Continuing our collaboration with GigaFact, here's a new Fact Brief: "Is the greenhouse effect still debated among climate scientists?"

Given that social networks produce a distillation effect, it may be hard to believe such a fact check is even necessary at this juncture in our unfolding climate blunder; we may not realize that while those in our own circles are up to speed, other communities may be in a state of harmful confusion-- victims of synthetic ignorance.

GigaFact selects and prioritizes topics for treatment based on surveillance and input from users needing assistance. Hence while it may beggar belief, this explanation is something newsrooms and others encountering #ClimateBunk actually do require.

So here's an explanation, compressed for easy deployment.

#ClimateMyths

https://skepticalscience.com/fact-brief-settled.html

We've added Catalan, Croatian and Indonesian to our free and unencumbered-by-hidden-ambitions Cranky Uncle game, which can now be played in 16 languages!

Cranky Uncle is a fun way to develop useful habits of #CriticalThinking. It's centered on #ClimateMyths, but as with socket wrenches and machinery the same basic mental tooling may be used in many contexts.

Polish is in testing ; we hope to announce its availibility in the next version. Cekać na dalsze informacje!

https://skepticalscience.com/cranky-uncle-game-multilingual.html?utm-source=mastodon&utm-campaign=socialnetworks&utm-term=sks

The Cranky Uncle game can now be played in 16 languages!

As of March 7, 2025, the Cranky Uncle game is available in English, Dutch, German, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Swedish, Turkish, Albanian, Macedonian, Finnish, Romanian, Catalan, Croatian and Indonesian. It can be played on iOS or Android devices as well as in the browser. More languages are already in the queue and this blog post will be updated whenever a new language gets launched. In addition, there may be language specific announcements linked via the flag-icons at the top. These will be created by the translator teams and will most likely go into more language specific details or explain some particularly tricky or interesting translation challenges.

Skeptical Science

"Stronger together!"

Having just launched our collaboration with the #SabinCenterForClimateChangeLaw, we continue our work with #Gigafact.

"Are most glaciers growing?" Obviously not, but how is the average person to know, in an information environment crowded by fossil fuel funded #ClimateBunk?

One way is by providing news providers and consumers with concise, factual #ClimateMythDebunkings.

Here's the latest ready-to-serve treatment for newsrooms.

#ClimateMyths

https://skepticalscience.com/fact-brief-glacier.html?utm-source=mastodon&utm-campaign=socialnetworks&utm-source=sks

Fact brief - Are most glaciers growing?

Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park from the Gigafact team in collaboration with members from our team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline.

Skeptical Science

Communicators may become too close to a topic, leave behind the vast bulk of our intended beneficiaries.

Old soldier trope: "I can strip and clean my weapon in a muddy trench in pitch dark."

But these are learned skills.

Our esteemed volunteer Bärbel Winkler created a primer on identifying online malefactors, how they may be damped-down if not improved:

"Of red flags and warning signs in comments on social media."

Handy tip sheet for more than only #ClimateMyths!

https://skepticalscience.com/social-media-warning-signs-wording-in-posts-and-comments.html?utm-source=mastodon&utm-campaign=socialnetworks&utm-term=sks

Of red flags and warning signs in comments on social media

Somewhat surprisingly for what is regarded as a network of professionals, climate science misinformation is getting shared on LinkedIn, joining other channels where this is happening. Several of our recent posts published on LinkedIn have attracted the ire of various commenters who apparently are in denial about human-caused climate change. Based on their and other such comments, we compiled a list of telltale signs to be on the lookout for when reading posts or comments related to human-caused climate change or global warming on LinkedIn, other social media channels and even our own comment section. We hope you find this list helpful as the pointers can serve as warning flags to take a closer look before deciding whether to ignore or accept what has been written.

Skeptical Science

Happy (not sure that's _quite_ the right sentiment) to see @SkepticalScience's recent revamp of our #ClimateMythDebunking for the Medieval Warm Period cited in this Guardian fact check.

Along with two others.

We do volcanoes as well, but no complaints. :-)

Those of us too close to this topic think of these #ClimateMyths as old and harmless, but here's Reform UK breathing new life into 'em. Ignore at our peril.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/31/factcheck-no-richard-tice-volcanoes-are-not-to-blame-for-climate-change

Reality check: the Reform UK party’s claims on the climate crisis examined

Richard Tice made some eye-opening statements on the climate, and the manifesto is packed with even more falsehoods

The Guardian

What's #FLICC?

It's a taxonomical system for classifying different forms of bunk, allowing us to identify which particular cognitive weapons are being targeted at our psychological susceptibilities.

Some familiarity and practice with FLICC helps us to deal with the firehose of #ClimateMyths, #VaccineDisinformation and other rubbish lobbed into our brains on a daily basis.

How are your bunk detection skills right now? Try this fun little quiz!

https://skepticalscience.com/mastering-flicc-a-cranky-uncle-themed-quiz.html?utm-source=mastodon&utm-campaign=socialnetworks&utm-term=sks

Mastering FLICC - A Cranky Uncle themed quiz

By now, most of you will have heard about the FLICC taxonomy of science denial techniques and how you can train your skills in detecting them with the Cranky Uncle game. If you like to quickly check how good you are at this already, answer the 12 quiz questions in the form below. The form is not collecting any personal information but it contains a comment field at the end in case you'd like to give some feedback.

Skeptical Science

"Gigafact is a nonprofit that equips newsrooms to counter misinformation and protect the democratic process."

And we're proud to be partnering with #Gigafact, another organization focused on filling a particular gap. Here, layout-friendly drop-in debunking content, consistently treated and conveniently to hand for editors and reporters.

We're sharing our expertise on #ClimateMyths with Gigafact.

The tight 150-word budget makes each a puzzle for authors to solve.

https://skepticalscience.com/fact-brief-breath.html?utm-source=mastodon&utm-campaign=socialnetworks&utm-term=sks

Fact Brief - Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?

Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park in collaboration with members from our Skeptical Science team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline.

Skeptical Science
The first 42-odd minutes of this 80 minute long festival of misinformation, once the initial 'elevator-pitch' is done with, are dedicated to "The Science". But instead of that, what one is exposed to is a veritable Gish-gallop of #ClimateMyths, with the phrase, "we are told" liberally scattered among them” (2/2)

"It's all about us!"

Well, no, no really. Too-rapid #AnthropogenicClimateChange is the topic here. Our beat is combating #SyntheticIgnorance about climate science, swatting down #ClimateMyths.

We treated the recently excreted carnival of #ClimateBunk "Climate: The Movie." We're delighted with the performance of our #debunking. So, we're dancing in the end zone with this as our Story of the Week in our latest #ClimateNews roundup.

35 other stories in this roundup!

https://skepticalscience.com/2024-SkS-Weekly-News-Roundup_12.html?utm-source=mastodon&utm-campaign=socialnetworks&utm-term=sks

2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #12

A listing of 36 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 17, 2024 thru Sat, March 23, 2024. Story of the week Thanks to John Mason having the stamina to sit down to watch 'Climate - the Movie' and jotting down several pages worth of notes on Friday morning, we were able to quickly put together a blog post debunking the many false and misleading claims made in the film. The first 42-odd minutes of this 80 minute long festival of misinformation are dedicated to 'The Science'. But instead of that, what one is exposed to is a veritable Gish-gallop of climate myths, with the phrase, 'we are told' liberally scattered among them. In addition to a list of the 25 myths identified by John, we also checked them off on our myth rebuttal chart, available for occasions like this. It makes for a neat sharable graphic driving home the point of how much is wrong with the item debunked.

Skeptical Science

"What you said was so confused that one could not tell whether it was nonsense or not." --- Wolfgang Pauli.

That's how a lot of #ClimateMyths classify. But some _could_ be more meaty.

Correlation of CO2 concentration and atmospheric temperature is truly interesting but climate bunko artists understand how superficial treatment is catchy like "hooks" in pop music. We end up hearing extra rubbishy misinformation.

Revised: CO2's correlation with temperature.

https://skepticalscience.com/co2-temperature-correlation-basic.htm?utm-source=mastodon&utm-campaign=socialnetworks&utm-term=sks

Does CO2 always correlate with temperature (and if not, why not?)

<p>Even during a period of long term warming, there are short periods of cooling due to climate variability. Short term cooling over the last few years is largely due to a strong La Nina phase in the Pacific Ocean and a prolonged solar minimum.</p>

Skeptical Science