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Reduce, reuse, recycle!
Our estimable volunteer Bärbel Winkler recently created a presentation about Skeptical Science for the Fifth International Conference on Climate Justice
Why waste work? With Skeptical Science this summer reaching age 16, Bärbel has adapted her talk as a downloadable (PDF) illustrated biography of our organization, telling our history and showing what we do to advance #ClimateProgress by focusing on combating #ClimateMisinformation.
https://skepticalscience.com/16-years-Skeptical-Science.html?SkS+Mastodon
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Skeptical Science founder John Cook turned out of bed in Melbourne Australia at 3a today to deliver testimony about climate misinformation on social media, to the EU Parliament's "Special Committee on foreign interference in all democratic processes in the European Union, including disinformation."
The session includes many experts, is a one-stop shop for information.
John's segment begins at 16:35:12.
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Stephan Lewandowsky and John Cook (founder of Skeptical Science) discuss their recent review article published in "Current Opinion in Psychology."
Bullet points:
* "Believe nothing" is tactical nihilism in service of special interests alienated from concern over what's best for all of us.
* Lewandowsky and Cook describe a possible answer to this urgent problem, tested by research: cognitive inoculation.
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Our latest synthesis of effort with #Gigafact, to produce easy to deploy "fact briefs" for journalists (and others) who don't need to be duplicating effort.
"Is there an expert consensus on human-caused global warming?"
Yes, of course!
But this agreement has strong positive effects on the general public's enthusiasm for dealing with our #ClimateChange mess.
So, consensus has also been the target of a concerted campaign of deception intended to convey the opposite.
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In our most recent weekly #ClimateNews roundup we take a moment to celebrate some local news: completion and publication of our 16th "Fact Brief" so far this year, a product of our collaboration with #Gigafact.
Gigafact is supplying important cognitive infrastructure to journalists and newsrooms. "Read all about "it as we recap this effort and what we've learned.
That and 30 other items on #ClimateChange, all conveniently accessible from one launchpad.
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We're assisting #GigaFact with their mission as a non-profit to equip short-staffed news publishers and broadcasters with fact briefs touching on matters of #ClimateChange.
Getting everybody calibrated on how to compress often complicated topics to the extreme brevity of these easy-embed items has been a challenge.
We're starting to hit a decent pace of production.
Here's collaborative output correcting an old warhorse #ClimateMyth blaming change on cosmic rays.
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"Does CO2 correlate with global temperature long-term?"
Well, of course. But not everybody knows this, and many have been intentionally misled to believe otherwise.
How to remedy such misunderstandings? One method is to provide over-stressed newsrooms with ready to go "fact briefs," which is exactly what non-profit #GigaFact is doing.
We help GigaFact with climate-related fact briefs. Here's our latest collaboration, a marvel of compression (or so we think!).
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Here's our latest collaborative product in company with #GigaFact, a nonprofit working to supply newsrooms with pre-cooked and easy to use #MisinformationDebunking.
Learning how to concisely convey concepts inherently at risk of turning into shaggy dog stories has been our main challenge. It needs deft hands playing together nicely.
We feel we're getting it dialed in.
Here's #OceanAcidification, in ~160 words.
("acidification:" for deniers it's a trigger word)
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Here's the latest fruit of our collaboration with #GigaFact to produce drop-in #ClimateMythDebunkings for staff at newspapers.
Many news organs are cut to the bone these days, especially smaller publications. We're trying to make it easier for journalists to keep people on the path of reality when dealing with stories touching on #ClimateChange.
At 150 words there's no budget to explain how models have -always- been good enough to inform our decisions-- for decades.
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Here's the latest fruit of our collaboration with #GigaFact, a nonprofit providing general disinformation correction services to newsrooms in the United States.
These treatments are made to be easy drop-ins for news journals, which leads to tricky and interesting writing: compress a concept that may be complex to 150 words. Our specialist writer works with a GigaFact generalist to produce an intelligible synopsis that is layout-friendly.
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How to effect positive change: pick a strategy, marry with tactics-- consistently. Find an important niche needing more service, fill it. Don't become distracted, avoid redundancy.
That's how we operate Skeptical Science. We focus on #ClimateMythDebunking services to the public.
We're partnering with #GigaFact, a new nonprofit following the above general plan by providing newsrooms easy access to brief but definitive rebuttals to misinformation and disinformation.
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--> Debunking Clean Energy Myths <--
Tired of hearing bogus claims about solar, wind, and electric vehicles?
Help is here. We've partnered with the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law to adapt their authoritatively sourced debunkings of 33 common energy modernization myths for easy access.
Visit our new rebuttals--- spread the truth!
#ClimateAction #CleanEnergy #ClimateScience #ClimateMyth #RenewableEnergy #ElectricVehicles #SolarEnergy #WindEnergy
#SolutionsDenial -
"Was 1934 the hottest year on record?"
No. Even if it had been true, events we've precipitated have overtaken this old #ClimateMyth, which found its roots in a peculiar set of circumstances.
This statistic was -always- irrelevant in the big picture:
"Zooming out of the USA - making up around 2% of the world's surface - to the whole globe, however, shows that 1934 was in fact a rather chilly year."
Finito. Done and dusted.
We've revised this #ClimateMythRebuttal.
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Ca. 2007 #ClimateMyth by a climate "skeptic:"
"One of the oft-cited predictions of potential warming is that a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels from pre-industrial levels — from 280 to 560 parts per million — would alone cause average global temperature to increase by about 1.2 °C."
And going on to say how scientists were predicting a runaway greenhouse effect.
Which they were not
Meanwhile, the real prediction? Confirmed.
Revised for easier reading:
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What's an "AIV?" Autonomous Information Vehicle, that's what.
It's our term for animated graphics we created to easily share in various locations, wherever the seemingly universal and immortal animated GIF scheme works.
AIVs present climate myth debunkings in step-by-step fashion. They can quickly stand in for laborious and endless typing when "somebody on the internet is wrong."
Here's an example. The rest are at the link, ready to release!
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About 50 years ago and with fresh information (particularly the marine record of oxygen isotopes) we located our position on the chronology of successive continental-scale glaciations, "ice ages." Papers were published about this, making a splash in the popular press-- and later becoming fodder for people with a monetary stake in creating confusion.
The next ice age is a changing story, but not for the reasons touted by climate bunkaneers.
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Polar bears are iconic symbols of climate change. Who hasn't seen the near-cliche image of a bear standing on a tiny ice floe?
These animals' ambassadorial status and powerful emotional resonance attract cherry-picking hair-splitting climate change deniers in droves. Our first debunking of this drivel was published in 2009.
Freshly revised for the 4th time, now with our "at a glance" treatment. How does it work for you? Let us know!
#ClimateMythDebunking
https://skepticalscience.com/polar-bears-global-warming.htm?utm-source=mastodon&utm-campaign=socialnetworks&utm-term=sks -
"It's waste heat." This climate myth had its time in the sun; just see comments dating back to 2010 and then dribbling on for the next 11 years. Our rebuttal still lands a few reads per week.
In reality, energy (mostly stored in fossil fuels) we're liberating via waste heat pales in comparison to feedback effects of combustion CO2 emissions.
We've revised our treatment of this topic to make it easier to understand. Reviews welcome!
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"CO2 is plant food."
Yes, like carbohydrates for us humans.
Imagine: massively increase carbohydrate intake while leaving proteins, minerals etc. constant. Does it follow that we'd be healthier, more thriving? Obviously not. It's not different for plants, but the "tailpipe emissions are good for plants" crowd (selling raw material for emissions) would like us to believe in this magic.
This rebuttal newly revised. Reviews welcome, appreciated!
#ClimateMythDebunking
https://skepticalscience.com/co2-plant-food-basic.htm?utm-source=mastodon&utm-campaign=socialnetworks@utm-term=sks -
"What is methane's contribution to global warming?"
A fair question but not an excuse or an escape hatch for culpability.
Any "GHG sources, sinks and flux" section of our weekly research reports suggests that the future of proportionality is in question; we're mobilizing forces that may end up beyond our control. But right now, CH4 is not the Big Kahuna in our climate drama.
We've revised this discussion, and included a form for feedback.
#ClimateMythDebunking
https://skepticalscience.com/methane-and-global-warming-basic.htm?utm-source=mastodon&utm-campaign=socialnetworks&utm-term=sks -
Another week and another raking of ashes refusing to entirely cool.
"What is causing the increase in atmospheric CO2?"
It beggars belief, but this faint hot-spot of cultivated ignorance still glows a little bit. Why? Because pretending we don't know will allow monetization of fossil fuels to continue just a little longer.
Revised and updated: our #ClimateMythDebunking of this closed question. Comments and suggestions welcome-- a convenient form is provided!
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"Oh, the places you'll go!" -- Dr. Seuss
In the #ClimateMythDebunking arena we find ourselves dealing with such as this:
"If Senator Wong was really serious about her science she would stop breathing because you inhale air that's got 385 parts per million carbon dioxide in it and you exhale air with about ten times as much..."
So here we are; we have arrived at our destination-- synthetic ignorance as "active measures." It finds traction.
Newly revised treatment:
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"Has the greenhouse effect been falsified?"
No. The term "greenhouse effect" is an analogy. Unfortunately, while analogies are very helpful in promoting understanding, they're also susceptible to rhetorical exploitation by people promoting synthetic ignorance.
So, it's necessary to explain. Our new at-a-glance treatment seeks to do that in a way that's palatable to people not obsessed with the topic. Take a look and let us know what you think!
#ClimateMythDebunking
https://skepticalscience.com/does-greenhouse-effect-exist-basic.htm?utm-source=mastodon&utm-campaign=socialnetworks&utm-term=sks -
"...these global warming studies that now we're seeing (are) a bunch of snake oil science." --Sarah Palin, 2014
Commemorating 10 years of "wrong then and wrong now," our prolific author John Mason revises our debunking of global warming evidence denial. Climate gullibility erodes at a geologically slow rate, so here we are, still grinding away!
Lots of evolving evidence to sift. Our new-fangled "at a glance" treatment tries to keep it accessible.
#ClimateMythDebunking
https://skepticalscience.com/evidence-for-global-warming-basic.htm?utm-source=mastodon&utm-campaign=socialnetworks&utm-term=sks -
"IPCC is alarmist."
Hardly. In fact, of late the poor old IPCC is steadily peppered with accusations of the opposite. "Damned if you do, damned if you don't," so to speak. Often, critiques share in common fundamental misunderstandings of the IPCC's role and purpose.
Our updated rebuttal to "they're alarmist!" walks readers through some IPCC basics. What can we do to further improve it? Please let us know via the handy embedded form.
#ClimateMythDebunking
https://skepticalscience.com/ipcc-scientific-consensus-basic.htm?utm-source=mastodon&utm-campaign=socialnetworks&utm-term=sks -
"They changed the name from 'global warming' to 'climate change'."
Barely connected to the science of climate change at all. Even so, we can drape this thin semantic tissue onto the hard edges of reality's landscape and see what pokes through.
Who's "they," and exactly when and how did the plan happen? It almost goes without saying that these "facts" are valid only between certain sets of ears, but there are details. Reviews invited.
#ClimateMythDebunking
https://skepticalscience.com/climate-change-global-warming-basic.htm?utm-source=mastodon&utm-campaign=socialnetworks&utm-term=sks -
Following up on our March OP: Sooner than we thought we have a "winner," and it's --very-- annoying!
"Models are unreliable" is our first rebuttal past the post of 2,000,000 reads-- in dubious company.
In reality climate models are solidly reliable for the purpose of broad guidance of public policy. Our explanation mentions continuous refinement, leading to useful insights for adaptation as models are scaled for regional coverage.
#ClimateMythDebunking
https://skepticalscience.com/climate-models-basic.htm?utm-source=mastodon&utm-campaign=mastodon&utm-term=sks -
"It's easy to confuse current weather events with long-term climate trends. It's a bit like being at the beach, trying to figure out if the tide is rising or falling just by watching two or three individual waves roll in and out. The slow change of the tide is masked by the constant churning of the waves. Watch for 20-30 minutes and you should get a much better idea."
Analogy from our revision of "Does cold weather disprove global warming?"
#ClimateMythDebunking
https://skepticalscience.com/global-warming-cold-weather-basic.htm?utm-source=mastodon&utm-campaign=socialnetworks&utm-term=sks -
Familiar story – a physicist drawing attention by declaring "climate scientists have got climate science all wrong!"
He (it’s always a ‘he’) was born before color television was invented, usually retired, perhaps having won a Nobel Prize, but with zero climate science research or expertise. Happer. Vahrenholt. Giaever. Cohen. Koonin.
Now John Clauser, trading on his authority to sow confusion.
Let's take a closer look at Clauser's claims.
#ClimateMythDebunking
https://skepticalscience.com/clauser-latest-climate-denying-physicist.html?utm-source=mastodon&utm-campaign=socialnetworks&utm-term=sks -
Cherry-picked arguments to the effect that climate-induced sea level rise is a figment of scientific imagination are increasingly swamped and submerged by unfolding reality.
But "wrong" was never a problem in the denier mind, given that disagreement is ideologically rather than factually grounded. Which is why our SLR debunking still floats near the #20 spot in weekly reads.
Now refreshed! Visit, take a read, let us know what you think.
#ClimateMythDebunking
https://skepticalscience.com/sea-level-rise-basic.htm?utm-source=mastodon&utm-campaign=socialnetworks&utm-term=sks