Global concerns such as epidemics, wars and disasters weigh upon the minds of people around the world during every decade. But can a dominant global problem such as the COVID-19 pandemic cause people to neglect other urgent societal problems? A new study concludes that answer is yes. Oleg Smirnov, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Political Science at Stony Brook University and lead author, says that the data from their research illustrates how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the discussion on climate change on Twitter. He and co-author Pei-Hsun Hsieh, a Ph.D. student in Political Science, adopted Weber's psychological theory...