Former Vice President Al Gore helped launch the Climate Reality Project in 2011. The goal was to create a grassroots movement to push for meaningful steps toward a low carbon energy future.
The Climate Reality Project exists to forge an unwavering bedrock of impassioned support necessary for urgent action. With that foundation, together we will ignite the moral courage in our leaders to solve the climate crisis.
The group has rolled out a news aggregator and rapid response engine known as Reality Drop. Think of it as a far more technologically advanced antidote to sites like Watts Up With That and Climate Depot.
Our challenge is to fight denial where it's happening and spread the truth about man-made climate change. Reality Drop finds climate news from around the web and connects it with the most relevant science.
You can drop reality by sharing stories on your social networks or get into the fray on comment threads beneath hot news articles. The more reality you drop, the more doubt you destroy, and the more points and prestige you earn.
I wanted to look under the hood, kick a few tires, and give Reality Drop a test drive.
The Basics
Your mission is to earn prestige points by spreading the word about the good, bad, and ugly stories found in the media (and appear in some form on the internet). Points are earned in three ways. (1) Vote on stories in the media that accurately discuss climate science findings and those that foster "skepticism." (2) Comment on hot stories with embedded link to science generated by Reality Drop. You earn more points if your comment gets responses and clicks back to Reality Drop. (3) Share stories on Twitter and Facebook.
Hot stories are listed on the big board as On Our Radar. Stories promoting denial have red buttons attached to them and those supporting the science have green buttons. Links for each story allow you to view, vote, share, and jump into comment threads.
A red article means it's a news story promoting climate myths and supporting deniers. Drop reality in the comment threads where you can and earn bonus points whenever your comment gets a hit--when someone clicks on a link that brings them back to the science on Reality Drop.
Green means it's news worth sharing. Spread truth on your social networks, or check out the comment threads in the article and drop reality on denial commenters.
Here is a current hot Red story from the
Daily Telegraph. It regurgitates the global warming has stopped meme and has over 1750 comments. If I share that story (with my own editorial comment) on Twitter or Facebook, I earn 18 points. If I jump into the comment thread, I earn 13 points (and many more if people respond and click on a link from Reality Drop). I can also earn 5 points for voting on the story as reality or myth.
Reality Drop provides the ammunition. It automatically generates a comment template with an embedded link. Here is the one generated for the Daily Telegraph article.
2005 was hotter than 1998, and the ten hottest years on record have occurred in the last 15 years. http://clmtr.lt/...
A link takes you directly to the comment field for you to jump into the fray. The idea is for you to take information, weave it into your comment, and add the link from Reality Drop. That link generates a debunking page with a summary drawn from Skeptical Science.
Here is a hot Green story from Think Progress. It exposes Fox News' deceptive reporting on climate change and polar bears. For this story, I can earn 17 points for sharing it on my social networks, 12 points for getting into the comment fray to pounce on those spouting denial, and 5 points for voting. Here is the automatically generated comment template for the story:
Most polar bear communities are already declining. Melting ice is the greatest threat to their future. http://clmtr.lt/...
Credits Due
Reality Drop brings together an impressive array of talent including the head of research at Google.
We’d like to extend our thanks to Skeptical Science, an invaluable website for anyone who is fighting climate denial. A pioneer in offering fact-based rebuttals to those who deny climate change, Skeptical Science has contributed many of the supporting articles on Reality Drop. We are indebted to their work and grateful for their support.
Arnold Worldwide led the design and management of Reality Drop. We thank for graciously contributing their time and creative ideas in support of this project.
We are also proud to work with many other individuals and organizations who are helping make Reality Drop a success. They include:
John Abraham, Climate Science Rapid Response Team
Center for Climate and Energy Solutions
Climate Central
DeSmog Blog
International Research Institute for Climate and Society
National Snow and Ice Data Center
Peter Norvig, Director of Research at Google
Union of Concerned Scientists
Vermonster
First Impressions
Reality Drops is addictive. I found myself checking out the stories for ones I had not seen. The points and badges mojo scheme adds another layer of interest. This has the potential to be the equivalent of Farmville for climate activists. What it lacks in goofy graphics it makes up for with warm fuzzies for fighting the good fight.
The site has the potential to appeal to younger generations. I tried it out on impromptu focus groups of 13-18 year olds and 19-25 year olds. The impressions were positive, but hardly random or representative of their respective cohorts. However, none of them could make sense of the name Reality Drop. I share their bemusement over that one.
There are three issues that warrant some consideration.
One is the reputation system. I can earn a healthy reputation by sharing links on Twitter and Facebook, but nothing stops me from flipping the script in those posts to praise flat-earth silliness and slam reality-based stories. It appears that trolls can earn mojo and merit badges easily in the system.
Another concern is the voting system. You earn points for voting on hot stories, but there is nothing stopping you from voting for junk as reality and science as myth. That also seems to open the site to trolling. I see trolling as a minor annoyance unless your prestige rank gives more weight to your votes.
The biggest potential problem comes from people simply cutting-and-pasting the content of comment templates into comments posted out in the wild. Even though you are encouraged to use it as a starting point in crafting comments, awarding points for each posted comment creates temptation. Likewise, we all get busy and take expedient shortcuts. I have signed many a petition and sent many a letter to elected representatives using standard templates without changing a word.
Unfortunately, the issue of mindlessly posting automatically generated content has already attracted attention. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation raised questions about Reality Drop in an article entitled, "Automatic Propaganda."
A new website encourages visitors to flood comments sections of news articles about climate change with cut-and-paste comments. It's an idea that impoverishes us all.
John Cook of Skeptical Science was interviewed for the story and says the concern is legitimate.
Moreover, encouraging people to flood the comments sections of climate change articles with a cut-and-paste comment is damaging to the public discussion on climate change.
When I put this to Cook, he said, "I made that exact point in my blog. It's not healthy. It just becomes spam then. The site suggests people should put it in their own words. But people might not do that. I suggested to Reality Drop that they make it more prominent."
Environmental journalist and editor Sara Phillips frames the issue quite well:
Climate change is a seemingly insurmountable problem that will affect every living thing on this planet if it is not correctly managed. A problem of this scale deserves the highest level of thinking to overcome.
Every person should be encouraged to think critically about the issue, not merely parrot what a website somewhere has told them to think - whether or not the site is pushing the line that climate change is bunk or is genuine.
How can people be expected to think clearly and creatively about climate change when online conversations on the topic are no more original than a widget from a production line.
There are plenty who would say that those who disbelieve the volumes of published science on climate change are more than willing to unleash their own propaganda and their own armies of cookie-cutter commenters.
Although Reality Drop wants its members to think and frame the debate in their own words, the point scheme rewards quantity rather than quality. I can earn just as many points from being an automaton as a cunning linguist with a sharp tongue. Technically Reality Drops is still in beta, so there is still time to iron out this issue.
I think Phillips greatly overplays the cut-and-paste issue in her article. However, I do understand why she and others might come away with that impression. In the video introducing the site (the second video posted above), automatically generated content is shown being "dropped" into an online comment field (around the 1:15 mark).
Final Thoughts
We live in interesting times. The fossil fuels industry is making money hand-over-fist while degrading the planet's environment in countless ways. All that money has given these companies and their executive barons the power to dictate government policies around the globe and conduct slick disinformation campaigns to blind the public to the harm. Like every other form of tyranny, we need to fight back.
The Reality Drop site is one means of joining the climate fight by highlighting what is being said in the media and lending your voice to the discussion. It is too soon to judge the site's impact. If it becomes popular, it will have some potential to find and challenge fossil fools in the media. Its impact on social media will depend on the reach of each member's Twitter and Facebook feeds.
Will a Reality Drop rapid response team change minds with its slings and arrows? My guess is probably not because I have never met a genuine climate "skeptic." I've met plenty who use the label but all have clearly made up their mind. Nothing is likely to shake their belief as long as denial remains popular among political and corporate leaders. I don't see Reality Drop putting much of a scare into the powerful.
Primum non nocere ("above all, do no harm") is always sage advice. The only potential for harm that I can see is that the site gets dismissed as just another talking points generator, committing the very same sins that the fossil fools have been engaged in for the past two decades. Rewarding people for jumping into comment threads and posting boilerplate text with a link to Reality Drop needs rethinking. Cut-and-paste comments will cast doubt on the site and member comments.
Let me encourage everyone to check out Reality Drop and take it for a spin. Please share your own impressions of the site. I had enough fun on my test drive to keep me interested. Reality Drop fits well in situations where I have a little time to kill, but are not conducive to well-focused attention. I can log on, click, vote, and pass the word until some more immediate reality calls me away. Unlike Angry Birds or Farmville, the subject matter is far from mindless.
If you do check out Reality Drop, be sure to complete the survey.
Here is a reminder of why we have to fight. This graph comes from an article published in Science last week. It shows that current global temperatures are now reaching levels rarely observed since the previous ice age. That sharp spike is not some random bounce as the fossil fools like to pretend. It is reality and it bites.
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Help Us Spread the Word About Climate Change
For those of you on Facebook and Twitter: Please help to spread the word by hitting the FB and Tweet links at the top of this diary and if you have time, join the discussion with comments. Share such postings with friends, family, co-workers, and acquaintances.
Thanks, as all of this helps build the Climate Change movement as well as introducing critically important ideas about renewable sources of energy.
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