This University Is Offering A FREE Course To The Public To Eliminate Climate Change Denial

Credit: Inhabitat
Credit: Inhabitat

Is Global Warming real, or is it the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on mankind?

With respected organizations like NASA behind the rally to decrease emissions and lessen one’s carbon footprint, one would have to wonder how anyone can deny change is in the air – or at the core of the planet.

Yet, even fact-based statistics like ‘The global average temperature has increased 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880’ and ‘the global sea level average has risen 7” in the past 100 years’ have done little to suade skeptics.

For this reason and more, the University of Queensland is offering a free Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) to the public starting April 28, 2015. The course’s intent is “Making Sense Of Climate Science Denial.”

The coordinator is John Cook, founder of the climate science myth debunking website Skeptical Science, and University of Queensland Global Change Institute climate communication advocate. His research to date has primarily focused on the psychology of climate science denial.

As Cook explains in the video below, “97% of climate scientists agree that humans are causing global warming; however, less than half of Australians are aware of humanity’s role in climate change, while half of the US Senate has voted that humans aren’t causing global warming. This free course explains why there is such a huge gap between the scientific community and the public. Our course looks at what’s driving climate science denial and the most common myths about climate change.”

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RedrutZ_G3Q]

In this free course, content covers climate science, myth-debunking lectures by an international team of volunteer scientific contributors to Skeptical Science, and interviews with many of the world’s leading experts on both science and psychology matters.

As shared by Dana Nuccitelli from The Guardian, “Making Sense of Climate Science Denial” is a seven week-long program featuring interviews with 75 scientific experts, including Sir David Attenborough, Katharine Hayhoe, Richard Alley, Michael Mann, Naomi Oreskes, and the author herself.

Lessons are incorporated in both climate science and psychology to explain the most common climate myths, as well as how to respond to them. According to research the course is based upon, debunking is most effective when people understand why the myth began in the first place.

For example, cherry picking (focusing on a small bit of convenient data and ignoring the rest) is one of the common fallacies behind climate science myths. The University and its panel of experts will be covering such fallacies in length.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0_sZEtityY]

If you or anyone you know still doubts or is skeptical of the science behind global warming, you can find out more information (and sign up) by visiting the course landing page here.

Apparently thousands of students from more than 130 countries have already enrolled. This is a great opportunity for anyone to learn more about their Earth, as well as what they can do to become a more sustainable citizen.

As shared by Nuccitelli, “The goal is for the students to come out of the course with a stronger understanding of climate science, myth debunking, and the psychology of science denial that’s become so pervasive and dangerous in today’s world.” 


This article (This University Is Offering A FREE Course To The Public To Eliminate Climate Change Denial) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author and True Activist

Popular on True Activist