John has a simple, but strikingly complex plan

John Cook at his desk in the
Global Change Institute at
the University of Queensland.

John Cook has a plan, simple, but strikingly complex.

The Climate Communication Fellow for the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland is concentrating on disabusing global warming skeptics of the myths they adhere to.

John, who has completed a First Class Honours degree in Physics at the University of Queensland and is currently completing a PhD in Cognitive Psychology at the University of Western Australia, subtly evolved into concentrating why many people deny the realities of climate change.

He co-authored the book "Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand" with environmental scientist Haydn Washington and the university textbook "Climate Change Science: a Modern Synthesis" with geologist Tom Farmer.

Although John believes there is much to be done if climate change is to be mitigated and its impacts softened, but within that there simply too much for any one person.

Subsequently, John, who is unsettled as most other in the world of science by the rejection that knowledge, has elected to simply “do what he can” and expose why and how people adhere to and maintain their lives through the personal and public proliferation of myths.

How do we change those who refuse to acknowledge climate change/global warming? John believes it is through inoculation – that is we demonstrate through undeniable realities that they are wrong and that mitigation can only be achieved by avoiding many things presently acceptable.

So, John has just one task – helping people understand the realities of communicating climate change, why it works and why it doesn’t – but it is as complex as the people who make up the ranks of those deny the dilemma.

John maintains the website Skeptical Science.