Canadians top fears: misinformation, climate change

WASHINGTON — Canadians consider the online disinformation epidemic and climate change as the most serious threats of the modern age, edging out pandemic-era concerns about the global economy and infectious disease, a new survey suggests.

Research released Wednesday by the D.C.-based Pew Research Center found 68 per cent of respondents in Canada classified bogus online information as a major threat, followed by climate change at 65 per cent.

On a worldwide scale, however, it was climate change that emerged as the leading international concern, ranking as a major threat among 75 per cent of respondents in 19 advanced economies across North America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.

“With the COVID-19 pandemic still raging, a hot war between Russia and Ukraine ongoing, inflation rates rising globally and heat records being smashed across parts of the world, countries are facing a wide variety of challenges in 2022,” Pew said in a news release.

“Among the many threats facing the globe, climate change stands out as an especially strong concern among citizens in advanced economies.”

Despite the ongoing pandemic and the lingering economic, supply-chain and inflationary fallout that has ensued, the world economy and the spread of infectious disease were cited by just 58 and 57 per cent of Canadian participants, respectively.

Concern about climate change — dominant in Europe, with scores as high as 82 per cent — was offset by the western world, where political affiliations tend to determine the extent of concern expressed about environmental issues.

In Canada, 46 per cent of those on the political right called climate change a major threat.

That compares with 80 per cent on the left and 71 per cent who identified themselves as belonging to the political centre.