Debunking Climate Change Myths in the College Classroom

Research in sociology (e.g. Hamilton, 2011) and social psychology (e.g. Kahan et al., 2012) suggests that there is no basis to an assumption common among educators that higher education levels lead to more rational decision making. Indeed, there is growing evidence that views on climate change, for just one significant example, become more polarized at higher education levels, rather than converging on the scientific consensus. Some research points to improved facility at filtering information according to preconceptions at higher education levels as a possible explanation for this phenomenon. Misinformation about subjects that are perceived to be contentious, such as anthropogenic climate change, is therefore potentially easily accepted despite-- or even because of-- higher levels of education. Thus, explicitly addressing misinformation about climate change may be an important strategy for use in the classroom. Fortunately, misinformation provides a valuable opportunity to turn a challenging situation to educational advantage and, in effect, make lemonade out of lemons. This presentation provides a case study of efforts explicitly to debunk climate change myths in the college classroom. The approach outlined here utilizes material on the psychology of the acceptance of misinformation for the popular audience, combined with examples of misinformation itself. Qualitative assessment of the effectiveness of these efforts is also presented. Hamilton, L. 2011. Education, political and opinions about climate change: evidence for interaction effects. Climatic Change vol. 104 no. 2, 231-242.. Kahan, D.M., E. Peters, M. Wittlin, P. Slovic, L. Larrimore Ouellette, D. Braman and G. Mandel. 2012. The polarizing impact of science literacy and numeracy on perceived climate change risks. Nature Climate Change. doi:10.1038/nclimate1547.