Scientists say ‘old-school denier nonsense’ isn’t helpful as podcaster repeatedly airs false claim on his show
For months now, the popular comedian and podcaster Joe Rogan has been telling his vast audience of a study that shows Earth is cooling – even though this research states the complete opposite.
Rogan’s false claim about the climate crisis, which he has repeatedly aired on the Joe Rogan Experience, one of the world’s most popular podcasts, has exasperated the scientists who authored the research.
It has also highlighted the tide of climate misinformation that regularly emanates from some of the biggest podcasts in the US – outlets where many Americans, particularly younger people, now get their news.
“Joe is speaking to his audience and they want it to be entertaining, I get it, but it concerns me because he isn’t giving the right message,” said Jessica Tierney, a paleoclimatologist at the University of Arizona and co-author of the research frequently mentioned by Rogan.
“I’ve watched his clips and gone: ‘Oh jeez.’ I can only laugh sometimes. But it is a bummer that these podcasts with large audiences are spewing this old-school denier nonsense. It’s not helpful. In the US, people are in silos now and climate scientists can’t easily reach people who aren’t sure how climate change works. It’s not a healthy situation.”
Last year, Tierney was part of a group that published an ambitious paper in the Science journal that reconstructed a timeline of Earth’s temperature...
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