Wood Romances

A paper was just recently published in Nature Scientific Reports[1] that classifies the types of climate misinformation promoted by conservative think tanks (CTTs) and contrarian blogs (CBs). The taxonomy includes 5 major “super claims” with “sub-claims” and “sub-sub-claims” within the larger categories. The 5 “super claims” are: 1. Global warming is not happening 2. Human Greenhouse gases are not causing global warming 3. Climate impacts are not bad 4. Climate solutions won’t work 5. Climate science is unreliable The sub- and sub-sub- claims are positions used to justify the larger “super” claims. It’s important to note that some of these may be truthful claims, but they are used inappropriately to justify the false “super claim.” For instance, “we need energy” (4.5) is true, but it serves as a subcategory of claims used to justify the claim that climate solutions won’t work. Likewise, “nuclear is good” (4.5.3) is a position that is held by many people who are otherwise not contrarian...

The internet and social media has made it easier for people to advertise and promote those opinions to wider audiences, and technology has progressed to the point where many of these people can produce quality-looking content. So misinformation and disinformation can be visually indistinguishable from credible information. What this means (to me) is that there is a significant burden we all need to take for ourselves as we engage with information we find - the burden of skepticism. If we don't want to be misinformed, we simply have to check up on what we watch and read. It's the only way to keep ahead of the misinformation that sometimes seems to dominate areas where there is significant ideological debate. And this brings me to Tony Heller - the man who says that the above graph is the product of criminal fraud on the part of pretty much all climate scientists. Since Heller is solely a blogger and political activist, you don't see many academic resources addressing his cla...