Global Warming Solutions: Fight Misinformation
Why has it been so difficult to achieve meaningful solutions to global warming? Media pundits, partisan think tanks, and special interest groups funded by fossil fuel and related industries raise doubts about the truth of global warming.
These contrarians downplay and distort the evidence of climate change, demand policies that allow industries to continue polluting, and attempt to undercut existing pollution standards.
This barrage of misinformation misleads and confuses the public about the growing consequences of global warming — and makes it more difficult to implement the solutions we need to effectively reduce the man-made emissions that cause global warming.
Together with its members and supporters, UCS actively fights misrepresentations of climate science and provides sound, science-based evidence to set the record straight, including resources to help you communicate the real facts about global warming.
Exposing the Fossil Fuel Industry's Disinformation Playbook
In this interactive slideshow, UCS reveals the secret tactics used by the fossil fuel industry to spread disinformation and delay action on climate change — the very same tactics used by Big Tobacco for years to mislead the public about the dangers of smoking.
Calling Out Fox News for Misleading Coverage of Climate Science
Millions of Americans get information about climate science from the Fox News Channel, yet a 2012 UCS snapshot analysis found that representations of climate science on Fox News Channel were misleading 93 percent of the time.
Another prominent News Corporation outlet, the Wall Street Journal's opinion page, similarly misled the public in 81 percent of letters, op-eds, columns, and editorials.
Showing How the News Media Help the Fossil Fuel Industry Spread Climate Disinformation
A UCS investigation showed that the U.S. news media routinely fail to inform the public about the fossil fuel industry funders behind climate change contrarian think tanks. From 2011 - 2012, two-thirds of stories from eight top news organizations did not identify the fossil fuel industry funding of eight prominent climate contrarian groups.
Exposing Special Interest Groups and Policy Makers who Misrepresent Climate Science
Got Science?, a monthly UCS column, features stories of policy makers and special interest groups who have run roughshod over scientific evidence. Past columns have debunked fake government reports, countered misinformation about renewable energy, and exposed state-level efforts to suppress research on sea level rise.
Fighting Back Against Attacks on Climate Science and Scientists
UCS set the record straight in several recent instances of misinformation about climate science, and fought back against deliberate attacks on climate scientists, including:
- Actively — and successfully — fighting back against attacks on climate scientist Michael Mann by Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli.
- Defending the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) from misleading allegations about its 2007 climate change assessment.
Revealing the truth about ExxonMobil's disinformation tactics, which included funneling nearly $16 million to a network of 43 advocacy organizations that seek to confuse the public on climate science.- Debunking misinformation about "Climategate," a manufactured controversy over emails stolen from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit.
- Setting the record straight in the popular press for books that distort the facts about climate science, including The Skeptical Environmentalist, SuperFreakonomics, and Michael Chrichton's thriller, State of Fear.
Resources for Effectively Communicating Climate Science
You can help fight misinformation about global warming by effectively communicating the facts about climate science, whether to your friends, your community, the media, or directly to policy makers.
UCS offers a range of resources to help you improve your science communication skills and develop effective techniques for presenting information about global warming, including a series of webinars designed to provide you with useful tools and best practices for talking about global warming and understanding how people perceive and take in information.
Learn more:
- Webinar Series: A Scientist’s Guide to Communicating Climate Science
- America's Climate Choices Webinar Series
- Webinar Series: A Voice for Science and Scientists in California Climate Policy
- Increasing Public Understanding of Climate Risks and Choices
- Climate Science Under Attack: How Can We Change the Narrative?
- Suggested Scientific Concepts on Urgency
- Global Warming Materials for Educators
