1. Responding to Climate Change Myths John Cook Date: 14 July 2013

3. One Model of the Human Brain

4. A More Accurate Model of the Human Brain

5. The Familiarity Backfire Effect

7. Danger, Will Robinson! Approaching myth!

8. The Overkill Backfire Effect A simple myth is more cognitively attractive than an over-complicated correction (Schwarz et al 2007)

9. The Overkill Backfire Effect A simple myth is more cognitively attractive than an over-complicated correction (Schwarz et al 2007)

10. “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” MARK TWAIN

11. The Worldview Backfire Effect

14. One last psychological pitfall

15. An Alternative Explanation

18. Fight Sticky Ideas With Stickier Ideas

19. Questions?

20. Communicating “Sticky” Ideas Sticky ideas are: Simple Unexpected Concrete Credible Emotional Story SUCCES

21. Sticky Ideas vs Mathematics Sticky ideas are: Simple Unexpected Concrete Credible Emotional Story Climate Science is: Complicated Perplexing Abstract Attacked Detached Numbers SUCCES

22. “New data released two weeks ago shows the pause in global warming has now lasted 16 years.” Andrew Bolt

23. Is global warming happening?

31. The most dangerous climate misconception “There is no scientific consensus that humans are causing global warming”

32. Cook et al 2013

35. The importance of consensus Ding et al 2011 found that people who believe scientists disagree on global warming are less likely to support climate policy McCright et al 2013: “Climate change communicators should therefore identify opportunities and employ techniques to effectively counter the denial machine’s campaign of challenging the scientific consensus. Overcoming its success in generating belief that scientists do not agree about anthropogenic global warming seems to be crucial for increasing public support for emissions reduction policies.”

38. Media Coverage of The Consensus Project

40. “97% of scientists, including, by the way, some who originally disputed the data, have now put that to rest. They’ve acknowledged the planet is warming and human activity is contributing to it.” PRESIDENT OBAMA

43. Questions? Examples of sticky climate messages?

44. 1.Fake Experts 5 Techniques of Consensus Denial 2. Logical fallacies 5. Conspiracy Theories 3. Impossible Expectations 4. Cherry Picking FLICC

45. Consensus

46. Fake Experts

47. “The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, the OISM, released the names of some 31,478 scientists who signed a petition rejecting the claims of human-caused global warming.” Dana Rohrabacher, Republican Congressman Fake Experts

49. Logical Fallacies Examples of logical fallacies: ad hominem attacks, strawman arguments, misrepresentation. Most popular climate myth uses the Non Sequitur fallacy: “it does not follow”. The premise does not lead to the conclusion. Example: “climate has changed naturally in the past therefore current warming must be natural”.

50. PremiseConclusion

51. “The paleoclimate record shouts out to us that, far from being self- stabilizing, the Earth's climate system is an ornery beast which overreacts to even small nudges.” Wally Broeker

52. Impossible Expectations Demanding unrealistic standards of proof before acting on the science

53. “0.3% consensus, not 97.1% The latest paper apparently showing 97% endorsement of a consensus that more than half of recent global warming was anthropogenic really shows only 0.3% endorsement of that now-dwindling consensus.” CHRISTOPHER MONCKTON

54. Cherry Picking

58. Consensus

59. Conspiracy!

61. Climategate

62. Two distinctive traits of conspiracy theories: Conspiracy Theory 1. Ascribe omnipotent power to the conspiracy

64. Two distinctive traits of conspiracy theories: Conspiracy Theory 1. Ascribe omnipotent power to the conspiracy 2. Evidence against the conspiracy is proof of the conspiracy

66. Dana Rohrabacher, Republican Congressman “Even though hand-picked panels of their peers held a “kangaroo court” and loudly proclaimed that there had been no wrongdoing, public confidence was justifiably shaken.”

67. Fight sticky ideas with stickier ideas SUCCES FLICC Summary (Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, Story) (Fake Experts, Logical Fallacies, Impossible Expectations, Cherry Picking, Conspiracy Theories)

68. www.skepticalscience.com

69. John Cook Global Change Institute, University of Queensland Web: http://www.skepticalscience.comhttp://www.skepticalscience.com Email: john@skepticalscience.com