‘Pseudoscience, no crisis’: How fake experts are fueling climate change denial

Would you seek dental advice from an ophthalmologist? The answer is obvious. Yet, on social media, self-proclaimed ‘experts’ with little to no relevant knowledge of climate science are influencing public opinion. 

One such ‘expert,’ Steve Milloy, a prominent voice on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), described a NASA Climate post (archive) about the impact of climate change on our seas as a "lie" on June 26, 2024.

Milloy's website, JunkScience.com, has been called "the main entrepôt for almost every kind of climate-change denial" by The Guardian. With 138,800 followers on X and master's degrees in health sciences and law, Milloy wields significant influence on climate change discourse despite lacking formal training in climate science.

Similarly, John Clauser, a 2022 Nobel Prize winner in physics, claimed that no climate crisis exists and that climate science is "pseudoscience." Clauser's Nobel Prize lent weight to his statements, but he has never published a peer-reviewed paper on climate change.

Clauser and Milloy exemplify a type of climate change denier: self-proclaimed ‘experts’ who not only reject the scientific consensus on climate change but also influence millions of others in the process.

Professor Bill McGuire, who teaches geophysical and climate hazards at University College London, told Logically Facts, "Such fake experts are dangerous and, in my opinion, incredibly irresponsible—Nobel Prize or not. A physicist denying anthropogenic climate change is actually denying the well-established physical properties of carbon dioxide, which is simply absurd."

The fake expert phenomenon

The fake expert strategy can be traced back to when the tobacco and oil industries overlapped in terms of researchers. In the 1960s and 1990s, both industries used Theodor Sterling, a mathematics professor, to support their causes.

John Cook, a senior research fellow at the University of Melbourne, Australia, who founded the website ‘Skeptical Science’ in 2007 to counter climate change denial, explained that these are people who "convey the impression of expertise on a topic while possessing little to no relevant expertise."

In the chapter on ‘Deconstructing Climate Science Denial’ in his 2020 book ‘Research Handbook on Communicating Climate Change,’ Cook noted that a common characteristic of science denialists is that most are "private researchers" without the credentials required for publishing climate research in peer-reviewed journals. Cook observed that fake experts are deployed to cast doubt on the expert consensus on human-caused global warming.

Tony Heller, also known as Steve Goddard, is another example of one such private researcher or "independent thinker." He has degrees in geology and electrical engineering but no peer-reviewed papers on climate change or relevant academic qualifications. Heller regularly posts on X, claiming that Arctic ice is not melting, often misrepresenting climate data.

Screenshots of X posts by Tony Heller misrepresenting scientific data to falsely claim that Arctic ice is not melting. (Source: X/Tony Heller)

Fake experts, in theory and practice

Cook categorized fake expert strategies into three types: bulk fake experts, magnified minority, and fake debate.

The Oregon Petition, or Global Warming Petition Project, illustrates the "bulk fake experts" tactic. Launched in 1998 by chemist Arthur B. Robinson and the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, with support from the ExxonMobil-backed George C. Marshall Institute, it urged the U.S. to reject the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. By 2007, it claimed over 31,000 signatories, but over 99 percent lacked climate science expertise.

The "magnified minority" tactic is shown by Richard Tol's 2016 challenge to the 97 percent consensus on climate change. Tol, a professor at the University of Sussex and VU University Amsterdam, questioned the consensus methodology, using surveys of non-experts like economic geologists and those rejecting the consensus.

According to Cook, a “fake debate” occurs when the journalistic principle of presenting opposing viewpoints is applied to matters of scientific consensus. This strategy, often termed ‘false balance media coverage,’ can distort the perception of factual realities. Studies have shown that this has helped a minority of denialist scientists obtain disproportionate coverage.

Judith Curry, an American climatologist and former chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, has emerged in recent years as a climate denialist who has been given significant space in the media to express skepticism and denialism (archive) about climate change. 

Screenshot from a telecast of Curry being interviewed on Fox News. (Source: Fox News)

Pascal Diethelm, a Swiss econometrician and tobacco control activist, observes that the deployment of fake experts often goes hand in hand with attempts to undermine legitimate researchers.

"The use of fake experts is frequently accompanied by efforts to discredit established experts and researchers," Diethelm notes. "This involves making accusations and insinuations designed to cast doubt on their work and question their motives."

U.S. climate scientist Michael Mann's case exemplifies this pattern. Mann is known for his ‘hockey stick graph,’ which shows historical temperature trends with a sharp rise in recent times. 

In 2009, his emails were leaked, leading climate change deniers to accuse him of data manipulation and academic fraud. Investigations by Penn State University, the Associated Press, and others found no evidence of wrongdoing. 

Despite this, Mann faced further attacks from right-wing bloggers, resulting in a defamation lawsuit. Mann won $1 million in damages, highlighting the serious repercussions of baseless attacks on established researchers.

The power of social media

"Before social media, fake experts influenced the public through mainstream media. For example, journalists would cover climate topics by providing a debate between a climate scientist and a fake expert," Cook told Logically Facts.

In 2014, a BBC Trust report criticized the network for giving undue attention to fringe opinions on climate change, creating false balance by featuring unqualified skeptics. A 2017 study by Cook found that while false-balance reporting has decreased, social media now allows fake experts to mislead large audiences.

Climate change deniers like Tony Heller and Robin Monotti, lacking credible expertise in climate science, use social media to amplify their views. Heller cited Clauser to argue against the correlation between temperature change and carbon dioxide, while Monotti shared Clauser's misinformation (based on a news conference from November 2023) and asked people to “love CO2” as it is "beneficial to all life on planet Earth."

Monotti told Logically Facts that "climate change denier" is a term used to discredit those who question the belief that climate change is mainly caused by human activity rather than natural cycles. He also claimed that climate science does not exist and that "man-made climate change is a huge business."

Although Monotti has not published any peer-reviewed papers on climate change, he asserted that his posts on X are informed by peer-reviewed research, which he claims to cite. However, no links to credible scientific journals were found in his posts.

Screenshots of X posts by Heller and Monotti that further Clauser’s denialist arguments. (Source: Heller/Monotti/X)

Glenn Branch, deputy director of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), told Logically Facts that social media is ideal for spreading climate change denial due to its low cost and preference for brief, visual content over detailed, evidence-based explanations. 

This advantage allows denial propaganda to thrive, he said. Branch also noted that social media creates echo chambers, where users following figures like Patrick Moore are often exposed to a network of climate change deniers, reinforcing their ideological bubble and insulating them from factual information.

Screenshots showing accounts suggested by X to follow after one follows Moore. (Source: X/Modified by Logically Facts)

Moore, director of the CO2 Coalition, is known for promoting climate change denial and touting carbon dioxide as beneficial to life and the economy. While he claims to have a Ph.D. in Ecology, he actually holds a Ph.D. in Forestry from the University of British Columbia and has no peer-reviewed publications in climate science. Moore frequently posts on social media, spreading climate change misinformation through false claims about CO2.

Screenshot of an X post by Moore falsely claiming that there is no cause-effect between temperature and CO2. (Source: X/Patrick Moore)

The CO2 Coalition further disseminates climate misinformation by promoting climate change-denying ‘physicists’ like William Happer, a chairperson of the organization, who makes claims such as "more CO2 is good for the world."

Screenshot of X post by CO2 Coalition promoting the false claim ‘more CO2 is good for the world’. (Source: X/CO2 Coalition)

Danish author Bjørn Lomborg, who has a Ph.D. in political science, frequently misrepresents scientific data on social media to downplay climate change, calling critics "alarmists." In 2023, he claimed on X that "satellites show the world is burning ever less," but the study’s lead author later confirmed that Lomborg misrepresented the data. 

Cook explained that people often struggle to distinguish between genuine and fake experts and are more influenced by those who reinforce their existing beliefs, making them vulnerable to misinformation.

A universal vaccine against misinformation?

A 2017 study by Sander van der Linden, a social psychology professor at Cambridge University, found that alerting participants to the fraudulent nature of Oregon Petition signatories effectively protected them from later misinformation. 

Cook compared explaining misinformation techniques to a universal vaccine, suggesting it helps people distinguish between real and fake experts. Another 2017 study by Cook and his team showed similar results, demonstrating that understanding misinformation strategies in one area, like tobacco, can counter misinformation in another, such as climate change. Branch, meanwhile, highlighted that addressing both the supply and demand for fake news is crucial, especially on social media.

(Edited by Shreyashi Roy and Nitish Rampal)

(Logically Facts has contacted Tony Heller, Bjorn Lomborg, Patrick Moore, and Steve Milloy for comment. This article will be updated if and when we receive a response.)