For the first time in its history, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has named the spread of climate misinformation as an obstruction to climate action, particularly in the United States.
In fact, a recent report by advocacy group Stop Funding Heat found that climate misinformation—false information that’s spread either by mistake or with the intent to mislead—gets viewed up to 1.36 million times every day on Facebook alone. And the problem appears to be getting worse on nearly every social platform.
But separating climate fact from climate fiction isn’t always easy.
Climate misinformation can look like your cousin sharing a conspiracy-laden blog post on Facebook, thinking it’s accurate. But it can also come from a conservative think tank publishing an intentionally deceptive (and fossil fuel–sponsored) report about the cost of solar energy. In both cases, the climate falsehoods breed confusion, polarize, and can ultimately have the power to influence government policies.
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