Through the process of needfinding, our goal was to gather data from two categories of people: those with professional or academic backgrounds related to environmental sciences and climate change, and the general public.
GENERAL PUBLIC SURVEY
EXPERT INTERVIEWS
We conducted expert interviews with two field & conservation environmental scientists/biologists, whose focus of study is birds (ornithology). Both scientists are PhD candidates at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. We engaged in a casual conversation where we asked the following questions:
What are the various categories of climate change misinformation?
What categories of climate change misinformation are the most prevalent?
Where does climate change misinformation originate?
What resources are available for accurate information on climate change?
What types of education/outreach tend to be the most effective at combating misinformation?
How can one inspire action in combating climate change?
Through these interviews, we discovered that although their work involves extensive knowledge of the environment and biology, fighting climate change misinformation is more of a social science issue. It was suggested we search for websites where scientists fill this niche (ie. environmental scientists AND climate activists). We understood that transparency with author credentials could potentially prove trustworthiness (eg. field of study, whether they’re a journalist, etc.) for users when reading articles on climate change. It was expressed that too many scholarly articles may be overwhelming for laypeople; especially when misinformation is involved.