Updated - Top 10 Worst Anti-Science Web Sites :Skeptoid

"You've seen it on Facebook or other places a million times: Someone makes some untrue medical or science or conspiracy claim, and to give it the appearance of authority, attach a web link to it. And where is that web link from? As often as not, it turns out to be a site that specializes in terrible misinformation; and such sites are, all too often, far more popular than sites dedicated to correcting the record or presenting data. Pseudoscience is, unfortunately, more sensational, compelling, and fun.

A few years ago on this show, I gave a list of the top ten websites that promoted the worst bad science, as a resource for those hoping to stand up to such web links. Times change, sites come and go, rise and ebb, and we're ready for an update. And so here are this year's winners, my picks for the worst sites on the Internet to which your friends are likely to link you, organized by their Alexa popularity rating, tweaked a bit by me for how bad their information really is. Let's begin with:


10. Heartland.org

The Heartland Institute is a free-market think tank, preparing research and reports for whatever clients want it. That's an important role in society and I respect the freedoms of every think tank no matter where they are on the political spectrum. Promoting the policies that support an ideology is a right, but denying hard science in support of that ideology is a no-no. And that's what you'll find on Heartland.org, one of the web's best funded and most comprehensive attacks on climate science. Resources like this are a very real problem for science, because they have the expertise and the means to change people's minds, but lack the ethics to change those minds for the better. This year they held their 10th annual "International Conference on Climate Change" in Washington DC, which they describe as the "the largest gathering of global warming 'skeptics' in the world," and strangely they put quotes around the word skeptics, which I would have done if they hadn't, since their process is certainly not one of skeptically interrogating the climate models. Instead, they start from their preferred conclusion, then work backwards collecting cherrypicked bits of information to build a path to get there.

For a healthy alternative to Heartland.org, try SkepticalScience.com, a site dedicated to combatting global warming misinformation. It will equip the layman with the tools needed to rebut the type of misinformation Heartland publishes."

Go to Skeptoid article

2040 film starts June 6 in Sawtell

Spread the word. This "climate change/global heating awareness" film starts June 6 at the Majestic Cinema in Sawtell.

2040

In Cinemas Now

"Documentarian Damon Gameau (That Sugar Film) explores what the future would look like by the year 2040 if we simply embraced the best solutions already available to us. Structured as a visual letter to his 4-year-old daughter, Gameau blends traditional documentary footage with dramatised sequences to create a vision board for his daughter and the planet."

2040

Opening 06 June 2019
Rated G (General), 92 mins
Starring Damon Gameau, Eva Lazzaro, Zoe Gameau.

Award-winning director Damon Gameau (That Sugar Film) embarks on a journey to explore what the future could look like by the year 2040 if we simply embraced the best solutions already available to us to improve our planet and shifted them rapidly into the mainstream. Structured as a visual letter to his 4-year-old daughter, Damon blends traditional documentary with dramatised sequences and high-end visual effects to create a vision board of how these solutions could regenerate the world for future generations.

Session Times

Thursday, 6 June 2019

12:10pm  

4:30pm  

Friday, 7 June 2019

12:10pm  

Saturday, 8 June 2019

12:00pm LS

Monday, 10 June 2019

12:00pm LS

Tuesday, 11 June 2019

12:10pm  

4:30pm  

Wednesday, 12 June 2019

12:10pm LS

4:30pm LS

The climate renegade What happens when someone wants to go it alone on fixing the climate? Vox

 "Deep in the ocean west of British Columbia, salmon eat fish and plankton before they head inland to spawn. Well-fed enough to make it upriver, they swim back toward the coast and past the islands of Haida Gwaii, where the area’s indigenous population fishes them. 

That’s how it was for decades. But in the 2000s, fish populations were declining, and unemployment among the Haida was high. 

Enter an eccentric San Francisco-based entrepreneur named Russ George. He had spent much of his career bouncing between ambitious environmental projects: cold fusion, reforestation, and, most recently at the time, a startup called Planktos, which focused on something called “ocean restoration.”

In 2011, George told the Haida residents of the village of Old Massett that he could bring back the salmon. The plan? To drop a hundred tons of iron dust in the middle of the ocean, a few hundred nautical miles west of the islands. The method had been tried before, but George was attempting it at a larger scale."

Read the Vox article 

#geoengineering   #fish  #oceans  #globalheating  #climatechange

See also

Sea levels may rise much faster than previously predicted, swamping coastal cities such as Shanghai, study finds: CNN

‘We have lost Australia for now,’ warns climate scientist in wake of election upset.

"The unexpected victory of conservatives in Australia's election is bad news for the future of global climate action."

“Australians elected someone who once brought a lump of coal into Parliament urging us to dismiss the warnings from climate scientists, and to dig up more coal instead,” Professor Stephan Lewandowsky, an Australian cognitive scientist, told ThinkProgress in an email. “There is little doubt that his government will do precisely that.”

“We have lost Australia for now,” warned Penn State climatologist Michael Mann in an email.  “A coalition of a small number of bad actors now threaten the survivability of our species,” he said."


"These include “the fossil fueled Murdoch media empire, which saturated the country with dishonest right-wing campaign propaganda” working with a few “petrostates including Saudi Arabia, Russia, Trump’s America, and now Australia.”




"Rupert Murdoch’s grip on the Australian media — and his support of climate disinformation around the world — led one Australian scientist to write in 2011, “The Murdoch media empire has cost humanity perhaps one or two decades of time in the battle against climate change.”"

Read the ThinkProgress article 

Related: 

A Postmortem for Survival: on science, failure and action on climate change

Climate Change Isn’t Your Fault. It’s Capitalism’s: Medium

We want climate action now

You’re Not the Problem. The System Is. The Global Economy’s Broken, and Self-Blame Isn’t Going to Fix It.

"Here’s the truth.

Climate change isn’t your fault. It’s capitalism’s fault. 70% of carbon emissions come from 100 companies. Let me translate that.

The world’s giant corporations are effectively turning the skies, oceans, forests, and mountains into cold, hard cash. So much money so fast they literally don’t know what do with it, because there’s nothing left to do with it.

So much inequality has resulted that it’s destabilizing societies like America and Britain by creating classes of new poor. As result, societies don’t have the resources left to fight problems like…climate change. Capitalism is sucking in nature, turning it into insane, needless, pointless profit — and destroying democracy, the planet, and life as we know it on it along the way."

Read the Medium article 

Related:

The heat is on over the climate crisis. Only radical measures will work : The Guardian

Sea levels may rise much faster than previously predicted, swamping coastal cities such as Shanghai, study finds: CNN

Sea level rise 1900-2017

Global sea levels could rise more than two meters (6.6 feet) by the end of this century if emissions continue unchecked, swamping major cities such as New York and Shanghai and displacing up to 187 million people, a new study warns.

The study, which was released Monday, says sea levels may rise much faster than previously estimated due to the accelerating melting of ice sheets in both Greenland and Antarctica.

Melting ice: CNN

The international researchers predict that in the worst case scenario under which global temperatures increase by 5 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100, sea levels could rise by more than two meters (6.6 feet) in the same period -- double the upper limit outlined by the UN climate science panel's last major report. 

Such a situation would be "catastrophic," the authors of the study warn. 

"It really is pretty grim," lead author Jonathan Bamber, a Professor of Physical Geography at the University of Bristol told CNN. "Two meters is not a good scenario."

He said the mass displacement of people in low-lying coastal areas would likely result in serious social upheaval. It would also pose an "existential threat" to small island nations in the Pacific which would be left pretty much uninhabitable. 

Read the original story 

Related: 

The heat is on over the climate crisis. Only radical measures will work : The Guardian

The heat is on over the climate crisis. Only radical measures will work : The Guardian

Experts agree that global heating of 4C by 2100 is a real possibility. The effects of such a rise will be extreme and require a drastic shift in the way we live


Drowned cities; stagnant seas; intolerable heatwaves; entire nations uninhabitable… and more than 11 billion humans. A four-degree-warmer world is the stuff of nightmares and yet that’s where we’re heading in just decades.


While governments mull various carbon targets aimed at keeping human-induced global heating within safe levels – including new ambitions to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 – it’s worth looking ahead pragmatically at what happens if we fail. After all, many scientists think it’s highly unlikely that we will stay below 2C (above pre-industrial levels) by the end of the century, let alone 1.5C. Most countries are not making anywhere near enough progress to meet these internationally agreed targets.

Read The Guardian Article 

See also:

A Postmortem for Survival: on science, failure and action on climate change