Comparing Climate Change Websites

Not only were both websites set up completely differently but they each had their own goals in their approach to climate change. The "Friends of Science" website was aiming to clear up some of the common myths surrounding climate change, with their "facts" as written by their volunteers and Scientific Advisory Board. Their points were simple, without a lot of deep science, and clearly the Top 10 list was an easy format for those environmental novices out there. However reading "Friends of Science's" "About Us" selection of the website made me highly suspicious of the material published on the website. "Friends of Science" is apparently a non-profit organization of volunteers, who with the assistance of a Scientific Advisory Board, write on the website regarding climate change. The main goal of the "Friends of Science" website is to combat the political mistruths surrounding climate change, brought on because of the Kyoto Protocol. This philosophy reminds me of Wikipedia, also not the most reputable website, where any volunteer (or member in the case of Wikipedia) can go onto the website and make changes. Therefore the scientific credibility of the entire website, in my opinion, is called into question.

On the other hand, Grist's "How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic" website follows a completely different model. First of all, and most importantly, is the website is backed up by a very credible organization of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). The recognition and support of this organization for this website, lends itself to the credibility of Grist's website. "How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic" also is much more thorough and tackles any possible attack on the possibility of climate change, with scientific fact. Each answer is written in a detailed yet understandable manner, yet it is clear that the authors of the website actually are leaders in the scientific community and have years of educational and practical experience in the environmental field. Based on the overwhelming sense of credibility and scientific knowledge from "How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic", I believe that this website is not only more convincing but also most accurate.

One major issue I had with Grist's website however, was the fact that you had to click into every topic to see the answers for the various issues. The excessive "clicking" becomes tiresome and takes away from the great wealth of knowledge being presented. In this one regard, I feel as though "Friends of Science" had an easier to navigate website, in that it did not take so much additional "clicking" and new pages to read the information. That said, "Friends of Science" did not have nearly as much information as Grist's website, however I felt as though the website could have been better formatted to suite the user's needs.

Overall it is amazing to see the differences in two websites regarding climate change, both of which claim to be written by the scientific community. However in the age of the Internet, after a little investigation, it is very easy to tell which website has the real knowledge and which one is just grumpily denying science.

Amanda