Talks and Presentations - 2017 to 2021

List of talks

• 30 November 2021: Commonwealth Centre for Connected Learning (3CL)
• 12 August 2021: Bay Area Skeptics
• 12 August 2021: Santa Clara University - Debunking Climate Myths (Dana)
• 5 August 2021: Santa Clara University - Wildfire Science & Climate (Dana)
• 21 July 2021: Lamont Summer Series Lecture
• 26 May 2021: ThinkClima panel with John Cook and Bärbel Winkler
• 27 April 2021: CCL AMA with Dana Nuccitelli and John Cook
• 22 April 2021: NCSE - Talking Climate Models with John Cook
• 1 April 2021: Skeptical Inquirer - Gaming against misinformation
• 1 April 2021: KISS - Klima in der Schule Symposium (BaerbelW in German)
• 4 February 2021: Repustar
• 2 February 2021: Cyberpsychology Center
• 27 January 2021: Students against Pseudoscience at Cambridge University
• 26 January 2021: Citizens' Climate Lobby AMA with Michael Mann (Dana Nuccitelli)
• 19 January 2021: Citizens' Climate Lobby Canada
• 15 October 2020: Trinity College
• 14 May 2020: Fake News über den Klimawandel entlarven (BaerbelW, in German)
• 25 November 2019: SAP Community Call (BaerbelW)
• 25 June 2019: Elders Climate Action
• 24 April 2019: Texas A&M University
• 20 October 2018: CSICon, Las Vegas
• 9 April 2018: Pre-recording of EGU-Presentation (BaerbelW)
• 9 Feb 2018: University of California Irvine
• 29 Nov 2017: NOVA, Virginia
• 16 April 2017: George Mason University
• 19 March 2017: Weber State University
• 8 March 2017: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
• 28 February 2017: Old Dominion University

Talks prior to 2017 are available on this page.

More recent talks are available here.

30 November 2021: Commonwealth Centre for Connected Learning (3CL)

John Cook talked with Dr Emma Pauncefort, Learning Science Practitioner and Founder of Dilectae, a UK-based education consultancy, on November 30. They discussed misinformation, critical thinking and inoculation theory in this hour long session. 

12 August 2021: Bay Area Skeptics

John Cook did a presentation for the Bay Area Skeptics about what to do about misinformation in which he introduced the 4D-project. Misinformation is a complex problem pervading many aspects of society, with technological, psychological, social, and cultural aspects. Countering misinformation requires tackling the many-headed beast from a variety of disciplines and directions. The 4D Project synthesizes four research themes: Detect, Deconstruct, Debunk, and Deploy. 

12 August 2021: Santa Clara University - tUrn Climate Week

Dana Nuccitelli did a presentation about debunking climate myths during the tUrn Climate Week organized by Santa Clara University.

5 August 2021: Santa Clara University - tUrn Climate Week

Dana Nuccitelli did a presentation about wildfire science and climate change during the tUrn Climate Week organized by Santa Clara University.

21 July 2021: Lamont Summer Series Lecture

Invited talk as part of the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory's 2021 Summer Series.

26 May 2021: THINKClima 2021 Panel on Fighting Misinformation

The panel featured presentations by John Cook about “Computer-assisted detection and classification of misinformation about climate change” (starting at 00:05:00), Bärbel Winkler about “Resources to give facts a fighting chance against misinformation” (starting at 00:24:00 / PDF of presentation), Ferran P. Vilar about "A mix of personal blog and technical journal (temporally) censored by Facebook” and Rachel Sherrington from Desmog about “How high-carbon industries gain influence and how media can hold them to account”. The panel was moderated by Gema Revuelta from Universitat Pompeu Fabra.

27 April 2021: CCL AMA with Dana Nuccitelli and John Cook

22 April 2021: NCSE - Misconception of the Month: Talking Climate Models with John Cook

For Earth Day 2021, Ann Reid - Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) - talked with John Cook, Research Fellow at the Climate Change Communication Research Hub at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, about how best to tackle the misconceptions surrounding climate models, and climate change generally.

1 April 2021: Skeptical Inquirer - Gaming against Misinformation

John Cook gave a webinar for the Skeptical Inquirer about using gamification and cartoons to overcome some of the psychological hurdles facing scientists and educators as they respond to misinformation. Learn about a number of psychological challenges which hinder the countering of misinformation and science denial and how gamification offers a unique opportunity to convert effortful critical thinking tasks into quicker, easier heuristics. In this presentation, John Cook outlines how he applied psychological and critical thinking research into inoculation and how his Cranky Uncle game can help with the task.

1 April 2021: KISS - Klima in der Schule Symposium (BaerbelW, in German)

Bärbel Winkler did a presentation during "KISS", the "Klima in der Schule Symposium" organized by the Scientists for Future which had the goal to showcase projects and options for educators to get (more) climate science into German classrooms. Just from the target audience, this was an ideal event to make participants aware of the Cranky Uncle game and how it could be used in the classroom. Here is the reocrding of the presentation "Mit Cranky Uncle die Techniken der Wissenschaftsleugnung kennenlernen" which you can download as a PDF from here. If you've been watching some of John's talks on this page, you should be able to follow along even if you don't speak the language - the slides will look very familiar and Baerbel tried to translate John's words as closely as possible for her script!

4 February 2021: Repustar

Addressing Climate Science Denial Full Webinar - Climate science denial has misled citizens about the environment and stymied political action on the problem around the world. What strategies and tools can help spread accurate information about climate change? This conversation features John Cook, founder of Skeptical Science and assistant professor at George Mason University, and Robyn Sundlee of Repustar as they discuss the misleading claims driving climate science denial and what can be done to counter them.

2 February 2021: Cyberpsychology Center

Combining Psychology, Critical Thinking, and Gamification to Counter Science Misinformation

27 January 2021: Students against Pseudoscience Cambridge University (CUSAP)

On 27 January 2021, Cambridge University Students Against Pseudoscience (CUSAP) had the privilege of hosting Professor John Cook of the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University, who gave the talk “Using Critical Thinking to Build Resilience Against Misinformation”.

26 January 2021: Citizens' Climate Lobby AMA

In his role as CCL Science Policy Network leader, Dana Nuccitelli talked with Michael Mann during an Ask Me Anything session to answer climate science questions from CCL volunteers.

19 January 2021: Citizens' Climate Lobby Canada

Misinformation is a growing societal problem, confusing the public about climate change and reducing support for climate action. A key strategy to neutralize misinformation is inoculation - explaining the techniques of science denial. John Cook has researched how to counter misinformation for over a decade, developing resources such as Skeptical Science and the MOOC Making Sense of Climate Science Denial. His latest project - the Cranky Uncle smartphone game - combines gamification, critical thinking, and cartoons to build public resilience against misinformation. In this presentation, Cook will explain how climate misinformation misleads, how we can inoculate ourselves and others against science denial, and how the Cranky Uncle game utilizes these techniques in a fun game.

15 October 2020: Trinity College

14 May 2020: Fake News über den Klimawandel entlarven

The universities in Baden-Württemberg - one of the federal states in Germany - organized virtual sustainability days in May 2020. Bärbel Winkler was invited to do a webinar about Fake News related to climate change which was live streamed on YouTube. The presentation and subsequent discussion are in German.

25 November 2019: SAP Community Call

Pre-recording of Bärbel Winkler's presentation for the SAP Community Call "Taking on fake news about climate change" on Nov. 25, 2019. More information about the presentation is available in a blog post on SAP Community. The presentation is available as a PDF-file for download here.

25 June 2019: Elders Climate Action

John Cook was invited to give the June National call for Elders Climate Action. The talk was live-illustrated by Nancy Margulies (illustrations below).

24 April 2019: Texas A&M University

John Cook gave an invited seminar "Responding to climate misinformation in a post-truth world" at Texas A&M University. The visit was sponsored by the Glasscock Center for Humanities Research and the Department of Atmospheric Sciences.

20 October 2018: CSICon Las Vegas

John Cook gave an invited talk "Taking on Fake News About Climate Change" at CSICon 2018 in Las Vegas.

9 April 2018: Pre-recording of EGU-Presention (BaerbelW)

While at EGU in Vienna, Baerbel Winkler was one of four panelists who gave a presentation in the short course "Debunking myths and fake news: how can geoscientists fight misinformation and false claims". The video below is the result of recording the presentation with audio in preparation for the session. You can download the presentation as PDF-file from here.

9 February 2018: University of California Irvine

The University of California Irvine invited John Cook to speak to their students on climate communication and responding to misinformation.

29 November, 2017: NOVA, Virginia

16 April 2017: George Mason University

Each year, George Mason University host a series of "lightning talks", where researchers have just 3 minutes to present their research results. John Cook presented his research into inoculation theory (and for the record, took exactly 2:54 minutes while still fitting in a plug for Denial101x).

19 March 2017: Weber State University

John Cook ran a 3.5 hour workshop "Responding to misinformation in the age of fake news" (45Mb Powerpoint) and presented a talk "Countering alternative facts and post-truthism" (37Mb powerpoint) at the Intermountain Sustainability Summit, hosted by Weber State University in Ogden, Utah.

8 March 2017: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

John Cook presented a talk Science communication & myth debunking at Skeptical Science, at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. Unfortunately the talk wasn't recorded but the powerpoint is available for download (46Mb).

28 February 2017: Old Dominion University

John Cook presented a talk Science communication & responding to misinformation in the post-truth era, at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, hosted by the Center for Coastal Physical Oceanography .

Talks prior to 2017 are available on this page.