The educational app Cranky Uncle is designed to counter misinformation, it demonstrates five denial strategies within the game- 1. Fake experts, 2. Logical fallacies, 3. Impossible expectations, 4. Cherry Picking and 5. Conspiracy theories. I played a quiz, I detected all those forms of misinformation.
“Fake experts” are someone presented as a credible source of information whose expertise are not relevant, for example “Professor Smith who holds a PhD computer science says climate change is not settled science”.
“Logical fallacies” are arguments jumping to conclusion lacking logical connection, for example “Environmentalist think we can solve all our ecological problems by driving a Prius”.
“Impossible expectations” involve demanding unrealistic standard from science to undermine its validity, for example “scientist can’t predict a weather perfectly, so how can they predict climate?”
“Cherry picking” is the act selectively ignoring data or evidence that does not align with desired conclusion, for example “The world can’t be round. The floor in this room is flat”.
“Conspiracy theories” are presenting a secret plot by powerful group or someone, for example “Climate scientist are in it for the money”.
All of those tactics related climate change particularly stood out to me. While I acknowledge that climate change is a common topic on political and in societal discussion, learning these categorized tactics is very helpful for equipping myself against misinformation.
President Trump has repeatedly called climate change is a “hoax” in public, More recently, he stated in an address at United Nations that “UN prediction about the impacts of climate change is con job perpetrated by the world”. On a first day of back in office, he signed an executive order to initiate US withdrawal from Paris Climate Agreement. His long-standing strategy of climate change denial prioritize fossil fuel industry. This involves shifting the argument – for example by declaring a national emergency to expand domestic oil gas production, diverting attention from the environmental urgency of action needed to tackle climate change.
Based on overwhelming scientific research there is a consensus that burning oil and gas releases gas, which causing global warming and extreme weather.
A right-wing think tank, the Heritage Foundation commented on the recent Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reversal of scientific base on greenhouse gas and vehicle regulations, stating “Alarmist rhetoric and extreme policy measures threaten to undermine energy affordability and economic prosperity”.
According to research by the IEA, Clean energy is often most affordable energy and the least impact on environment.
Based on what I learned in Cranky Uncle app, I would categorize this tactic as logical fallacies.
I think these actions are not only misleading the public about the scientific consensus on climate change but also represent the manipulation of a scientific topic as a political tactic designed to promote party dominance, benefitting oil and gas industry.
Since there is no single perfect one solution to eliminate the spread of misinformation across social media and digital media platform, ultimately the end user of digital information have to protect themselves.
Educational tools like the Cranky Uncle app and other resources such as CTRLF are essential and the lateral reading is effectively help people to navigate and verify digital information.
It is also beneficial to explore both left or right points of view in our divided nation, Allsides is valuable to give comprehensive understanding of media bias and context, as reported topics like cancellation of clean energy funding.
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