Reviewing John Cook’s "Cranky Uncle vs. Climate Change"

I was surprised to receive an email from John Cook the creator and driving force behind SkepticalScience.com inviting me to review his new book “Cranky Uncle vs. Climate Change.”  Having received the challenge, I couldn’t refuse.  An easy to read graphic book that at 164 pages frames important climate science and communication lessons within cartoons, artwork and concise sentences.

It reads to me as a light hearted, inoffensive, easy to comprehend look into the conundrum of conveying climate science facts to folks in a world that’s swimming in disinformation.

John Cook doesn’t shout or agitate instead preferring to explain the well understood science, while offering only fleeting glimpses into the past decades of full blown malicious dirty tricks that the contrarian campaigns against climate science understanding are guilty of.

The Cranky Uncle’s opening chapter is “How did Climate Change get so Controversial?” tells the story of a few corporate funded (Republican) political operatives who were able to completely distort how climate science was presented to the public.  

Diary - Musing on a half Century of Climate Science Awareness, 2020-02-22

Given that I’ve reached my half century anniversary of engaged climate science awareness and outreach, a little reflection comes naturally.  I used to be told it’s easy enough to complain, but could I actually define my complaints?  Even better, could I suggest solutions?  

It was a fair challenge and I dare say I’ve spent the past decades striving to meet it.  Now some tell me my blogs are a bit redundant.  Oh well.  I’m not an academic, nor a journalist, I’m an enthusiast and this is my self-assigned research project and homework notebook.  Some pages are better than others and redos happen as I continue improving.  

In truth, I had hoped CSC would develop into a study group, as a few like minded citizens joined in, but that never happened.  Thus this blog could never develop beyond a busy, often distracted, individual citizen’s perspective.  It is what it is.

About that half century.  I started high school in 1969, my already well developed love of nature and deep curiosity had me taking all the science courses I could.  As it happened Earth’s climate system turned out to be an especially important and dramatic topic that captured my unwavering interest.

After graduation I went on to a working life, but curiosity about Earth sciences and history remained central to my existence, the hobby I never tired of.  Of course, courting, raising a family and working multiple jobs put all that on the back-burner for a while.  Still I kept up on scientific discovers and news.  

Kids kept growing and with time my work load diminished.  Then a local snow-bird, Roger Cohen, started peddling the EXXON oil company’s line of “Relax, No Worries, ignore the science!” in an OpEd and letters to local papers, even giving a couple talks up at the local college.  That pissed me off and I funneled that energy into researching Cohen’s claims and writing about what I found.  I helped raise hell about the travesty of FLC hosting a talk filled with known scientific lies and deliberate deception.  After that Roger moved his dog’n pony show to a local hotel conference room.
       

SkepticalScience.com Archive - August, 2007 to December 31, 2011

A long long time ago John Cook envisioned an internet website dedicated to bringing authentic climate science to an interested lay-public along with publicly archiving easily accessible climate studies.  It took tons of networking and creative effort and determination to realize his dream.  Starting in August, 2007 SkepticalScience.com realized his vision and SkS has been delivering ever since and building up an impressive Archive (for the rest of this introduction link here)

This is part two of SkepticalScience.com Archives

2011

• 2011 Year in Review (part 1)
• 31 December 2011 by MarkR
• Michael Mann, hounded researcher
• 30 December 2011 by Andy Skuce
• A thoughtful conservative perspective on climate
• 29 December 2011 by Tom Smerling
• UAH Misrepresentation Anniversary, Part 2 - Of Cherries and Volcanoes
• 28 December 2011 by dana1981
• UAH Misrepresentation Anniversary, Part 1 - Overconfidence
• 27 December 2011 by dana1981

SkepticalScience.com Archive 2012, 2013, 2014

A long long time ago John Cook envisioned an internet website dedicated to bringing authentic climate science to an interested lay-public along with publicly archiving easily accessible climate studies.  It took tons of networking and creative effort and determination to realize his dream.  Starting in August, 2007 SkepticalScience.com realized his vision and SkS has been delivering ever since and building up an impressive Archive (for the rest of this introduction link here)

This is part two of SkepticalScience.com Archives Dec 31, 2014 to Jan 1, 2012. 

2014

• Another year and glaciers are another metre thinner
• 31 December 2014 by MarkR
• Time is running out on climate denial
• 30 December 2014 by dana1981

SkepticalScience.com Archive - January 1, 1015, February 19, 2020

A long long time ago John Cook envisioned an internet website dedicated to bringing authentic climate science to an interested lay-public along with publicly archiving easily accessible climate studies.  It took tons of networking and creative effort and determination to realize his dream.  Starting in August, 2007 SkepticalScience.com realized his vision and SkS has been delivering ever since and building up an impressive Archive (which I’ve taken the liberty of copying and pasting into the end of this article for your convenience.).  

Beating Climate Denial with Better Thinking

I came across this today and thought it was quite good and that it belongs in this collection.  I have added a few thoughts worth considering at the end of this article.  I thank SkepticalScience for their CC license and permission to repost this valuable lesson over here.  
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Humans need to become smarter thinkers to beat climate denial

Posted on 6 February 2018 by Dana Nuccitelli, John Cook | SkepticalScience.com

Climate myths are often contradictory – it’s not warming, though it’s warming because of the sun, and really it’s all just an ocean cycle – but they all seem to share one thing in common: logical fallacies and reasoning errors.

John Cook, Peter Ellerton, and David Kinkead have just published a paper in Environmental Research Letters in which they examined 42 common climate myths and found that every single one demonstrates fallacious reasoning. For example, the authors made a video breaking down the logical flaws in the myth ‘climate changed naturally in the past so current climate change is natural.’

Video abstract for paper “Deconstructing climate misinformation to identify reasoning errors” published in Environmental Research Letters by John Cook, Peter Ellerton, and David Kinkead.

Beating myths with critical thinking