — or rather many — that resonate? Can we make these stories culturally and locally relevant enough to tip the balance from a loud minority dominating our platforms, to the 89 percent?”Matthew Phillips, Groundswell, Global Optimism
“Online attacks, coordinated harassment campaigns, sexualised trolling, and surveillance of individuals, communities, and organisations are part of a broader pattern of violence aimed at silencing those defending their territories, forests, lakes, and air.”Sophie Lally, Guendalina de Luigi & Amber McIntyre, Técnicas Rudas, GRID-Arendal & Tactical Tech
This project is possible thanks to the support of our funder:
Special thanks to all the contributors and their organisations:
Sam Edwards, Eliot Higgins (Bellingcat), Joey Grostern (DeSmog), Leon Erlenhorst (Media Force), Guy Porter, Jake Carbone, Faye Holder, Tom Holen and Mohammad Nasif (InfluenceMap), Anton Tornberg, Kjell Vowles (University of Gothenburg), Maria Amelie and Max Voievoda (Factiverse), Sam Jeffers (Who Targets Me), Ravi Sreenath (Ripple Research), Adrienne Russell (University of Washington), Carlos Hernández-Echevarría (Maldita.es), Antonio López (John Cabot University), Abbie Richards (Media Matters), Sean Buchan and Dana Schran (CAAD), Ana Romero-Vicente (EU Disinfo Lab), Katharina Zeugel (Forum for Information Democracy), Glyn Thomas, Julian Oliver (NĪKAU), Marek Tuszynski (Tactical Tech), Matthew Phillips (Global Optimism/Groundswell), Harriet Kingaby (Conscious Advertising Network), Henning Flaskamp (Gesunde Erde Gesunde Menschen), Lucy von Sturmer and Charlotte Levitt (Creatives for Climate & B Lab), Florencia Lujani (Act Climate Labs), Amber McIntyre, Guendalina De Luigi (GRID-Arendal), Sophie Lally (Técnicas Rudas), Regine Debatty, Cynthia Soneghét (GSCC/Tilt), Chris Pratt (Burson), Meenal Thakur (Solutions Journalism Network/Transitions).
Replaybook credits
Editor: Stephanie Hankey, Project support: Amber Macintyre, Christy Lange, and the Tactical Tech team. Communications & Outreach: Ana Maria Salinas and Pari Abbasli
Editorial consultant: Jo de Vries, Proofreader: Laura Collacott
Creative Direction:
Studio Peter Post × Petra Esveld, Art Direction:
Lisa Post, Photographic images:
Luka Perkins Petit
