Don't Take All You Read as Reliable

After navigating through both websites, “Friends of Science” and Grist’s “How to talk to a Climate Skeptic”, I was clearly able to see the differences between them. Friends of Science is a more science focused website, all their statements are supposedly “proven” through science and they even state that they have assembled a Scientific Advisory Board of climate scientists from all over the world to offer the most current science on global climate and climate change. Yet their science is obviously geared towards one main objective; that the Sun is the main direct and indirect driver of climate change. And they plan to educate the public that this is the reality of the climate change issue and thus encourage governments to uphold this hypothesis. They are also a non-profit that is directly influenced by the donors and their interests, for all these reasons the claims this website does, are not convincing to me.

As for the website, How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic, is focused to serve the public as a green media platform in where issues concerning climate change and articles that highlights people, ideas, and organizations working toward sustainability are discussed. In their section titled, How to talk to a Climate Skeptic, there were various sections with possible questions that climate skeptic might approach one with, and it offers a brief answer to these questions. Yet, these are not backed up by strong, hard scientific data, some graphs are offered, yet the sources do not seemed reliable by looking at their publishing names and date such publication. for example, one was written by “Coby Beck“ on October 26, 2006. The date is very outdated and with an issue such as climate change that demands the latest information, this article is not very convincing either.

With all the previous conclusions, I believe that the best manner to evaluate the scientific claims made by both websites is to take a set back and consider the following questions. One should look if the source is not depended on donations, since when they are, they tend reflect the interests of the donors. Also, avoid agreeing with over-arching statements such as the one presented by Friends of Science that climate change is mainly caused by the galactic cosmic rays. It is difficult for me to agree that this is the main driver of climate change, when I know that there are many other arguments backed by strong data. For these reasons, I believe that there are many more reliable websites that one should check out when looking for information concerning this issue, I always try to evaluate the assertions I encountered keeping in mind the previous questions.