Arguments
What scientists are saying about Skeptical Science
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"Climate's changed before. It's just the sun, or a natural cycle--or both. Mars' ice cap is melting. Carbon dioxide is plant food. And we'd all prefer a warmer planet anyways, right? If any of these myths sound familiar, check out Skeptical Science - they've got an answer to each of these common myths, and over 200 more. I love how there's a 30-second short answer, a longer "basic" answer, and then the full enchilada for people who want all the scientific references, links, and figures. Warning: a dismissive (someone who no amount of facts, no matter how convincing, will ever convince) will say this is a politically biased website. Why? Because they can't agree with the science it cites. For them, a thermometer really IS liberal. But for the rest of us, this is the best resource for information on climate myths on the internet. I can't recommend it highly enough. They even have an iPhone app!" Katharine Hayhoe (source) Professor in the Department of Political Science and director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University |
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"...there are great websites where you can go and get reliable information about the science of climate change, whether it's the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration or the National Science Foundation, the National Academy of Sciences. There's a great website called Skeptical Science that has sort of a list of all of the various myths about climate change that have become commonplace in sort of among those who deny the reality of climate change and the actual scientific responses." Michael Mann Director of the Earth System Science Center, Penn State |
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"I get a lot of comments and queries from people about one or other of the many standard "climate skeptics" arguments and myths that have long been refuted by scientists. It is extremely helpful that I can just point these people to Skeptical Science, so I don't need to answer the same things again and again. I don't know any other resource that has such a comprehensive, well-researched list of answers to climate questions, understandable and with references!" Stefan Rahmstorf Professor of Physics of the Oceans at Potsdam University in Germany |
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"Skeptical Science has reached an international audience that stretches across the world, and which has come at a time when accurate information is critically important in terms of understanding and responding to climate change, and shockingly hard to find. The website, iPhone apps and other Internet inventions have provided support and climate change knowledge to hundreds of thousands of people, and I frequently refer people to it. This is extraordinary in terms of advancing knowledge about climate change." Naomi Oreskes Professor of the History of Science, Harvard University, Co-author of Merchants of Doubt |
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"Skeptical Science is a fantastic resource for debunking misinformation about climate change. The articles and materials are all grounded in the scientific literature, and presented in an approachable and understandable way. It is a particularly great resource for helping students and other young people separate the facts from the myths." Simon Donner Professor, Department of Geography, University of British Columbia |
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"Skeptical Science is the first place I send people with climate questions to help them find answer with clear explanations, peer-reviewed science, and guidance to more details for the truly curious. And climate deniers hate it because it debunks their nonsense with facts." Peter Gleick President-Emeritus, Pacific Institute Member, US National Academy of Sciences |
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"The myth rebuttals at SkepticalScience serve as a great resource for people wanting to sort the wheat from the chaff in the information jungle. The flaw in the reasoning is exposed and the counterarguments are backed up by references to the scholarly literature. This makes it a good example of critical thinking and very useful as a teaching resource." Bart Verheggen Lecturer in earth and climate sciences, Amsterdam University College |
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"I use SkS extensively in the graduate-level climate literacy course that I teach at my university. I also introduced SkS to scientific skeptics who attended the climate literacy workshop I led at CSICon a couple years ago. Real skeptics love it!" Mark Boslough Research Associate Professor, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of New Mexico |
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"Skeptical science has been invaluable to me in my meteorology, climate, and environmental science at Florida State University and here at Lane Community College. I also always include the analysis of climate change misconceptions in my teacher educational outreach from the GLOBE program. Now, as a science dean, I also have an opportunity for more community public engagement, and skepticalscience.com is always an integral part. Thanks!" Paul Ruscher Science Dean, Lane Community College, Eugene, Oregon |
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"As a climate scientist who focuses on providing future projections to assist with adapting to climate change, I just can't keep up with all the latest arguments climate denial is using. SkS helps me stop deniers from derailing adaptation workshops, gives me a place to send them to find evidence based information, and is a great resource for me to dig into technical details so I can do my own debunking next time." Trevor Murdock Climate Scientist, University of Victoria |
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"The ocean is a key component in the Earth's climate system and improving my students' understanding of climate change is a primary learning outcome for my course. Many students have little familiarity with the concepts of climate science and there are those whom had only been introduced to the common "climate myths". Skeptical Science is a useful tool for introducing complex concepts in climate science to non-science majors. I lean on this resource throughout my undergraduate marine science course and appreciate the logical structure of the site's content. The creators and contributors are all deserving of high praise for their collective efforts." Clifton Buck Associate Professor, University of Georgia |
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"Skeptical Science is based on a simple notion: take each climate related argument and match it up to the latest science, first in simple language that everyone can understand, and then in depth, backed up by links to the peer-reviewed science. The result is a website which clearly identifies what we know and what we don't know regarding climate change. It is enormously useful and is currently the most prominent knowledge-based website dealing with climate change in the world. Perhaps even more remarkable is that the contributions to the advancement of climate change knowledge do not end with the website. Skeptical Science has also produced popular iPhone and Android apps, which provide up-to-date clarity on the truth or otherwise associate with over 150 popular arguments for why climate change isn't happening or its impacts are trivial. The clarity and portability that the iPhone and Android apps have provided represents an enormous and innovative resource for experts and the general public to understand the state of knowledge that we have about climate change and its impacts." Ove Hoegh-Guldberg Professor and Director, Global Change Institute, University of Queensland |
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"Skeptical Science is without doubt one of the best sites to go to when you are looking for trustworthy sources about climate change and concise debunking of climate myths. You would think that a site like this would be largely unneeded given the very strong agreement among scientists about the basic facts in the field. Unfortunately, that is not the case. A steady stream of misinformation is poured out over the internet, often from the same limited set of people and always lacking proper scientific sources. Skeptical Science is invaluable in exposing these relentlessly recycled myths and providing solid and reliable evidence to counteract suspicious claims about the science of climate change" Peter Roessingh Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics |
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"I read at least one article on SkepticalScience nearly every day and I regularly consult my SkepticalScience iphone app! I am an ecologist and I study the impacts of climate change on marine ecosystems, but a few years ago I realized I needed to understand much more about the physical processes underlying the biological changes we are documenting. In part to improve the quality of our science but also because I frequently am challenged when giving public talks by so-called climate change "skeptics". They always ask the same questions and make the same points, eg, "It's the sun!", "it has happened before" and my favorite "it was cold here last week!". The resources provided by SkepticalScience have helped me recognize and respond effectively to these canards. SkepticalScience also helps me keep up with advances in the physical science of climate change by providing excellent, accurate coverage of key papers in the field (in journals I wouldn't regularly read). I regularly use SkepticalScience as a teaching resource (my students love it), for background research when writing blog posts and I frequently use John Cook's graphics when giving talks. Finally, SkepticalScience has taught me a lot about the "debate" about climate change and about communicating climate change science and how to politely and effectively debunk the ideological talking points we all routinely encounter. In short, I find the content reliable, concise, graphically appealing, well presented and organized. SkepticalScience has become a key resource to me and many other environmental scientists." John Bruno Associate Professor, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |
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"Skeptical Science does two things extremely well: 1) the site relies on peer-reviewed literature to frame the discussion of climate change; and 2) the site realizes that most of us are visual learners, the key plots and graphs are always available. Because of its focus on high quality peer-review publications, SkS draws a bright line between opinion and observation, between the politics of science and science, between tainted skepticism and scientific skepticism. I use SkS in several ways: as a library; for updates on works I may have missed; for climate news; and as a source of scientific points of view." Chip Fletcher Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor, University of Hawaii at Manoa |
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"There are many credible sources of information, and they aren’t blog sites run by weathermen like Anthony Watts or industry-funded fake science organizations. One place to start is at skepticalscience.com. Click on the tab that says “Arguments” for scientific responses to all the main climate change denier talking points." David Suzuki |
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"As a glaciologist focused on the impacts of climate change on glaciers, I have come to rely on Skeptical Science as the first blog to go to each day to keep up with climate change developments. It is like a daily briefing on current arguments confronting climate change science that support inaction." Mauri Pelto Professor of Environmental Science, Science Program Chair Director, North Cascade Glacier Climate Project, Nichols College |
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"At the end of climate change talks that I give to students, politicians and colleagues, I always include a link to valuable on-line resources. Skeptical Science is always on there as my go-to source for information on debunking climate change denial myths." Jeff Masters Meteorologist for Scientific American Co-founder, The Weather Underground |
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"In writing The Inquisition of Climate Science, I referred to SkS constantly. I had room only to address the most frequent denier arguments; SkS told me what those were and how best to refute them. Perhaps the most important thing about SkS is not the details but the way in which it shows that it takes only one short sentence to refute each denier argument, revealing that the deniers have constructed a house of cards that falls apart the moment it confronts the implacable facts of science. Future historians will look back at these web pages as either showing how the facts allowed reason to triumph, or as revealing how the opportunity to save humanity was squandered. Regardless, when anyone in the future asks John Cook "What did you do in the war?" he will have an answer he can be proud of." James Lawrence Powell James Lawrence Powell, author of 2084 and The Inquisition of Climate Science |
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"There is probably no issue subject to as much misinformation as climate change. Fortunately, there is one place that cuts through the nonsense and provides scientific facts in a clear, well organized, and easy-to-understand format. In preparing presentations on climate change and solutions, I find it to be a wealth of information. With its introduction of smart phone apps, Skeptical Science is now available at your fingertips 24 hours a day." Chuck Kutscher, Ph.D. National Renewable Energy Laboratory and leader of the American Solar Energy Society study, Tackling Climate Change in the U.S. |
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"I was in attendance at a panel discussion at the Fall 2010 American Geophysical Union Conference with panelists Dr. Richard Sommerville, Susan Hassol, and Chris Mooney. Each of these participants is a giant in their own right. The room was overcrowded and a dividing wall had to be removed to double the seating capacity. The topic of the conversation was how to communicate climate science effectively. During that panel discussion and the interaction with the crowd that followed, Skeptical Science was mentioned four separate times as the premier repository for science information and communication strategies. The persons extolling Skeptical Science were noteworthy climate scientists who recognized the important role the website plays in the international discussion." John Abraham Associate Professor, University of St. Thomas |
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"My field is paleoanthropology, where I've focused on the relationship between large scale change in climate (like the spread of grassland habitats, or the cooling of the Earth since the Miocene) and the evolution of our genus and species. So when people say "climate has changed before," I get it. How does one understand the importance of ongoing anthropogenic climate change in the context of such large, long term change? Skeptical Science does not shy away from complex and nuanced questions. It is the single best, and most comprehensive, source of description and explanation for both climate science denial and the science itself. Skeptical Science links peer reviewed research with the thoughtful study of communication and brings them right to your uncle Bob." Greg Laden |
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"I used John Cook’s SkepticalScience.com as the student resource for this semester’s research papers. As you will see from the four example papers highlighted on this blog, information found at SkepticalScience.com is accessible to the typical college student and likely to the general public." Scott Mandia Professor of Global Climate Change, Suffolk Community College |
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"A note of thanks to you for your amazing website Skeptical Science. It has been a great resource as I’ve been preparing for my upcoming talk on ethics and science denial in Perth." Lawrence Torcello Lawrence Torcello, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Rochester Institute of Technology
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"Skeptical Science’s broad reach across more than 20 languages, even more countries and cultures, and hundreds of thousands of site visitors each month set a new standard for responsible climate science literacy outreach. These are not my opinions alone, but rather those of many in the responsible climate change science and policy community across the United States. One need only attend and participate in the annual conferences of some of the U.S.’s leading science organizations – the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Geophysical Union (AGU), or the American Meteorological Society (AMS), for instance – to see how often Skeptical Science activities are formally and informally mentioned or cited from the podium…by panelists…by audience members. As I personally witnessed at these conferences, the site is repeatedly identified as the “essential” web resource, the one web site to be visited frequently by those wanting to be and stay informed." Bud Ward Editor, The Yale Forum on Climate Change & The Media |
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