UPDATE:
The Indiegogo campaign is no longer active but you can still Stand with Science! Your donation –through our host, The University of California, Merced — is 100% tax-deductible and still qualifies for receiving your perks! (Let us know which perk(s) you want to claim here). All contributions above and beyond our original goal will go directly towards building a better website for Climate Feedback.
Climate Feedback is bringing together scientists from around the world to sort fact from fiction in mainstream media coverage of climate change, helping the public know which climate news to trust.
We also provide feedback for journalists and editors to help improve their accuracy and increase the visibility of the most reliable media sources.
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These new interactions between scientists, journalists and editors have already produced more accurate climate information. Last year The Telegraph misrepresented science when it claimed that researchers predicted the onset of a “mini ice age” in 15 years. An evaluation of this article by Climate Feedback led The Telegraph to issue a public correction and substantially modify its online content.
But this is only a hint of what Climate Feedback can achieve. We want to increase the frequency of our analyses and aggregate scientists’ comments and ratings into an index that rates the major news sources on their reporting of climate change. We call it the Scientific Trust Tracker.
The money we raise through this campaign will contribute to hire a Scientific Editor to coordinate article reviews and help scientists create clear and accessible analyses for the media and the public.
With your support, we will bring more accurate information to readers, accountability to news sources, and a stronger voice for science.
We won't address Climate Change without accurate information
When you read the news, you expect the facts. But online journalism often features sensational headlines that tempt you to click, buzz-worthy anecdotes that don't tell the whole story, and misinformation that spreads like wildfire on social media.
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As scientists, we’ve watched the politicization of climate change create an environment where it has become difficult to determine which stories are based on scientific facts. With Climate Feedback, we’re bringing the voice of scientists directly into the conversation.
The Climate Feedback Project
We are a global network of
100+ scientists and counting, specializing in everything from biogeochemistry to oceanography, climate variability to paleoclimate.
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We use an open source technology developed by the nonprofit Hypothesis to annotate online articles so you can read scientists’ insights right on top of the original page.
How it works
1. Select
We select an article for review based on its scientific claims, relevance, and influence on the public. We also take suggestions from our network of scientists and journalists themselves, and as our project grows we’d like to welcome suggestions from the general public.
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2. Annotate
Scientists from our network evaluate the article’s scientific basis, providing additional content like references, charts and figures, and drawing attention to errors and misleading statements where they exist.
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3. Evaluate
Scientists give the article a score out of five for accuracy, logic, fairness, and precision of facts. We provide a summary of the scientists’ comments in clear language.
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In the News
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Climate Feedback has already been featured in the following publications:
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What people are saying about Climate Feedback
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The bigger vision
We plan to bring on board hundreds of other scientists from around the world, so we will be in a position to provide feedback on any breaking climate story that shapes public opinion!
We will then aggregate scientists’ comments and credibility ratings – dozens and eventually hundreds of them – to build the Scientific Trust Tracker: a reliable reference allowing the public to compare and contrast the credibility of a variety of websites and news organizations.
Here is a mockup:
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Stand with science!
Support our campaign by making a donation at any level today! Remember that your donation is 100% tax-deductible.
Then spread the word. Share this page on social networks. Email it to your family, friends, and colleagues. Follow Climate Feedback on Twitter and Facebook and help us amplify the voice of science.
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Your donation will ensure that Climate Feedback is fully driven by the broad community who want more accurate reporting on climate change.
When you contribute to our campaign, you’ll be able to cast a "vote" for any source of climate change information online—whether it be a website, reporter, columnist, or politician. At the end of the campaign we’ll announce the sources our backers have chosen, and take a close look at every big story they publish on climate change throughout the year.
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FAQ
1. What’s wrong with climate change reporting?
You’ve probably already read a lot of great journalism on climate science. But all too often the hard work of journalists who report the facts is undermined by self-proclaimed experts who make claims that have no basis in science. Climate Feedback has already identified articles online right now, and which have been viewed by hundreds of thousands of people, that misrepresent the science the articles claim to report. This sows doubt and confusion. We want to make sure that all science journalism reflects science, rather than the ideology of the editors.
2. Are you promoting certain political agendas with these reviews?
No. Scientists are asked to assess the accuracy of factual statements related to climate change with respect to the body of scientific knowledge and the logic of the reasoning. If a statement is unsupported by science, we will mention it, regardless of the political ideology of its author or source.
3. Isn’t the point of journalism to fact-check everyone else, not the other way around?
Many scientific topics are extremely complex and require decades of dedicated full-time work to master. It is hard to fully grasp a complex field such as climate change and recognize what is actually based on sound science—especially when there are special interests, politicians, corporations and public relations teams working hard to push unscientific information in order to advance a biased agenda.
4. I’m a journalist. Why would I want scientists evaluating my story? Are they going to comment on anything besides the scientific facts?
Climate Feedback requires scientists to stick to what they know when they annotate an article. Having scientists checking a journalist’s story in their field of expertise can be valuable in several ways:
You will get valuable feedback on whether people actually working on this topic everyday endorse the message you’re sending.
You get references to reliable sources of information and connections to scientists who can serve as new sources in the future.
You get a credibility boost if scientists validate the information, because they are trusted by the public.
Having scientists take a look at your work can also lead to better understanding and relationships between scientists and journalists in the future, which is what we at Climate Feedback are trying to foster.
5. What is web annotation?
Climate Feedback’s scientists use the open source web platform built by the nonprofit,Hypothesis. The platform allows users to post comments directly onto a webpage. In our case, it adds an extra layer of knowledge to the article being evaluated. By simply following a link or installing the Hypothes.is browser plug-in, readers can easily view the scientists’ annotations.
6. I’m just a reader interested in climate change. How will this help me?
You probably know all too well how difficult it is to find reliable online information these days, especially when it comes to climate change and other politically controversial topics. With Climate Feedback, you’ll get to know which sources of climate news you can trust, and which ones you should be especially skeptical about. You can even share this with your friends and colleagues who might be confused by inaccurate statements they have read on otherwise respectable outlets. And, if you follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, or sign up for our newsletter, you’ll be the first to receive updates about the latest articles we evaluate.
7. What type of media are you going to evaluate?
We will start by evaluating the most influential news organizations focusing on climate change. As we scale up this project, we are open to analyzing any type of information on the internet, including popular blog posts and political speeches.
8. With that many articles every day on climate, how are you going to evaluate them all?
We won’t. But we want to be in a position to evaluate any influential article on climate change. And by aggregating our evaluations into a Trust Tracker, you’ll already know which media outlets are likely to publish information you can trust.
9. How did Climate Feedback start?
As scientists, we came up with Climate Feedback after seeing that our friends and colleagues were genuinely confused by contradictory stories on climate change. We found many scientists who shared our frustration after reading articles that were inconsistent with current scientific knowledge. We decided to take it into our own hands to help readers find the most trustworthy information.