An Instagram user, Tommy Vext, recently posted, “If your global crisis requires publicity stunts to convince everyone there is a crisis, there is no global crisis.” Climate change is a major concern, so I decided to take a closer look.
It’s not clear what Vext means by “publicity stunt,” but this was posted Jan. 17, and he may be referring to the arrest that day of climate activist Greta Thunberg. A lot of people accused Thunberg of staging the incident, which took place at a coal mine, but that’s been debunked.
But Vext makes a more serious claim: He says there is no climate crisis.
“Climate change is a naturally occurring phenomenon that can be tracked throughout prehistoric eras,” he says.
Here’s how we fact-checked this claim.
Who is behind the information?
When you see claims like these that don’t link to any sources, that’s a tip-off that something might not be right. The first thing you want to do is ask yourself: Who is behind the information?
I did a keyword search for “who is Tommy Vext” and found out that his background has nothing to do with the climate science community. In fact, an article on Billboard’s website says he was an ex-leader of a heavy metal band who now has a solo act.
Practice ‘click restraint’
Next, I searched for the phrase “is climate change real?” An overwhelming number of websites came up, so I used a media literacy tip called “click restraint.” Instead of clicking on the first website that pops up, take a second to analyze the links and determine the most reliable source.
This article from the United States Environmental Protection Agency was not the first one that popped up, but it is extremely reliable.
“The earth’s climate is changing,” the article says, “due to a buildup of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere and the warming of the planet due to the greenhouse effect.”
Greenhouse gases are gases that trap heat in the atmosphere, such as carbon dioxide, which can be released by cars. Data shows that as the world’s population increases, CO2 levels rise. This indicates that climate change is really driven by human activity. And the term greenhouse effect simply refers to what happens when gasses in the Earth’s atmosphere trap the sun’s heat.
The original Instagram post said that climate change is a “natural phenomenon” because it has been happening for hundreds of years, so it is important to fact-check this as well. I did a keyword search for the phrase “climate change throughout history,” and found this article from NASA, a good source for scientific information.
NASA also provides a visual to illustrate 800,000 years of change and shows that there has been a series of colder and warmer periods. It says that “most of these climate changes are attributed to very small variations in Earth’s orbit that change the amount of solar energy our planet receives.”
(Courtesy: NASA)
But the latest warming period is much different, as is shown in the huge spike at the end of the graph. The article says the spike “is clearly the result of human activities since the mid-1800s, and is proceeding at a rate not seen over many recent millennia.”
Our rating
Not legit: While there have been colder and warmer periods in the last 800,000 years, now the Earth is experiencing a much faster change in a much shorter period of time, and that change is linked to human activity — like driving cars that burn fossil fuels.
Remember, there can be tons of misinformation on the web, especially when it comes to science. Always figure out where the information is coming from and find out what other, credible sources are saying.
NOTE TO TEACHERS: This article is featured in a free, one-hour lesson plan that teaches students how to find credible sources to fact-check and climate claims. The lesson is available through PBS LearningMedia, and includes a lesson summary and a handout, among other resources.
