How to Battle Misinformation in the Fight Against Climate Change

Climate change poses a vast set of public policy challenges ranging from energy generation and resource extraction to food production and transportation. However, in the United States today, some policymakers and legislators regularly propagate misinformation around climate change. For climate activists, this has proven to be one of the biggest hurdles in mobilizing the public around the issue. Understanding and countering hostility to settled scientific facts is the vital first step in combating climate change.

A recent analysis from Justin Farrell and Kathryn McConnell of Yale University and Robert Brulle of Brown University outlined evidence-based strategies to combat scientific misinformation surrounding climate change. This paper provided an overview of the problem, identifying the organizations, coalitions and constituencies responsible for casting doubt on climate science. The authors then provided strategies to overcome this challenge and restore the public’s confidence in climate science.

To begin, the authors identified recent actions taken by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that pose a threat to the public’s understanding of climate change, such as the rules restricting the number of scientific studies that can be considered when developing environmental regulations. The paper cited recent research from a broad network of institutional structures, including corporations, think tanks, industry trade groups, philanthropic foundations, lobbying groups and public relations firms, that seek to cast doubt on consensus climate science. These organizations have funneled more than $100 million to groups dedicated to spreading misinformation over the last decade. The result of such a campaign, the authors argued, is increasing polarization between political parties and stunted legislative action regarding the issue.

Farrell, McConnell and Brulle then argued for a set of coordinated strategies to combat this misinformation campaign. These strategies cover four interconnected areas: public inoculation, legal strategies, political mechanisms and financial transparency.

Perhaps the most ambitious of the authors’ proposals is around public inoculation. The authors pointed to research that suggests that an individual’s beliefs about scientific information are mediated by his or her value systems and pre-existing ideologies. Therefore, additional scientific information alone is unlikely to change perceptions. One suggested path, then, is “attitudinal inoculation,” wherein the nature and sources of deceptive information are identified, and people are exposed to those debunked arguments instead of encountering them organically. Additional steps include inoculation-based instructions in classroom settings, such as helping young students recognize their own tendencies towards motivated reasoning, and collaborating with thought leaders, especially those from communities exposed to higher levels of misinformation.

The remaining three strategies are closely interconnected. As a legal strategy, the authors cited the empirical examination of Exxon’s communications. Researchers had previously found that 80 percent of Exxon’s internal documents acknowledged climate change, while 81 percent of their public-facing materials communicated doubt. Using this example, the authors suggested developing an analytical framework to identify the most prominent and influential organizations that lead this type of misinformation campaign. This is similar to the legal strategy legislators and policymakers adopted when addressing the tobacco industry in the 1990s, which ultimately led to major legal and public policy changes.

Farrell, McConnell and Brulle concluded with two central strategies. Firstly, they pointed to the growing movement of pressuring major organizations to divest their assets from fossil fuel industries that often provide financial support to misinformation campaigns. And secondly, comparing the money spent on lobbying by proponents of climate action ($200 million between 2000 and 2016) and opponents ($1.8 billion), the authors suggested greater financial transparency rules for corporations, family-foundations, lobbying firms, political campaigns and other groups, to make it easier to identify sources of funding for these misinformation campaigns.

Given its size and influence globally, the United States will play a central role in the fight against climate change. A prerequisite to implementing public policy in this realm is to have a populace that recognizes the urgency of the threat. However, misinformation undermines public understanding of science, erodes basic trust in research findings, and stalls serious policymaking. For policymakers in the United States, any climate policy will need to overcome this barrier. An evidence-based, coordinated strategy to combat this misinformation and restore public trust in climate science is therefore a precondition to developing long-term solutions.

Article source: Farrell, Justin, Kathryn McConnell, and Robert Brulle. “Evidence-based Strategies to Combat Scientific Misinformation.” Nature Climate Change 9, no. 3 (2019): 191-95.

Featured photo: cc/(Konoplytska, photo ID: 511198768, from iStock by Getty Images)