The Only True Climate Skeptic

There's an online community that refer to themselves as "climate change skeptics". They obviously don't like the term "climate change denier", with its ties to "holocaust deniers", and there are prominent, and intelligent people making that argument. Rex Murphy and his endless droning on the subject, Russ Roberts, Bjorn Lomborg - people who occasionally make good points as well as the countless internet trolls.

One problem, of course, is that with very few exceptions they're all about as skeptical as a Mormon schoolgirl writing a letter to Santa Claus. Their knowledge of climate change comes from forwarding around the same blogs and Youtubers making talking points. They never question the interpretations stated in these blogs, they never check the actual papers reportedly being cited, they never show the least amount of skepticism as long as the words are being written or spoken by the likes of Tony Heller, William Happer, or Christopher Moncton.

"But wait!" you ask, "I don't read scientific papers on climate change either. Does that mean I can't be right about climate change?" Well no, although I'm sure there are some misunderstandings. It does probably mean that you're not that skeptical, which has led to unhelpful ideas about the world ending in 12 years and no more snow coming to Britain.

The truth is that it's hard to read scientific papers. They're usually behind a hard paywall and incomprehensible anyway. Your university friends like me will happily send you something if you need it, but there's an easier way.

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My recommendation this week is Peter Hadfield, a trained geologist and reporter from Australia who you'll here very occasionally if you listen to CBC Radio. He has a popular YouTube channel going into the science of climate change (and debunking creationists for fun, if you have time to kill). His videos tend to be pretty long, running well into 30 minutes. Unfortunately, this is a rule of the internet, it takes much longer to debunk conspiracies online than it does to conjure them out of thin air. Nonetheless, they are comfortably worth it. I happily assign him most of the praise for what I know about climate change.

I have some video recommendations depending on what you need. If you have 20 minutes and want a favourite, check out "Are Electric Cars Really Green", focusing on one of the most annoying and oft quoted myths I hear all the time. Half an hour to spend on a more topical subject? He just released this video on "The Cause of Australia's Bushfires". If you really want to commit your time to understanding climate change and the myths online, start from video one of his climate change playlist, released 12 years ago.

If you care at all about the disinformation being spread around the internet, this is the best place to go.