Trajectum • Tristan Lof • 3 juli 2024 • Leestijd: 7 min
“Volcanoes also emit CO2.” “There has always been climate change.” “Nitrogen is actually good for plants.” Misinformation about climate change: Mario Veen knows all about it and fights against it. He is a senior lecturer within the Digital Transition Communication research group at the University of Applied Sciences Utrecht and a member of Climate Obstruction NL.
Journalists, scientists, and security professionals are increasingly encountering fake news about the climate. Mario Veen designed a tool to make professionals more resilient against these falsehoods: “Even some of my colleagues at HU were approached by organizations spreading misinformation.”
Read the interview on Trajectum (in Dutch):
Using These Fifteen Fallacies from Mario Veen, You Can Identify Climate Misinformation:
- “The climate is not changing, or not more than usual.”
- “Climate change is not (entirely) caused by humans. CO2 is actually good for plants.”
- “Scientists themselves doubt that CO2 emissions are the main cause of climate change.”
- “There is climate change but no climate crisis. We can easily adapt.”
- “It’s too late. We can no longer do anything about climate change.”
- “It was much warmer in the Middle Ages.” (and other cherry-picking)
- Conspiracy thinking: “Critical scientists are being censored. IPCC, NASA, and KNMI are corrupt.”
- “Climate change is a hoax.”
- “If China does nothing, it makes no sense for us to act.”
- Promoting fake experts and denigrating real experts: “The IPCC, NASA, and KNMI are corrupt, and this Nobel Prize winner says there is no climate change.”
- Unrealistic expectations of science: “Consensus is not how science works. Climate models contain uncertainties.”
- Shifting responsibility: others must act first. “The Netherlands is a small country, so we don’t need to do anything. The government/industry/consumers should handle this.”
- Emphasizing disadvantages: “If we phase out fossil fuels, society will collapse. The costs of climate policy outweigh the benefits.”
- Promoting non-transformative measures (greenwashing): “We don’t need to make drastic changes. We can manage with tree planting, air conditioning, and nuclear power.”
- Moodsplaining: telling others how they should or should not feel: “Don’t be so negative. On a warm day, you should just be happy.”