The UK Met Office is quite polite about it. Deliberate lies and denial about climate breakdown are labelled “misinformation” – on the assumption that the person passing the “facts” on has themselves been misled. If you can prove the perpetrator is involved in the deliberate sharing or creation of incorrect scenarios, this is called “disinformation”, while someone who deliberately misleads by twisting the meaning of truthful information is spreading “malinformation”.
Whether you agree with these definitions or not, it is refreshing to see one of our world-class scientific institutions fighting back against the deluge of propaganda from the fossil fuel industry and their paid lobbyists, as well as the politicians who deny science. For far too long, scientists have remained silent in between producing erudite reports on the worsening climate and only when prodded after weather-related disasters do they venture the opinion that: “This is climate change in action.”
The most impressive part of the Met Office’s “misinformation toolkit” fightback is the set of answers to 19 questions used by climate deniers to cast doubt on whether climate change is real. For example: “Is it true that the climate wasn’t stable before the Industrial Revolution?” and “Weren’t there warnings of global cooling years ago?” The answers provide clear, concise and robust scientific responses.
