Fabian Dablander

Social movements play an essential role pushing for action on climate and nature, and it’s now widely recognised that support from scientists can make them more effective

But not everyone can take to the streets or risk arrest

That’s ok – there’s lots we can do in other ways

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Motherfucking wind farms…

Everything we've made will break, buildings and streets will crumble, and cities will be abandoned. But the CO₂ we emit into the atmosphere will persist for centuries, and the climatic impacts will last longer than human civilization has existed. This is our legacy for the future.

Media coverage of climate activist groups in Germany - Climatic Change Climate activist groups aim to address climate change by informing citizens about its risks and potential solutions, and by providing a way for citizens to engage in collective action to change policy...

We discuss the implications of our findings for news media, citizens, and activist groups in our open access paper. Check it out! link.springer.com/article/10.1...

For a bit more context, see this LinkedIn post: www.linkedin.com/posts/fabian...

After the 'Last Generation' The German climate protest group Letzte Generation is now history. But what will succeed it?

As a side note: We submitted this paper over a year ago, but it was only published today due to a slow review process. In the meantime, Last Generation has disbanded and given rise to two new groups, which is a welcome strategic refocus: theecologist.org/2025/jun/20/...

How are the climate activist groups themselves portrayed?

We found large differences between Fridays for Future and Last Generation, as well as large differences between newspapers.

More disruption → more negative coverage
More to the political right → more negative coverage

How is climate change portrayed in articles about the activist groups?

We used (& validated) GPT-4 as a tool to help us assess all 4,216 articles, which worked very well!

A substantial proportion of articles did not discuss risks & solutions, and there were large diff. between groups & newspapers.

We scraped news articles of seven major German newspapers, ranging from the politically left-leaning @taz.de to the politically right-leaning BILD.

We identified 4,216 articles that were mainly about Fridays for Future or Last Generation. Actions drive coverage!

Are climate activists portrayed as polarising & violent in the news media? Are risks & solutions to climate change mentioned?

We used ChatGPT to answer these questions based on > 4,200 articles from seven major German newspapers: link.springer.com/article/10.1... w @jmbh.bsky.social & Simon Wimmer

LinkedIn post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/fabian-dablander_expressing-intentions-is-not-climate-action-activity-7346794822457819136-v5gn

The second point is a bit nuanced, and I have elaborated on it a bit more on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/posts/fabian...

This letter was a collaboration with the great Florian Lange, @cameronbrick.bsky.social, & @swaziadam.bsky.social.

You can find the authors' reply at www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Expressing intentions is not climate action letter published in PNAS: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2512457122

In our now published letter in @pnas.org, we raise two wider issues for behavioral science:

1) Intentions are poor predictors of behavior
2) Effects on intentions need not generalize to effects on behavior

We join calls for researchers to measure actual behavior: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Poster of the Lorentz workshop "Understanding and Accelerating Collective Climate Action"

I greatly enjoyed our workshop on climate action, which brought together experienced organizers & engaged scholars for a week of reflection & discussion. Outputs coming fall. We need more of these spaces!

Organized w @swaziadam.bsky.social Dipti @berglundoscar.bsky.social @jksteinberger.bsky.social

Concentration Camp Labor Cannot Become Normal

"With the passage of Trump's death bill, we face the prospect of many great harms, including an archipelago of concentration camps across the United States."
snyder.substack.com/p/concentrat...

This 83-year-old priest has just been arrested for holding a sign which read:

“I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”

According to Starmer’s new law, this puts her in the same category as an ISIS or Al-Qaeda terrorist, with a prison sentence of up to 14 years.

Extreme weather event attribution predicts climate policy support across the world - Nature Climate Change Literature produced inconsistent findings regarding the links between extreme weather events and climate policy support across regions, populations and events. This global study offers a holistic asse...

🚨 How do exposure to extreme weather events and the subjective attribution of these events to climate change relate to climate policy support across the world? 🔥🌎

Find out more in our OA article published in Nature Climate Change 👇 1/7 🧵 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Thanks @htejero.bsky.social! Be sure to also checkout the new version of the preprint, which adds more context and explores country heterogeneity: bsky.app/profile/fdab...

Thanks @thierryaaron.bsky.social & @fisherdanar.bsky.social! Best to check out the new version of the preprint, which I significantly revised today: bsky.app/profile/fdab...

🔥 Climate impacts & perception

I significantly updated my preprint, which using representative survey data from 142 countries (N=128,093) shows that climate hazard experience is related to higher climate risk perception. Now includes an exploration of country heterogeneity: osf.io/preprints/ps...

Haha, PsyArXiv confusingly has a "create a new version" button, which is not what you want — it creates a new version (with a new URL) rather than updating the old preprint. To update the old one, one needs to use the "edit preprint" button. So now I have two versions. Thanks Obama!

Romeo & Juliet with differential equations

Cool blog posts by @fdabl.bsky.social:

𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐟𝐟𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐝𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬⁣ 💘
⁣
#RStats #PyData #EconSky
fabiandablander.com/r/Linear-Lov...

Haha, thank you! I really enjoyed writing that one. You might also be interested in these two related ones:

- A gentle introduction to dynamical systems theory: fabiandablander.com/r/Dynamical-...

- Infectious diseases and nonlinear differential equations: fabiandablander.com/r/Nonlinear-...

"This is why no previous president has attacked Iran. There's a reason for it. [...]. It's because they understood that the enemy gets a vote. You could have stunning initial tactical success, and you could still end up in a quagmire with global consequences that will sink you."

"There's a whole list of things they could do, including closing the Straits of Hormuz. By closing the Straits of Hormuz, you cut off one-fifth of the world's oil supply overnight. That will send stock markets crashing. That could tip the world into a global recession, even a depression."

What will happen if the United States bombs Iran? Trump campaigned as a peacemaker, promising to "end the endless foreign wars." Less than six months into his presidency, things have changed.

"If you're Iran's political, military, and intelligence leadership, and two other countries are threatening to eliminate you, personally and organizationally… What are you going to do?" popular.info/p/what-will-...

US Bombs Iran – Is There an Antiwar Party in This Country? Just want to congratulate everyone who said Trump was the president of peace, didn't start any new wars, etc.

“US Bombs Iran – Is There an Antiwar Party in This Country?” - Spencer Ackerman ‬⁩for Zeteo:

“Donald Trump has guaranteed that Iran will be a nuclear weapons state in 5 to 10 years from now.”

Iranian writer @tparsi.bsky.social tells @mehdirhasan.bsky.social that US bombing of Iran would push Tehran toward developing nuclear weapons.

Watch the full conversation:
zeteo.com/p/breaking-t...

Opinie: ‘Door deze miljonairsbeurs toe te staan in Amsterdam, rollen we de loper uit voor ongelijkheid en vervuiling’ De Masters Expo, de miljonairsbeurs die deze maand naar Amsterdam komt, is allang niet meer van deze tijd, stellen wetenschappers Fabian Dablander en Maien Sachisthal. In plaats van ‘ongelijkheid, oli...

The Masters Expo claims to unite "the top of the Netherlands" in a "community of greatness." But what kind of greatness is built on inequality, oligarchy, & pollution?

In @parool.nl, @maiensachis.bsky.social & I argue: to build thriving societies, we must limit extreme wealth. tinyurl.com/4s3b8sby

Systemic protections and guardrails are essential to a functioning society. Nature understands this even if oligarchs don't.

Title slide of a guest lecture ("Climate Action in a World on Fire") at the University of Amsterdam

I really enjoyed speaking with a group of highly engaged students last week about the climate crisis, the failures of current climate policy, and how collective action can help secure a livable future.

📑 Slides: tinyurl.com/s6bkjrbv
🎥 Recording of a similar talk from 2023: tinyurl.com/yay564ks