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posted by cmn32480 on Sunday June 11 2017, @06:36PM   Printer-friendly
from the just-look-at-the-comments-below dept.

NASA chief scientist weighs in

Americans are "under siege" from disinformation designed to confuse the public about the threat of climate change, Nasa's former chief scientist has said.

Speaking to the Guardian, Ellen Stofan, who left the US space agency in December, said that a constant barrage of half-truths had left many Americans oblivious to the potentially dire consequences of continued carbon emissions, despite the science being unequivocal.

"We are under siege by fake information that's being put forward by people who have a profit motive," she said, citing oil and coal companies as culprits. "Fake news is so harmful because once people take on a concept it's very hard to dislodge it."

During the past six months, the US science community has woken up to this threat, according to Stofan, and responded by ratcheting up efforts to communicate with the public at the grassroots level as well as in the mainstream press.

"The harder part is this active disinformation campaign," she said before her appearance at Cheltenham Science Festival this week. "I'm always wondering if these people honestly believe the nonsense they put forward. When they say 'It could be volcanoes' or 'the climate always changes'... to obfuscate and to confuse people, it frankly makes me angry."

Stofan added that while "fake news" is frequently characterised as a problem in the right-leaning media, she saw evidence of an "erosion of people's ability to scrutinise information" across the political spectrum. "All of us have a responsibility," she said. "There's this attitude of 'I read it on the internet therefore it must be true'."

No editorial comment included.


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  • (Score: 2) by julian on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:11PM (2 children)

    by julian (6003) Subscriber Badge on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:11PM (#523936)

    Your conception of the left seems to be based on YouTube rage bait videos of idiot college kids embarrassing themselves. I can't take you seriously.

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  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:36PM (1 child)

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:36PM (#523963)

    They're the uncensored future... and they're not much of a break with the past. So if I agreed with the observation, which I don't necessarily do, then they'd be admissible anyway.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @07:33AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @07:33AM (#524183)

      Ugh, you are simply portraying a caricature of how the "right" views the "left". Only a miniscule number of people actually play out the "check your privileges" crap, and I'd bet 99% of that shit is on college campuses where people are figuring out how to be adults. Progressivism isn't a religion unlike the "right" which actually pushes a real religion. Try again, your projecting needs therapy.