Climate change misinformation
I was having what I thought was an innocuous conversation with a friend, about weather apps, when they gave me this little gem. "I don't use the Met Office app because they push a climate change agenda." And I thought, what?! That has obvioulsy not been my experience using the app and I said so. I also pointed out that climate change is indeed real, to which my interlocutor flatly said, "I don't believe in it."
Long after it ended, this conversation lingered like a bad smell, which is perhaps why I bring it up here. Climate change is not like a placebo or a nocebo, it will affect you and your descendants whatever your feelings about it. My friend's comment came as a surprise to me, becuase this person has an appreciation for nature, a quality I enjoy about them. How can they not believe? It's like saying you don't believe the earth is round or that there are planets. Not sure how to deal with such a revelation. I do however, understand it.
Firstly because misinformation on the subject abounds, as established in a report by the International Panel on the Information Environment (IPIE)*:
The findings indicate that powerful actors—including corporations, governments, and political parties—intentionally spread inaccurate or misleading narratives about anthropogenic climate change. These narratives circulate across digital, broadcast, and interpersonal communication channels. The result is a decline in public trust, diminished policy coordination, and a feedback loop between scientific denialism and political inaction.
It is true that the Met Office does advise the Government on the state of the climate. But being annoyed with them for doing this is like hating a bin lorry driver for collecting your rubbish. It's their job, and a necessary one.
How can we educate ourselves when the sources of information are missing or they cannot be relied upon because the means of communication are owned by the super rich? Further, how can we manage the complexity of the matter when we are all of us, as Nicholas Carr puts it "Drawing on whatever information is available to us and filtering it through our own desires and biases, each of us creates a mental “pseudo-environment”—a simplified and necessarily fictionalized picture of reality—and then we fit our thoughts and actions to the mirage’s contours." According to Carr, "Depending on the individual and his or her education and personality, the pseudo-environment can take the form of anything from a “complete hallucination” to a scientific “schematic model,” but it is never a true and full picture of reality."
We're living in a quagmire of mistrust.
* International Panel on the Information Environment [E. Elbeyi, K. Bruhn Jensen, M. Aronczyk, J. Asuka, G. Ceylan, J. Cook, G. Erdelyi, H. Ford, C. Milani, E. Mustafaraj, F. Ogenga, S. Yadin, P. N. Howard, S. Valenzuela (eds.)], “Information Integrity about Climate Science: A Systematic Review,” Zurich, Switzerland: IPIE, 2025. SR2025.1, doi: 10.61452/BTZP3426
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