The Truth About Misinformation with Cailin O'Connor

It’s hard to solve a problem when some people don’t even believe that it exists. Researcher Cailin O’Connor joins to talk about the spread of climate misinformation- and what we can do about it. Show notes from Chris: Sadly, action on the climate crisis has been badly delayed by huge amounts of disinformation and misinformation, and much of it orchestrated by the fossil fuel industry. If you want to learn more, the groundbreaking book “Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming” by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway is an absolute must-read. Click here for a very powerful article about what happened between Fred Singer and Roger Revelle. Cailin O’Connor and James Owen Weatherall’s wonderfully insightful and hugely readable book is “The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread”. I can’t recommend it enough. Other great advice on how to beat misinformation is by treating it as a ‘virus’, described in the fascinating book “Foolproof” by Sander van der Linden. One super promising approach is to ‘inoculate’ ourselves by debunking misinformation before it takes hold. There’s a great review and summary here. Oh, and that argument about bird kills and wind farms? Recent work by Erik Katovich has published a US-wide study in the scientific journal Environmental Science & Technology and found no measurable impact on bird populations around wind turbines. But this study found a 15% decline around fossil fuel developments, like shale oil and gas production, the opposite to what’s often claimed… See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.