Story of the week

Thanks to John Mason having the stamina to sit down to watch “Climate – the Movie” and jotting down several pages worth of notes on Friday morning, we were able to quickly put together a blog post debunking the many false and misleading claims made in the film. The first 42-odd minutes of this 80 minute long festival of misinformation are dedicated to “The Science”. But instead of that, what one is exposed to is a veritable Gish-gallop of climate myths, with the phrase, “we are told” liberally scattered among them. In addition to a list of the 25 myths identified by John, we also checked them off on our myth rebuttal chart, available for occasions like this. It makes for a neat sharable graphic driving home the point of how much is wrong with the item debunked.

After publishing the blog post on Saturday, we shared it on social media where it was the post generating the most interest by far during the week.

Stories we promoted this week, by publication date:

Before March 17

Climate-Science Deniers, Right-Wing Think Tanks, and Fossil Fuel Shills Are Plotting Against the Clean Energy Transition, DeSmog, Rebecca Burns. Lede: Inside the conspiracy to take down wind and solar power.
Climate Criminals – Prosecuting Big Oil For Environmental Crimes, CleanTechnica, Steve Hanley.
Climate adaptation becomes less effective as the world warms, Guest Posts, Scientific American, Dr Tabea Katharina Lissner, Tessa Möller, Dr Martina Angela Caretta & Dr Aditi Mukherji. “From flooding in New Zealand and wildfires in Canada through to drought in the Middle East and extreme heat across the northern hemisphere, last year provided a powerful demonstration of the impacts of climate change.”
The Zombies of the U.S. Tax Code: Why Fossil Fuels Subsidies Seem Impossible to Kill, Climate, New York Times, Lisa Friedman. “For the fourth year in a row, President Biden is trying to eliminate federal tax breaks for coal, oil and gas companies. But fossil fuel subsidies have proven difficult to stop.”
Polluters Are Melting the Winter Sports They Sponsor, DeSmog, Andrew Simms and Anna Jonsson. Corporations are using sport as a billboard to sell the high-carbon products that are killing our winters, and now we can put a figure on the damage their money does.
Six Months After the Heat Spiked, Caribbean Corals Are Still Reeling, Hakai Magazine, Lisa S. Gardiner. In deep water and in the shallows, corals cooked by last year’s extreme heat are not doing great.
The Climate Denier’s Playbook, Art19 Podcasts, Rollie Williams and Nicole Conlan.
How to overcome political polarization on climate change, Knowable Magazine, Ula Chrobak. Conversations — in real life — can help bridge the partisan divide, but the trick is to have some structure to the discussion, says a human ecologist
Corals Have ‘No Reprieve’ as the Great Barrier Reef Faces Its Latest Bleaching Event, Today’s Climate, Inside Climate News, Kiley Price. Increasingly frequent marine heat waves are hammering away at the world’s coral reefs, scientists say.
Skeptical Science New Research for Week #11 2024, Skeptical Science, Doug Bostrom & Marc Kodack. Our weekly compendium of freshly published climate research.

March 17

2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #11, Skeptical Science, Baerbel Winkler, Doug Bostrom & John Hartz. A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 17, 2024.
‘Greenhushing’ Is On the Rise as Companies Go Silent on Climate Pledges, Today’s Climate, Inside Climate News, Kiley Price. “Facing backlash from both the left and right, companies are backing away from climate initiatives—at least publicly.”
Cherry Blossoms Are Blooming Early From Tokyo to Washington, Bloomberg City Lab, Shoko Oda, Zahra Hirji & Brian K Sullivan. A tourist draw in Japan and the US, cherry blossom season is starting earlier as climate change makes winters warmer.

March 18

What Are the Most Effective Strategies To Inspire Action on Climate Change?, Annenberg School of Communications, U of Pe nnsylvania, Hailey Reissman. The Communication Neuroscience Lab is conducting an intervention tournament, testing six strategies to change beliefs and intentions regarding climate change.
NVIDIA Announces Earth Climate Digital Twin, NVIDIA press release, NVIDIA. The Weather Company, Taiwan Weather Administration Among First to Adopt New Earth-2 Cloud APIs, Using AI to Speed Creation of High-Resolution Simulations and Visualization of Global Climate, Weather at Groundbreaking 2-Kilometer Scale

March 19

At a glance – Does CO2 always correlate with temperature?, Skeptical Science, John Mason. This is the 57th updated rebuttal since we started the project last year in February.
Climate change graphics are important-make them simple, say experts, Phys.org, University of Southern California. The study was published in Climatic Change in a paper titled “Improving figures for climate change communications: Insights from interviews with international policymakers and practitioners.”
Earlier Springs Have Cascading Effects on Animals, Plants and Pastimes, Inside Climate News, Kiley Price. A growing body of research shows that climate change is throwing the seasons out of whack.
UN weather agency issues ‘red alert’ on climate change after record heat, ice-melt increases in 2023, AP News/PBS, Jamey Keatan & Seth Borenstein.
The attitude-behavior gap on climate action: How can it be bridged?, Center for Climate Change Communication, 4C-Team.

March 20

World`s top fossil-fuel bosses deride efforts to move away from oil and gas, The Guardian, Oliver Milman. Executives at Texas summit claim clean-energy transition is failing and say world should ‘abandon the fantasy’ of fossil-fuel phaseout
Will The UK`s Flagship Climate `Solution` Be Used to Pump More North Sea Oil?, DeSmog, Michael Buchsbaum. Documents show industry has spent years studying how to harness carbon capture projects for a process known as “enhanced oil recovery.”
How Not to Act in an Emergency, The Crucial Years, Bill McKibben. Forget AI–we need some human intelligence
SEC climate rule prompts lawuits. Experts say companies are likely to prepare to comply anyway, AP News/PBS, News Hour, Suman Naishadham.

March 21

Fossil fuel firms could be tried in US for homicide over climate-related deaths, experts say, The Guardian, Dharna Noor. Public Citizen, a non-profit group, proposed the idea last year to prosecute companies for millions of deaths due to climate crisis
Higher temperatures mean higher food and other prices. A new study links climate shocks to inflation, The Independent News, Seth Borenstein. A study by an environmental scientist and the European Central Bank finds that food prices and overall inflation will rise as temperatures climb with climate change
WMO – The Earth Continues To Warm As Nations Ignore Climate Science, CleanTechnica, Steve Hanley.
Factcheck: 18 misleading myths about heat pumps, Energy, Carbon Brief, Dr Jan Rosenow.

March 22

A new way to quantify climate change impacts: “Outdoor days”, MIT News, David L. Chandler. This measure, developed by MIT researchers, reflects direct effects on people’s quality of life — and reveals significant global disparities.
Climate change is shifting the zones where plants grow – here`s what that could mean for your garden, The Conversation – Articles (US), Matt Kasson, Associate Professor of Mycology and Plant Pathology, West Virginia University.
`When it`s this hot, time stands still`: surviving west Africa`s blistering heat, The Guardian, Damian Carrington and Èlia Borràs. The region’s heat index hit 50C in February, leaving millions battling dangerous climate-crisis-fuelled temperatures
Fossil Fuel Lobby Kicks off Disinformation Campaign Against EPA Auto Emissions Rule, DeSmog, Adam M. Lowenstein. The American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, a major oil refining group, is once again behind a push to keep cars running on oil.

March 23

Climate – the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!, Skeptical Science, John Mason and Bärbel Winkler. A list of the 25 myths spotted in the film
Q&A: Extreme Heat, Severe Storms Among Key Climate Challenges for Maryland`s New Chief Resilience Officer, Inside Climate News, Aman Azhar. Climate-proofing Maryland is a challenging task that requires a multi-agency effort and access to resources. Mike Hinson, the state’s newly appointed chief resilience officer, says he’s ready for the challenge.
Heat records keep puzzling, alarming scientists in 2024. Here’s what to know., Nation, USA TODAY, Dinah Voyles Pulver.

If you happen upon high quality climate-science and/or climate-myth busting articles from reliable sources while surfing the web, please feel free to submit them via this Google form so that we may share them widely. Thanks!