Quantifying the impact of Skeptical Science rebuttals in reducing climate misperceptions

Abstract

Misinformation about climate change leads to societal damage in a number of ways and consequently, resources are required to support interventions that counter their influence. Aiming to meet this need, Skeptical Science is a highly-visited website featuring 250 rebuttals of misinformation about climate change. The rebuttals are written at three levels – basic, intermediate, and advanced – in order to reach as wide an audience as possible. This study collected survey data from visitors to the website and assessed the effectiveness of rebuttals in reducing acceptance of climate myths and increasing acceptance of climate facts. Our data found that nearly half of the visitors were already highly convinced regarding climate facts. We found that the rebuttals were effective in reducing belief in climate myths, but that some rebuttals show a concerning reduction in belief in climate facts. The greatest improvement occurred with visitors who began with the most inaccurate climate perceptions. This indicates that the website is useful for two main audiences – those who are convinced about climate change but looking for material to support their own climate communication efforts, and those who disagree with climate facts but are open to new information. We examine potential ways that Skeptical Science rebuttals could be updated to improve their performance in raising climate literacy and critical thinking skills.