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From climate change to peak oil and food insecurity, our societies are confronted with many serious challenges that, if left unresolved, will threaten the well-being of present and future generations, and the natural world. This website is dedicated to discussion of those challenges and potential solutions based on scientific evidence and scholarly analysis.
Our goal is to provide a platform for re-examining some of the assumptions we make about our technological, social and economic systems. The posts on this site are generally written by domain experts, specialists and scholars with an interest in these problems and we hope they will generate informed and constructive debate. We will archive seminal papers and posts for future reference.
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 | Ethics Lost in TranslationPosted on 15 June 2013 by Stephan Lewandowsky |
The tobacco-funded Heartland Institute already lost many of its sponsors—and millions in donations—a year ago when it suggested on a billboard that acceptance of the pervasive scientific consensus on climate change is somehow tantamount to being a serial killer or terrorist. The Institute is now again embroiled in a major scandal: This one does not involve billboards but a serious misrepresentation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
| The scientific consensus on climate change: Still pivotal and more pervasive than everPosted on 16 May 2013 by Stephan Lewandowsky |
Science is debate. It’s a debate that takes place at conferences or in the peer-reviewed literature, and scientific debates contribute to the error-correction process that has served science and the public well for a century or more.
 | Recursive Fury: Facts and misrepresentationsPosted on 22 March 2013 by John Cook & Stephan Lewandowsky |
Our paper Recursive fury: conspiracist ideation in the blogosphere in response to research on conspiracist ideation has been published. The paper analyzed the public discourse in response to an earlier article by Lewandowsky, Oberauer, and Gignac (LOG12 for short from here on), which has led to some discussion on this blog earlier.
 | Don't trust your Stone Age brain: it's unsustainablePosted on 20 March 2013 by Helen Camakaris |
Cognitive dissonance is that uncomfortable feeling we have when we know we should invest in solar panels but the 46″ wide screen TV wins out; we know we should catch the bus but we take the car anyway. It’s that sense of discord that arises when emotion and reason don’t get along. And unfortunately, it’s alive and well, sabotaging the climate change debate.
 | Caps Review Part 7: Complementary measuresPosted on 18 March 2013 by James Wight |
This is the sixth part in a series about the Caps and Targets Review being conducted by the Australian Government’s independent Climate Change Authority (CCA) this year. Part 1 summarized the global climate crisis, Part 2 explained the importance of the review and how CCA should approach it, Part 3 outlined the role Australia should play in climate action, Part 4 debunked the economic justifications for inaction, Part 5 makes my central recommendations on emissions caps, and Part 6 makes recommendations on the design of the carbon price mechanism. This part argues for and suggests some complementary measures.
| Caps Review Part 6: ETS design flaws and pitfallsPosted on 15 March 2013 by James Wight |
This is the sixth part in a series about the Caps and Targets Review being conducted by the Australian Government’s independent Climate Change Authority (CCA) this year. Part 1 summarized the global climate crisis, Part 2 explained the importance of the review and how CCA should approach it, Part 3 outlined the role Australia should play in climate action, Part 4 debunked the economic justifications for inaction, and Part 5 makes my central recommendations on emissions caps. This part makes recommendations on the design of the carbon price mechanism.
| Caps Review Part 5: Emissions capsPosted on 14 March 2013 by James Wight |
This is the fifth part in a series about the Caps and Targets Review being conducted by the Australian Government’s independent Climate Change Authority (CCA) this year. Part 1 summarized the global climate crisis, Part 2 explained the importance of the review and how CCA should approach it, Part 3 outlined the role Australia should play in climate action, and Part 4 debunked the economic justifications for inaction. This part makes my central recommendations on emissions caps.
| Caps Review Part 4: EconomicsPosted on 13 March 2013 by James Wight |
This is the fourth part in a series about the Caps and Targets Review being conducted by the Australian Government’s independent Climate Change Authority (CCA) this year. Part 1 summarized the global climate crisis, Part 2 explained the importance of the review and how CCA should approach it, and Part 3 outlined the role Australia should play in climate action. This part debunks the economic justifications for inaction.
| Caps Review Part 3: Australia’s rolePosted on 12 March 2013 by James Wight |
This is the third part in a series about the Caps and Targets Review being conducted by the Australian Government’s independent Climate Change Authority (CCA) this year. Part 1 summarized the global climate crisis, and Part 2 explained the importance of the review and how CCA should approach it. This part outlines the role Australia should play in climate action.
| Caps Review Part 2: PoliticsPosted on 11 March 2013 by James Wight |
This is the second part in a series about the Caps and Targets Review being conducted by the Australian Government’s independent Climate Change Authority (CCA) this year. Part 1 summarized the global climate crisis. This part explains the importance of the review and how CCA should approach it.
| Caps and Targets Review: A 7-part Series (Part I)Posted on 9 March 2013 by James Wight |
The Australian Government’s independent Climate Change Authority (CCA) is conducting a Caps and Targets Review this year. In this series I will explain why the review is important, outline what I think its recommendations should be, and attempt to deconstruct everything I believe is wrong with the Government’s climate policies and its underlying flawed beliefs about Australia’s role in climate action.
 | Telling FuturesPosted on 5 March 2013 by Tess Williams |
The relationship between reality and science fiction has a long history. The political surveillance of George Orwell’s 1984 is translated into the fish-bowl-observation TV show Big Brother. Star Trek fans know that the original USS Enterprise shared personnel with NASA when Communications Officer Uhuru (Nichelle Nichols) was employed to recruit minorities for the space program in the 1970s. In 2002, the film Minority Report – based on a Philip K. Dick novel – showcased current research into computer development and crowd control technology. More recently James Cameron’s film Avatar makes strong appeals to a rising environmental awareness and successfully pits indigenous ecowarriors against a high-tech military-industrial force on the imaginary planet of Pandora. So, when we think of shaping tomorrow’s world, science fiction stories often have an importance beyond simple entertainment value. They are a way we engage with the world and current issues, and they can tell us a lot about ourselves and our relationships with each other, the environment and science and technology.
| Meating a wicked problemPosted on 24 February 2013 by Tess Williams |
Meat is an integral part of human diet in most countries, but the vast majority of people who eat meat in Westernised cultures avoid direct participation in the processes of killing and preparing dead animals. This has led to extensive ethical discussion in academic journals and ongoing scrutiny of the subject in the media. Debate tends to polarize into blame and defensiveness as vegans/vegetarians face of against meat eaters in bitter arguments, and criticism of slaughter practices in the Australian press is often deflected onto other cultures and places.
| The involvement of conspiracist ideation in science denialPosted on 5 February 2013 by Stephan Lewandowsky |
There is growing evidence that conspiratorial thinking, also known as conspiracist ideation, is often involved in the rejection of scientific propositions. Conspiracist ideations tend to invoke alternative explanations for the nature or source of the scientific evidence. For example, among people who reject the link between HIV and AIDS, common ideations involve the beliefs that AIDS was created by the U.S. Government.
| One world, two realities: BigAussieHeatPosted on 11 January 2013 by Stephan Lewandowsky |
Update 11/1/13: video of duststorm added. Australia is experiencing the mother of all heat waves. Records are tumbling everywhere: For the first time in recorded climatic history, the country experienced 7 consecutive days above 39C (90F 102F). Extremes are everywhere, and the Bureau of Meteorology issued a special climate statement.
| The top (Climate) Events of 2012Posted on 29 December 2012 by Stephan Lewandowsky |
A group of us, all interested in climate science, put together a list of the most notable, often, most worrying, climate-related stories of the year, along with a few links that will allow you to explore the stories in more detail.
| Emotive Short-Circuitry vs. Deliberative Reasoning: The Australian vs. the ABCPosted on 27 December 2012 by Stephan Lewandowsky |
Updated 1/1/13
 | Worldviews and the (Economic) Merchants of DoubtPosted on 20 December 2012 by Mark Edwards |
In the previous two posts, I made two principal points: In the first post, I noted that doubt about the efficacy of government intervention to address HICC may become as much a barrier to action as the denialist strategy of manufacturing doubt about the scientific basis of climate change. In the second post, I illustated this notion by surveying the range of climate policie across the entire spectrum.
| Climate Policy: Points along the SpectrumPosted on 17 December 2012 by Mark Edwards |
In a previous post, I noted that doubt about the efficacy of government intervention to address HICC may become as much a barrier to action as the denialist strategy of manufacturing doubt about the scientific basis of Human Induced Climate Change (HICC).
| The Climate Change Policy Spectrum: Worldviews, Ideologies and the New (Economic) Merchants of DoubtPosted on 13 December 2012 by Mark Edwards |
In a study of the responses of farmers to changing weather patterns Rogers, Curtis and Mazur found that, “Personal values and worldviews were found to be the most frequent factors linked to adaptive behaviour.” (Rogers, Curtis & Mazur 2012, p. 258)
 | Climate of Doubt Strategy #2: Exaggerate UncertaintyPosted on 30 November 2012 by Dana Nuccitelli |
The PBS Frontline program Climate of Doubt did a masterful job in exposing the tactics climate denialists have used to delay meaningful action in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and addressing climate change in the USA. The #1 strategy they have pursued involves denying the scientific consensus on human-caused global warming. As the program discussed, a similar secondary strategy has involved exaggerating the uncertainties in climate science. For example, a 1998 American Petroleum Institute memo stated:
| Poster on Uncertainty at the American Geophysical Union Meeting in San FranciscoPosted on 28 November 2012 by Stephan Lewandowsky |
This post relates to a poster at the American Geophysical Union Meeting in San Francisco in December 2012 that summarizes our work on uncertainty in climate science. (Thursday, 6 December, 1:40 PM - 6:00 PM, Poster Hall, Moscone South).
| Climate of Doubt Strategy #1: Deny the ConsensusPosted on 6 November 2012 by Dana Nuccitelli |
The PBS Frontline program Climate of Doubt did a masterful job in exposing the tactics climate denialists have used to delay meaningful action in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and addressing climate change in the USA. Perhaps the #1 strategy they have pursued involves denying the scientific consensus on human-caused global warming. As Myron Ebell of the right-wing think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) put it,
| Frankenstorm Sandy and TobaccoPosted on 31 October 2012 by Stephan Lewandowsky |
What does "frankenstorm" Sandy have to do with smoking? Well, quite a bit actually, in an indirect way. I talk about the underlying cognition of tobacco and climate change here, for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
| The pivotal role of perceived scientific consensusPosted on 29 October 2012 by Stephan Lewandowsky |
The embargo on my latest paper on the cognition of climate change, published in Nature Climate Change, has now been lifted. The paper and abstract are available using the doi: 10.1038/10.1038/NCLIMATE1720.
| Another Downfall video in the makingPosted on 19 October 2012 by Stephan Lewandowsky |
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) is best known for its reliance on feather dusters to "achieve active self-regulation" by the radio industry. In a notable development today, ACMA traded in the feather duster for some chalk and a blackboard when announcing that one of the nation's most notorious Shock Jocks, a certain Alan Jones of station 2GB in Sydney, will be given basic training in journalism. This training will presumably introduce Mr.Jones to subtle distinctions such as the difference between a fact and a falsehood.
| The sky is not falling--but emissions arePosted on 18 October 2012 by Stephan Lewandowsky |
Today's headline in The Age, one of Australia's major newspapers, is Power pollution plunges. The article notes that the introduction of a price on carbon (currently $23/tonne) may have contributed to a fairly sharp drop in emissions intensity (i.e., the amount of of CO2 emitted per unit power generated). The article is accompanied by the following graph:
| Inferential Statistics and ReplicationsPosted on 10 October 2012 by Stephan Lewandowsky & Klaus Oberauer |
When you drop a glass it'll crash to the floor. Wherever you are on this planet, and whatever glass it is you were disposing of, gravity will ensure its swift demise. The replicability of phenomena is one of the hallmarks of science: once we understand a natural "law" we expect it to yield the same outcome in any situation in which it is applicable. (This outcome may have error bars associated with it but that doesn't affect our basic conclusion).
| The Stickiness of MisinformationPosted on 10 October 2012 by Stephan Lewandowsky |
Together with colleagues Ullrich Ecker, Colleen Seifert, Norbert Schwarz, and John Cook I recently published a review paper of the literature on misinformation—why does misinformation "stick" to people's memories? Why would anyone believe patent nonsense, such as the claim that President Obama was born outside the U.S.? And how can we help people discard such erroneous beliefs?
 | Indigenous Heritage: Case Studies in Western AustraliaPosted on 27 September 2012 by Carmen Lawrence |
One of the common tactics used by both corporations and governments to gain the consent of Indigenous people to the destruction of their heritage is to “divide and conquer”, as the Fortescue Mining Group has done to the Yindjibarndi people of Roebourne and the W.A government has done in the Kimberley.
| The State of Indigenous InheritancePosted on 25 September 2012 by Carmen Lawrence |
The progressive, cumulative destruction of Indigenous cultural resources as a result of the cumulative impact of individual development was highlighted in the 2011 recent State of the Environment (SOE) report[1], largely ignored by the mainstream media. In the chapter on heritage, two main threats to Indigenous heritage were identified: the disruption of knowledge and culture and the disturbance and destruction of sites due to urban expansion and resource extraction.
| Development at any price? The case of Australia’s Indigenous heritagePosted on 21 September 2012 by Carmen Lawrence |
This is the first of a series of three posts addressing issues surrounding Australia's indigenous heritage. The content is based on the 2012 John West Oration to the Launceston Historical Society given by the author.
 | A simple recipe for the manufacturing of doubtPosted on 19 September 2012 by Klaus Oberauer & Stephan Lewandowsky |
Mr. McIntyre, a self-declared expert in statistics, recently posted an ostensibly unsuccessful attempt to replicate several exploratory factor analyses in our study on the motivated rejection of (climate) science. His wordy post creates the appearance of potential problems with our analysis.
| Drilling into noisePosted on 17 September 2012 by Stephan Lewandowsky & Klaus Oberauer |
The science of statistics is all about differentiating signal from noise. This exercise is far from trivial: Although there is enough computing power in today's laptops to churn out very sophisticated analyses, it is easily overlooked that data analysis is also a cognitive activity.
| Current climate action and the need for morePosted on 14 September 2012 by Dana Nuccitelli |
The Australian government's Climate Commission has recently released a new Critical Decade report about International Action on Climate Change. The report notes that this decade is critical in reducing human greenhouse gas emissions, that we have all the technology necessary to do so, and examines the policies of various countries toward that end. Their findings are summarized in Figure 1 (Figure 3.2 on Page 34 of the report).
| Climate denial a “warmist” hoax?Posted on 13 September 2012 by Stephan Lewandowsky & Klaus Oberauer |
Understanding people means to have a Theory of Mind. A model of other people’s thinking.
 | The European Union in international climate change negotiationsPosted on 13 September 2012 by Nathalie Latter |
The European Union has been at the forefront of international climate change negotiations for nearly two decades. The EU capitalised on the leadership gap caused by the United States' early disengagement from the UN climate negotiations and has striven to maintain its claim to environmental leadership. EU diplomacy was vital to signing up Russia and Japan to the Kyoto Protocol, effectively saving it from an early death after the US renounced its signature and the international process as a whole. However, the EU struggled to maintain its leadership role at the Copenhagen negotiations in 2009, where the US and China snubbed the EU by negotiating the Copenhagen Accord without EU input. The EU now faces the challenge of maintaining a leadership role despite the increasing complexity of international climate change negotiations and the renewed (often obstructive) participation of the US in the UN process.
| Faking that NASA faked the moon landingPosted on 12 September 2012 by Stephan Lewandowsky & Klaus Oberauer |
Data integrity is a central issue in all research, and internet-based data collection poses a unique set of challenges. Much attention has been devoted to that issue and procedures have been developed to safeguard against abuse. There have been numerous demonstrations that internet platforms offers a reliable and replicable means of data collection, and the practice is now widely accepted.
| Bloggers' Hall of AmnesiaPosted on 10 September 2012 by Stephan Lewandowsky |
The publication of my paper on conspiracist ideation was met with several nearly-instant accusations. First out of the gate was the claim that I did not contact 5 “skeptic” or “skeptic-leaning” blogs to link to the survey.
| A Cabal of Bankers and Sister SouljahPosted on 9 September 2012 by Stephan Lewandowsky |
One of the many adverse consequences of knee-jerk science rejection is the voluminous noise generated in response to certain events, such as the recent publication of my paper on rejection of science and conspiracist ideation. Whenever baseless accusations are launched, whether against me or other scientists, this detracts attention from other potentially substantive issues.
| An update on my birth certificatesPosted on 7 September 2012 by Stephan Lewandowsky |
My inbox has become a kaleidoscopic staging post of human diversity. A few requests are noteworthy for tutorial reasons:
| Confirming the obviousPosted on 6 September 2012 by Stephan Lewandowsky |
The public response to my forthcoming paper in Psychological Science, entitled "NASA faked the moon landing—Therefore (Climate) Science is a Hoax: An Anatomy of the Motivated Rejection of Science," has provided a perfect real-life illustration of the very cognitive processes at the center of my research.
In fact, the cascading eruption of allegations and theories about the paper and myself have illustrated the impoverished epistemology of climate denial better than any mountain of data could have done.
It is helpful to analyze some of the theories that have sprung up in response to my paper.
First out of the gate was the accusation that I might not have contacted the 5 "skeptic" bloggers, none of whom posted links to my survey. Astute readers might wonder why I would mention this in the Method section, if I hadn't contacted anyone.
In an exercise more reminiscent of juvenile hyperventilation than adult cognitive control, several individuals jumped to the conclusion that I must be guilty of academic misconduct because no skeptic blogger could recall having been contacted by me. And of course, those bloggers know more about my research, or that in any other scientific discipline, than myself or any of my scientific colleagues.
This theory, alas, is now in terminal decline. First, one individual recovered his search skills after launching wild accusations against me and found that he had been contacted not once but twice.
Oops.
We now also know that two of the people who were contacted even replied to my assistant's query.
Oops. Oops.
Let's move on quickly. There must be another gourd somewhere.
And thus, as sure as night follows day, the second theory was born, arising like Phoenix from the ashes of the first one. The second theory revolves around the dates of certain events: It turns out that I gave a talk at Monash University in Melbourne, during which I alluded to these data briefly, after having done a very rough preliminary analysis. This event occurred a few days after Mr. McIntyre had been contacted with a request to post a link.
Oh how nefarious! I reported data only 3 days after contacting a blogger to collect data!
Never mind that the first theory claimed I never contacted anyone. That's sooooo 2011. Let's move on to the next conspiracy.
Only 3 days and I reported data from 1100 subjects. The travesty of it!
I wish this theory well, and I suspect much more analysis of dates, involving multi-colored Gantt charts, will be performed once the identity of the other 4 bloggers will (hopefully—I am working on it) have become public in the near future.
Reality-based readers may now note that it doesn't matter whether 3, 30, or 666 days elapsed between Mr McIntyre ignoring an email and me giving a talk about data gathered from other blogs.
| Misplaced email in the climate wars? Not again, please!Posted on 4 September 2012 by Stephan Lewandowsky |
It has come to my attention that one of the individuals who initially denied—yes, folks, that's the correct word, look it up in a dictionary—having received an invitation to post a link to my survey on the rejection of science on his blog, has now found that email.
| NASA and the blogospherePosted on 3 September 2012 by Stephan Lewandowsky |
I recently published a paper on the motivated rejection of science that is forthcoming in Psychological Science. The abstract of the paper is as follows:
 | Aviation’s emissions problemPosted on 29 August 2012 by David Hodgkinson |
Earlier this month (August 2012) the Commonwealth government and the coalition both supported a motion by the (conservative) National Party calling on Australia to “use all political, diplomatic, and legal tools at its disposal” to ensure that the EU’s emissions trading scheme (ETS) is not applied to Australian aircraft.
 | Methane and livestock: factoids help farmers least of allPosted on 24 August 2012 by Corey Watts |
By any traditional measure, Australia’s graziers and pastoralists have made remarkable achievements in a highly variable climate and a difficult global marketplace. Australian demand for meat and milk remains high and steady, and our exports are strong and growing. Animal agriculture isn’t going away anytime soon. At the same time, livestock production is an important contributor to the global warming, albeit one of many.
 | Cattle and methane: More complicated than first meets the (rib) eyePosted on 17 August 2012 by Asa Wahlquist |
A lot of people, amongst them Britain's Lord Stern and Sir Paul McCartney, argue that eating less meat could help save the planet. But there is a growing body of evidence that it is not simply a case of less meat means less heat.
| AGU Fall Meeting sessions on social media, misinformation and uncertaintyPosted on 16 July 2012 by Stephan Lewandowsky & John Cook |
We have proposed several sessions for the AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco on 3-7 December: on uncertainty, misinformation and social media. AGU members are invited to submit abstracts for the sessions - the deadline to submit an abstract is August 8. Details of the sessions are:
 | Food Policy Lessons for 2012 and BeyondPosted on 21 June 2012 by Shenggen Fan |
Despite ongoing challenges to global food security -- from food price volatility and extreme weather shocks, to famine, unrest and conflicts, the year 2011 featured major policy developments that offer encouragement and point to areas where further action is needed in 2012 and beyond.
| Climate Uncertainty and Emission CutsPosted on 2 June 2012 by Stephan Lewandowsky |
It is very clear that uncertainty is no one’s friend. We have seen that greater uncertainty about the evolution of the climate should give us even greater cause for concern. We have seen that all other things being equal, greater uncertainty means that things could be worse than we thought. We have also seen that greater uncertainty means that the expected damages from climate change will necessarily be greater than anticipated, and that the allowance we must make for sea level rise will also be greater than anticipated. All of those results arise from simple mathematics, and we do not even have to resort to any economic modelling to understand how greater uncertainty translates into greater risk.
| ABC documentary demonstrates the how and why of climate denialPosted on 26 April 2012 by John Cook |
This is a repost from Skeptical Science. Note that STW's own Stephan Lewandowsky has also published on this topic in The Age/Brisbane Times and Australian Media Centre/ABC Environment.
| Do you want some science with your entertainment?Posted on 21 April 2012 by Stephan Lewandowsky |
On Thursday next week the ABC (Australia, 26 April, 8:30pm AEST) will be airing the documentary I can change your mind about … climate, which has been attracting quite a bit of media attention already. Its main protagonists are two polar opposites: A conservative politician, former Senator Nick Minchin, and a young climate activist, the founder and chair of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition Anna Rose.
| Keeping Dry: Uncertain Sea Level Rise and the Risk of FloodsPosted on 3 April 2012 by Stephan Lewandowsky |
We have already seen that uncertainty about the future evolution of the climate is not your friend because it means things could be worse than anticipated. And we have shown that as uncertainty grows, then it is almost inevitable that the expected damage from climate change will also increase.buil
| The Inescapable Implication of UncertaintyPosted on 26 March 2012 by Stephan Lewandowsky |
In a previous post, we saw that uncertainty is not your friend. In a nutshell, if there is uncertainty, things could be worse than anticipated as well as better.
 | Providing Context for GM FoodsPosted on 22 March 2012 by Jessica Lee |
The debate on the regulation of GM technology should be placed into a broader context.
| Uncertainty is not your FriendPosted on 6 March 2012 by Stephan Lewandowsky |
The Australian Future fund is tasked with delivering high risk-adjusted returns on public funds, such as the Australian Government’s budget surpluses, in order to cover the Government’s unfunded superannuation liability arising from entitlements to public servants and defence personnel.
 | Climate and LentPosted on 28 February 2012 by Michael Wood |
A few years ago I was standing next to a colleague preparing for Sunday church. Someone had just come in and asked us, as the leaders of the service, to ‘pray for rain’ for farmers who, at that stage, were experiencing a protracted drought. Now while I generally encourage people to pray for whatever they want, my colleague was insightful when he later quipped to me, ‘rather than praying for rain we ought to be praying for repentance’. He’d hit the nail on the head in the sense that prayer is really, first and foremost, about changing the human mind and heart rather than trying to change the mind of God (as if God arbitrarily interferes with nature anyway).
| From the Debunking Handbook to “Widerlegen: aber richtig!”: Die deutsche ÜbersetzungPosted on 26 February 2012 by Stephan Lewandowsky & John Cook |
Das “Debunking Handbook,” daß John Cook und Stephan Lewandowsky for einigen Monaten auf Englisch produziert haben, ist inzwischen mehr als 465.000 mal heruntergeladen worden. Unter Anderem ist das “Handbook” von Richard Dawkins und Al Gore auf deren Internetseiten empfohlen worden.
Das “Handbook” ist jetzt auf Deutsch übersetzt worden, und wir machen es nun hier zum herunterladen verfügbar. Der deutsche Titel ist “Widerlegen: aber richtig!”
Wir bedanken uns sehr bei unseren ehrenamtlichen Übersetzern, Bärbel Winkler und Oliver Marchand, für ihre sehr detaillierte und ausführliche Arbeit.
 | Getting to the Truth: Faith or Evidence?Posted on 23 February 2012 by Peter Boghossian |
Peter Boghossian is an expert on critical thinking, and in this video lecture he explores the relative merits of faith and evidence as tools to understand 'the truth'.
 | Unexpected connections: Income inequality and environmental degradationPosted on 13 February 2012 by Jaqueline Haupt & Carmen Lawrence |
Ensuring that natural resources are consumed and waste is produced at sustainable rates represent major contemporary challenges. Recognition of these challenges resulted in the endorsement in 2000 of environmental sustainability as one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to be achieved by 2015. However, by 2003 global rates of consumption and waste production were estimated to be at least 25% higher than the capacity of the planet to provide resources and absorb waste (Kitzes, et al., 2007) and this rate may have risen as high as 50% by 2007 (WWF, 2010). A vital aspect of achieving sustainability is widespread social change, yet the current theoretical knowledge of societal transformation processes is limited. In order to improve nations’ environmental performance, a better understanding of socioeconomic and behavioural forces driving such unsustainable development is required.
| Disasters that Come and Go—But They Will be BackPosted on 23 January 2012 by Stephan Lewandowsky |
Who hasn’t heard the phrase “in today’s dollars”? We all know that this refers to the price of goods being adjusted to reflect the passage of time.
| Debunking Handbook: update and feedbackPosted on 23 January 2012 by John Cook & Stephan Lewandowsky |
When we published the Debunking Handbook, I have to admit, we completely underestimated the impact it would make. A few days after the launch, it suddenly went viral with over 150,000 downloads in a single day. This week, it just ticked over 400,000 downloads. We always planned that the Handbook would be useful not just for climate myths but for communicators having to deal with any type of misinformation. Nevertheless, it was surprising to see the Handbook featued on websites as diverse asRichard Dawkins and Silobreaker. A website devoted to debunking MLM myths saw it as "useful when debating with brainwashed members of MLM organizations". A Muslim forum speculated that it "Should be useful when engaging people who believe lies about Islam". Currently, several educators are looking to integrate it into their curriculum.
| Estivation RenovationsPosted on 17 January 2012 by Stephan Lewandowsky |
Whereas most species of bears hibernate, Australians indulge in estivation instead, preferring slightly cooler beaches to their offices, especially when university air conditioning is turned down or off.
 | My wicked problem is bigger than yours!Posted on 22 December 2011 by Bret Hart |
The fact that health costs will consume the entire State Government budget in less than 25 years is a wicked problem* that precipitated the South Australian (SA) Government to explore a new approach to improving the health and wellbeing of the population.
 | Community Based Solutions -- Why the Opposition?Posted on 19 December 2011 by John Gregg |
Much current thinking about climate change and renewable energy has been based on rational economic theory and standard modelling. A core assumption of this approach is that individuals always seek to maximise their utility; however, in many fields where human behaviour plays a substantial intervening role—such as finance, health, or taxation—this assumption has been shown to be flawed. It must therefore be of concern that the same flawed assumption is prominent in the response to climate change.
| The Curious Invisibility of ProgressPosted on 16 December 2011 by Stephan Lewandowsky |
The Australian sustainable business market will grow to $2.9bn in 2014 from $1.6bn in 2010, according to a new report from independent analyst firm Verdantix. Their report, issued on 19 April 2011, goes on to quote author Susan Clarke that “... carbon regulations, rising energy prices and natural resource scarcity also create new market opportunities. Innovative firms ... already benefit from the market for energy efficiency and carbon management."
| The Missed Oil Change and the Durban BathtubPosted on 11 December 2011 by Stephan Lewandowsky |
The climate talks in Durban have drawn to a close at around 5AM local time after a marathon all-night session.
 | Nations roll the dice in Durban… Two degrees or seven?Posted on 9 December 2011 by Fiona Armstrong |
In the final week in Durban a sense of frustration is permeating the COP, where aspirations for a global deal remain high, but expectations swing between mildly hopeful and almost absent.
| Data for DurbanPosted on 7 December 2011 by Stephan Lewandowsky |
There is a climate conference on in Durban, South Africa. This event has been difficult to miss because it has been accompanied by the usual distractions: First, we had another release of stolen personal correspondence among climate scientists (the two-year old rejects from the “climategate” non-scandal), presumably in the hope that this would torpedo the climate negotiations. No one has shown much interest in this very transparent attempt to malign scientists.
| COPping the heat (and the procrastination) in DurbanPosted on 3 December 2011 by Fiona Armstrong |
The beachside city of Durban is packed, with 10,000 people from 194 countries in town for the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to negotiate the next step in the process of the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
| Australian Media and Reporting of the Carbon Price DebatePosted on 1 December 2011 by Stephan Lewandowsky |
Professor Wendy Bacon and a team of researchers have published a report on the coverage of climate change in the Australian media.
The research is based on a comprehensive review of 3971 media articles which were published in ten Australian newspapers on the topic of climate change policy, during the period February 2011 and July 2011.
Key Findings of the research are at the front of the report. They include:
| Kyoto is Dead-Long Live New Climate Change ArrangementsPosted on 30 November 2011 by David Hodgkinson |
Failure at the Copenhagen and Cancun climate change conferences in 2009 and 2010 can be put down, broadly, to two reasons: concerns by developing countries about what binding emission reduction targets might mean for their economic development, and the deadlock over post-2012 targets for developed countries.
| The unbearable simplicity of carbon reductionPosted on 29 November 2011 by Stephan Lewandowsky |
In Australia, the sky will fall in on 1 July 2012 next year.
 | Australia's West in 2031Posted on 28 November 2011 by Peter McMahon |
I was recently asked to talk about Western Australia in 2031 focussing on climate change. Before I spoke on this topic I made two important points: firstly, that due to the convergence of various critical trends at the global scale, it is difficult to make any kind of reasonable guess for 2020, let alone 2031; and secondly, even a future without global warming or peak energy promises to be scary because of these trends.
| The Debunking Handbook: now freely available for downloadPosted on 27 November 2011 by John Cook & Stephan Lewandowsky |
The Debunking Handbook, a guide to debunking misinformation, is now freely available to download. Although there is a great deal of psychological research on misinformation, there's no summary of the literature that offers practical guidelines on the most effective ways of reducing the influence of myths. The Debunking Handbook boils the research down into a short, simple summary, intended as a guide for communicators in all areas (not just climate) who encounter misinformation.
The Handbook explores the surprising fact that debunking myths can sometimes reinforce the myth in peoples' minds. Communicators need to be aware of the various backfire effects and how to avoid them, such as:
| The Debunking Handbook Part 5: Filling the gap with an alternative explanationPosted on 25 November 2011 by John Cook & Stephan Lewandowsky |
The Debunking Handbook is an upcoming guide to debunking myths, by John Cook and Stephan Lewandowsky. Although there is a great deal of psychological research on misinformation, unfortunately there is no summary of the literature that offers practical guidelines on the most effective ways of reducing the influence of misinformation. This Handbook boils down the research into a short, simple summary, intended as a guide for communicators in all areas (not just climate) who encounter misinformation. The Handbook will be available as a free, downloadable PDF at the end of this 6-part blog series.
This post has been cross-posted at Skeptical Science.
| The Debunking Handbook Part 4: The Worldview Backfire EffectPosted on 23 November 2011 by John Cook & Stephan Lewandowsky |
The Debunking Handbook is an upcoming guide to debunking myths, by John Cook and Stephan Lewandowsky. Although there is a great deal of psychological research on misinformation, unfortunately there is no summary of the literature that offers practical guidelines on the most effective ways of reducing the influence of misinformation. This Handbook boils down the research into a short, simple summary, intended as a guide for communicators in all areas (not just climate) who encounter misinformation. The Handbook will be available as a free, downloadable PDF at the end of this 6-part blog series.
This post has been cross-posted at Skeptical Science.
| The Debunking Handbook Part 3: The Overkill Backfire EffectPosted on 20 November 2011 by John Cook & Stephan Lewandowsky |
The Debunking Handbook is an upcoming guide to debunking myths, by John Cook and Stephan Lewandowsky. Although there is a great deal of psychological research on misinformation, unfortunately there is no summary of the literature that offers practical guidelines on the most effective ways of reducing the influence of misinformation. This Handbook boils down the research into a short, simple summary, intended as a guide for communicators in all areas (not just climate) who encounter misinformation. The Handbook will be available as a free, downloadable PDF at the end of this 6-part blog series.
This post has been cross-posted at Skeptical Science.
 | Towards a climate change scenario that is ecologically sustainable, fair, and welfare-increasingPosted on 19 November 2011 by Philip Lawn |
Dr Phil Lawn visited recently from Flinders University and gave a lecture at UWA. The audio-video recording of the lecture can be found here, and the abstract of his talk is shown below.
| The Debunking Handbook Part 2: The Familiarity Backfire EffectPosted on 18 November 2011 by John Cook & Stephan Lewandowsky |
The Debunking Handbook is an upcoming guide to debunking myths, by John Cook and Stephan Lewandowsky. Although there is a great deal of psychological research on misinformation, unfortunately there is no summary of the literature that offers practical guidelines on the most effective ways of reducing the influence of misinformation. This Handbook boils down the research into a short, simple summary, intended as a guide for communicators in all areas (not just climate) who encounter misinformation. The Handbook will be available as a free, downloadable PDF at the end of this 6-part blog series.
This post has been cross-posted at Skeptical Science.
| The Debunking Handbook Part 1: The first myth about debunkingPosted on 16 November 2011 by John Cook & Stephan Lewandowsky |
The Debunking Handbook is an upcoming guide to debunking myths, by John Cook and Stephan Lewandowsky. Although there is a great deal of psychological research on misinformation, unfortunately there is no summary of the literature that offers practical guidelines on the most effective ways of reducing the influence of misinformation. This Handbook boils down the research into a short, simple summary, intended as a guide for communicators in all areas (not just climate) who encounter misinformation. The Handbook will be available as a free, downloadable PDF at the end of this 6-part blog series.
This has been cross-posted at Skeptical Science.
| Submission to the Independent Media InquiryPosted on 9 November 2011 by Stephan Lewandowsky |
This is the full text of a written submission to the independent inquiry into media and media regulation, which commenced public hearings in Melbourne on 7 November 2011.
| Series on Science at The ConversationPosted on 4 November 2011 by Stephan Lewandowsky |
Series of articles on State of the Science
at The Conversation has kicked off
All pieces can be found through this page.
(The remainder of this post summarizes the series and was originally posted before the series started.)
 | Risk, Rorts and Realities in the Climate DebatePosted on 4 November 2011 by John Connor |
This is the text of a speech given by John Connor at Notre Dame University in Fremantle, Western Australia, on 28 September. It is reproduced in full with the exception of some introductory remarks.
 | Have we entered the era of 'de-growth'?Posted on 1 November 2011 by Steven Smith |
The financial woes of 2008-9 are expected to be minor compared to 2012 and beyond. My understanding of the state of global finances, based on discussion with people who understand the economy, combined with my knowledge of resources, food production, technology and climate change, leads me to conclude that we are on the cusp of ‘peak growth’.
| Why should you be interested in helium?Posted on 28 October 2011 by Steven Smith |
Helium is the second most abundant element in the known universe, after hydrogen. Strangely, however, a shortage of helium will be faced in the near future (Scholes, 2011).
| The Loud Fringe: Pluralistic Ignorance and DemocracyPosted on 18 October 2011 by Stephan Lewandowsky |
It appears self-evident that democracy functions best if its citizens share a common reality. There is common agreement that society stands to benefit from diversity of opinions, but most people also appear to agree that a society would suffer when segments of the population operate within a fictional social world that is disconnected from reality.
 | Losing Our Sense of Place: LecturePosted on 10 October 2011 by Glenn Albrecht |
This is introducing yet another new type of StW post; namely, a pointer to a lecture recorded during an event (usually here at UWA). Those post are identified by the new icon at the top right:
| The need for objectivity in the energy debatePosted on 3 October 2011 by Steven Smith |
I entered the debate on climate, energy and food because I am concerned about the planet and our future. Understandably, emotions run high and some views are extreme. At one extreme some people deny that the climate is warming and others deny that we are causing it, despite overwhelming scientific consensus to the contrary. Among such deniers are people in the business and political sectors, who fear the loss of livelihoods and prosperity.
 | Scientists on Trial: Risk Communication Becomes RiskierPosted on 29 September 2011 by Michael Smithson |
Back in late May 2011, there were news stories of charges of manslaughter laid against six earthquake experts and a government advisor responsible for evaluating the threat of natural disasters in Italy, on grounds that they allegedly failed to give sufficient warning about the devastating L'Aquila earthquake in 2009. In addition, plaintiffs in a separate civil case are seeking damages in the order of €22.5 million (US$31.6 million). The first hearing of the criminal trial occurred on Tuesday the 20th of September, and the second session is scheduled for October 1st.
| Who cares about cleaner living?Posted on 26 September 2011 by Bret Hart |
Some of you may know of the story related by the famous psychiatrist specialising in death and dying, the late Dr Elizabeth Kübler-Ross. She described how she had noticed that some of her patients in her hospital in Chicago were happier and more at peace on certain days. She discovered that this coincided with the days that an uneducated elderly black cleaning lady sat on their beds, occasionally held their hands and chatted and laughed with the patients. In particular there was one dying lady on oxygen who was in pain and in denial about her impending death who expressed concern to the cleaner that plugging in the vacuum cleaner might spark an explosion. The astute cleaner recognised this worry as a call for help with her fear of dying and seized the moment to explore her thanatophobia.
| Carbon Free in the DesertPosted on 22 September 2011 by Stephan Lewandowsky |
Australia’s CO2 emissions are among the highest in the world, when expressed on a per capita basis. When our historical responsibilities are taken into account, we are 14th—out of about 200 countries in the world. Nonetheless, political figures and the media like to point fingers at other countries whose per capita emissions are even higher than ours. For example, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) spew out nearly 30 tonnes of CO2 per capita, compared to our 19 tonnes (but don’t rejoice—the Swiss get by with about 5 tonnes, or nearly 75% less than us!).
| The Sabbath as the basis for an environmental theological ethicPosted on 12 September 2011 by Michael Wood |
A few months ago I attended the formal launch and information session, at UWA, for this blog site that you are reading. One of the speakers introduced a perspective on the whole conversation around energy use and climate change which I found challenging and helpful. The essential argument, if I understood correctly, is that introducing more renewable energy into the system is not, of itself, going to resolve climate and other sustainability challenges, unless there is, at the very least, a corresponding reduction in energy production from all sources.
| It's 2061, how's life?Posted on 5 September 2011 by John Gregg |
Andrew Craig hit the start-button on a balmy Albany April day. His Landcruiser unhooked from the household power, then the twin electric motors cut in and moved it quietly down the drive. The silence disturbed some people when HydroElectrics first took over the V8 market, so they’d bought the audio option that simulated the sound of a historical V8 engine. Now the only time you’d hear anything like that was when the amplified “chugga, chugga, chugga” of a Harley Electro Hog drifted through the open window.
| What is economic growth and are there limits to it?Posted on 29 August 2011 by Philip Lawn |
Before we can consider whether there are limits to economic growth, we first need to understand what is meant by the term ‘economic growth’. In conventional terms, economic growth means either the growth in a nation’s real GDP (an increase in a nation’s output of goods and services) or the physical expansion of the nation’s economy (note: the two are not the same) (see Lawn, 2007a). So, when people refer to economic growth, what they really mean is either ‘growth of real output’ or ‘growth of the economy’.
| Yes, There is a PatternPosted on 27 August 2011 by Stephan Lewandowsky |
It’s beginning to add up. After some period of uncertainty, the picture that emerges is beginning to fit into the neo-McCarthyite pattern of attack on scientists that has become all too common in the United States.
| Avoiding Regulations: Try Meta-RegulatingPosted on 23 August 2011 by Mark Edwards |
As Carmen Lawrence has pointed out here in her series on economic growth and human well-being, the issue of climate change is directed related to that of economic growth. Our endless quest for growth is leasing us up against planetary limits in resources (resource limits) and in the earth’s capacity to absorb the outputs of that growth (sink limits). Climate change is essentially an atmospheric sink limit that demonstrates the planet’s growing inability to absorb further emissions of carbon dioxide without significant disruption to the climate system. Growth and climate change are running into each other and this impasse will not be solved without a transformation in the way we define, measure and regulate economic growth.
 | Carbon tax will have a negligible impact on the cost of new homesPosted on 12 August 2011 by Alex Bruce |
Discussion of the proposed carbon tax is practically inescapable for most Australians at the moment, but the proliferation of information doesn’t mean that things become more understandable.
| Nuclear Power: Thanks, but No ThanksPosted on 8 August 2011 by Stephan Lewandowsky |
In two recent posts (here and here), colleague David Hodgkinson eloquently presented the case for nuclear power as one strategy to deal with climate change. Rather than revisiting all arguments in favour of nuclear power or against it, he focused on three core issues: (a) expense, (b) nuclear waste, and (c) militarization. In addition, Hodgkinson suggests that unless we put in place an infrastructure now, an ostensibly “cheap” nuclear power option will be precluded when the world gets serious about emission cuts within the next 10 years or so.
| Earthworker Cooperative UpdatePosted on 5 August 2011 by Stephan Lewandowsky & Dave Kerin |
Some time ago we introduced the Earthworker Cooperative, a cooperative dedicated to providing finance, assistance with marketing strategy, R&D and networking of the various, loose strands of the social sector of the Australian economy. Their goal is to create a powerful force for the collective good, on behalf of its member cooperatives, unions, shire councils, faith-based communities and individuals.
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No Current Events PlannedRelevant events (mainly in Australia) will be announced here as they become available. |
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