Guest essay by Eric Worrall

Our old friend John Cook thinks climate skeptics have to be psychologically “inoculated”, to help reeducate us into accepting climate science, without triggering a reflexive “denial” response.

The science for climate change only feeds the denial: how do you beat that?

As the scientific consensus for climate change has strengthened over the past decade, the arguments against the science of climate change have been on the increase.

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How to get the right message out

There’s a great deal of research into how to communicate science more effectively and science communication should be evidence-based. But scientists and science communicators cannot afford to ignore the potential of misinformation to undermine good science communication.

One way to reduce the influence of misinformation is inoculation: we can stop the spread of science denial by exposing people to a weak form of science denial.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3YngyVdyrI

The findings of psychology underscore the importance of this new study into the production of misinformation by conservative think-tanks. To paraphrase the authors, the era of science denial is not over. Climate science communicators would be prudent not to start waving a “mission accomplished” banner just yet.