I talked to @johnfocook.bsky.social about dealing with climate misinformation, and he recommended learning about the common techniques that bad actors use to distort facts: Fake experts Logical fallacies Impossible expectations Cherry-picking Conspiracy theories or FLICC, for short (4/11)

Joe Rogan has one of the world's most popular podcasts. Unfortunately, like nearly all of the most popular online shows, his tends to spread climate misinformation. For @climateconnections.bsky.social I scrutinize his recent episode with octogenarian climate contrarians Lindzen & Happer 🧵 (1/11)

Happy to share a new paper (accepted at J Environ Psych), led by the amazing @emilyspearing.bsky.social Black Summer Arson: Examining the Impact of Climate Misinformation and Corrections on Reasoning osf.io/preprints/ps... @johnfocook.bsky.social @lewan.bsky.social @profsanderlinden.bsky.social

Proud to have contributed to the blockbuster new volume Climate Obstruction: A Global Assessment, documenting the many, many ways that corporations & orgs try to block climate action. Comprehensive, global in scope, authors from all over the world & the ebook version is FREE cssn.org/news-researc...

Fun random statistic - our 2013 paper finding 97% scientific consensus on human-caused global warming just went past 1.5 million downloads (which is not a bad number for an academic paper) iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...

Excited to lead a University of Melbourne submission to the Senate inquiry on climate misinformation and also speak to @readfearn.bsky.social at @australia.theguardian.com about the trends in climate misinformation & how to counter it www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Experts @timmonsroberts.bsky.social @aronczyk.bsky.social and @johnfocook.bsky.social speak with @trackchangesmedia.bsky.social on the rising threat of climate disinformation in the media, solutions misinformation, and the attack on climate science and scientists themselves.

The Debunking Handbook 2020 has now been translated into Basque, making it the 21st translation of this influential guide to the psychological research into debunking misinformation. Many thanks to translator Laida Arbizu Aguirre and Wendy Cook for typesetting sks.to/db2020

If you're a @drilledmedia.bsky.social listener you know I think social scientists are key sources if we want to understand why governments haven't acted on climate. So imagine my nerd delight to get my hands on an incredible new batch of research on climate obstruction. drilled.media/podcasts/dri...

Our 400+ page comment on the DOE climate working group report is now out. Our conclusion: The merchants of doubt are back, and they're coming for climate science.

Spoke to @katieyoder.bsky.social about the very disturbing development of the Trump administration disappearing climate reports and data, taking climate denial to an unseen level grist.org/language/tru...

"you need to make it cheap and easy for people to make the switch. If it’s expensive, most people won’t do it. If it’s difficult or inconvenient, then forget it." www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/the-false-...

Great coverage of our Anti-Autocracy Handbook by Bob Berwyn: insideclimatenews.org/news/0407202... . It's difficult to make autocracy seem funny but the White House managed to produce a hilarious comment @ninajankowicz.com @noupside.bsky.social @chrischirp.bsky.social @philippmarkolin.bsky.social

We had a great first training module on climate disinformation ! Today we looked at the phenomenon Thursday next week (10 July) we will focus on solutions with @johnfocook.bsky.social , @lewan.bsky.social and @simofons.bsky.social #disinformation #climateaction #climatechange #edmoEU

Reminder: register by 3 July, 17:00 CEST, and join us as we zoom in on effective responses to #climate #disinformation with: 🔸 @lewan.bsky.social @bristoluni.bsky.social 🔸 @johnfocook.bsky.social @mcbc-unimelb.bsky.social 🔸 @simofons.bsky.social @facta.news 🗓️ 10 July, 10:00-11:30 🔗 loom.ly/G3FV_VQ

Autocracies often follow a common playbook, built around the “3 Ps”: populism, polarization, and post-truth This handbook highlights both historic and contemporary measures aimed at attacking scholars, their institutional environments, and their scholarship zenodo.org/records/1569...

I am privileged to announce the publication of the Anti-Autocracy Handbook: sks.to/autocracy 1/12

Fantastic team of authors comprising relevant experts and several scholars who have lived under autocracy, including: @karmaos.bsky.social @profsunitasah.bsky.social @chrischirp.bsky.social @ninajankowicz.com @noupside.bsky.social @philippmarkolin.bsky.social @johnfocook.bsky.social 3/12

📣 Join our Training Series on #Climate #Disinformation! 7️⃣ expert trainers 2️⃣ online sessions 1️⃣ pressing challenge This series is open to all stakeholders working to tackle disinformation & #climatepolicy experts interested in questions on climate disinformation. 👉 Learn more at loom.ly/aNrZHiM.

To conclude Reconciliation Week, Ngarrngga hosted a Debunking Myths seminar with Dr @johnfocook.bsky.social with Faculty of Education staff members. We learnt to apply research and specific methodologies to misinformation about Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander peoples. #NRW2025

With the rampant spread of mis- and disinformation, how can health professionals fight back with the truth? @johnfocook.bsky.social joined @lisapatel.bsky.social for a new episode of Healthy Climate America to explore this question and more. Listen here: bit.ly/HealthyClimateAmerca

Excited to present a workshop on misinfo at the “Listen, Engage, Connect: Explore the Science Communication Arena” Summer School at the University of Geneva. Runs from June 23-27. Ideal for students, early-career researchers, science communicators. Register before 31 May at bit.ly/scicomm25

I was recently invited to participate in an expert meeting on climate misinformation in the U.S. After much thought and talking to colleagues, I regretfully declined. Like many academics, I consider the U.S. not a safe country to visit atm. Sadly the meeting is in-person, no virtual option :-(

In February 2025, @johnfocook.bsky.social gave two webinars for republicEN explaining the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change. The 1st webinar focused on the history of this scientific consensus, the 2nd on the misinformation spread about it. skepticalscience.com/webinars-con...

Fact brief #29: Q: "Is waste heat from industrial activity the reason the planet is warming?" A: "No - Waste heat’s contribution to global warming is a small fraction of that brought about by carbon dioxide. [...]" sks.to/gfb-waste?ut... All fact briefs: sks.to/gfb?utm-sour...

With the addition of Catalan, Croatian and Indonesian the Cranky Uncle game can now be played in 16 languages! Thanks to the translator teams across the globe who make these translations possible! @johnfocook.bsky.social @goodbeast.bsky.social sks.to/crankyml?utm... #activeinoculation

Am about to give a free online talk on countering misinformation about the scientific consensus on human-caused global warming (and misinformation in general). You can register at republicen.org/consensus (this webinar will be recorded & posted on the RepublicEN Youtube channel)

In a few moments, I'm giving a free online talk on my and others' research into quantifying the scientific consensus on human-caused global warming. You can register at republicen.org/consensus (this webinar will be recorded & posted on the RepublicEN Youtube channel)

Tomorrow, I'm giving a free webinar about the scientific consensus on climate change. It's part 1 of a 2-part series (part 1 on the history of consensus, part 2 on countering misinformation about consensus). The event is organised by RepublicEN, you can register at republicen.org/consensus

This cartoon parodies the (false) argument that Greenland used to be green so human-caused global warming isn't real. The only relevance it has to recent news is it also involves ridiculous alternative names for Greenland (IMO Icesheetia or Spectaculonia are still better than Red, White & Blueland)

What fossil fuel knew vs. what fossil fuel did @geoffreysupran.bsky.social @naomioreskes.bsky.social

My cartoon on the questionable practise of trusting winter predictions to a groundhog when scientists’ climate predictions are called into question. Almost as questionable as my drawing of a groundhog!

Jill Hopke writes on the sad state of affairs on Facebook where the platform opts out of fact-checking so the onus is now on users to push back against misinformation theconversation.com/climate-misi...

A cartoon on how people cherry pick among experts (and fake experts) until they find one saying what they want to believe. Incidentally, all the scientists here are caricatures of real scientists (although @simondonner.bsky.social's hair no longer looks like that, sadly for caricaturists).

When creating Cranky Uncle vs. Climate Change, I emailed Ben Santer asking if I could use his likeness to depict the strengthening scientific consensus on human-caused global warming. Later, I attended a DC talk by Ben. He saw me & apologetically confessed he was using that cartoon. I was chuffed!

Whether it's wildfires, hurricanes, flooding, drought, whenever we're devastated by extreme weather events exacerbated by climate change, we are shooshed by climate deniers. It's another attempt to delay action on climate change and is making our world more dangerous.

Spoke to @sammyroth.bsky.social at LA Times about the new TV series Landman - a show about Texas oil fields that's peppered with pro-fossil-fuel and anti-renewable energy misinformation. Spoiler alert if you're watching (I'm only halfway thru so I got spoiled) www.latimes.com/environment/...

As we're about to enter a U.S. administration determined to decimate climate science & climate action, let's reminisce bittersweet over the times when a President supported & amplified climate science (not to mention highlight our 97% scientific consensus study).

Single cause fallacy

I've just published an article in @skepticalinquirer.bsky.social on logic-checking as a complementary approach to fact-checking. Logic-checking can tackle misinformation that fact-checking struggles to address, & seamlessly leads to logic-based corrections skepticalinquirer.org/2024/12/the-...

A Cranky Christmas to all!

When I wrote Cranky Uncle vs. Climate Change, I packed the book with pedagogical cartoons using "parallel argumentation" - transplanting fallacies from climate misinformation into analogous situations - to provoke critical thinking through humour. This was not one of those cartoons.

The psychological challenge of climate change - our brains are hard-wired to respond to immediate threats, not a slow-motion disaster happening at a global scale (and that's not even considering the tsunami of misinformation hitting us every day).

Just coauthored a paper that says something which may seem obvious to many but still needs to be argued: why misinformation must not be ignored. Specifically we argue that 1) misinformation is prominent & 2) has a negative impact on people psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...

Given the confounding result of the 2024 U.S. election, perhaps we need to rethink our approach to public communication of climate change! P.S. I drew this cartoon in 2018, there are so many other Trumpisms over the last half-decade that I could draw on if I was to create a sequel...

I drew this cartoon in 2018 but after the last year, constantly scrabbling around to find funding to keep a research assistant going on important research into using AI to debunk climate misinformation, the "Research Grants" part of the cartoon feels a lot more real.

This hits a little harder these days, as it can be applied beyond climate change to political impacts as well.

In collaboration with @klimafakten.bsky.social we turned the taxonomy graphic created by @johnfocook.bsky.social into the FLICC-poster. It is available for download in various languages at sks.to/flicc-poster and the collaboration is explained at sks.to/flicc-poster...