How to spot and combat climate misinformation and disinformation

There’s a lot of climate information out there — as well as climate misinformation and disinformation. So how can we tell what’s credible science and what isn’t?

John Cook, a researcher with Australia’s Monash Climate Change Communication Research Hub, is studying climate misinformation. He shared his key tips for spotting bad information with Paul Huttner on this week’s Climate Cast.

Misinformation vs. Disinformation

The difference between misinformation and disinformation, Cook said, is intent. Misinformation is anything that is false. Disinformation is an active attempt to mislead.

How much is out there?

In his recent research looking at 3 million tweets about climate change, Cook found roughly 10 percent was misinformation and around 55 percent of that was specifically attacks on scientists.

Recognizing misinformation using FLICC

Cook shared that the key to combatting misinformation is recognizing the most common ways people mislead, which can be summarized by the acronym FLICC: fake experts, logical fallacies, impossible expectations, cherry picking and conspiracy theories.

To hear the full conversation, click play on the audio player above or subscribe to the Climate Cast podcast.