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involve spreading untruths and therefore result in people drawing inaccurate conclusions because they accept the information as the truth. Misinformation includes a statement such as “There is scientific proof that humans are the main cause of climate change.” An example of disinformation might be “That scientist is in the pockets of industry” when there is no evidence that this is true.
    And then we come to predictions, such as the following: “Scientists Predict Widespread Extinction by Global Warming.” [4] People have been predicting the future since time immemorial. Even though they are not very good at it they keep trying. Some people actually think they know the future, as if they had a crystal ball. But they do not have a crystal ball; it is a mythical thing, found only in fantasy and science fiction. Still, this doesn’t seem to deter them, especially when the prediction involves the end of civilization and the world as we know it.
    “The end is nigh” has been cried from street corners for eons. The apocalypse is always just around that corner and people tend to believe this. Optimistic predictions are invariably greeted with disbelief while doom and gloom forecasts makes the news. We are a strange species: having developed the ability to consider the future, we tend to see the dark side even though we would obviously hope for a happy ending.
    Of course there are some aspects of the future we can predict accurately: the tides, sunrise, our next birthday, and the movement of theplanets. But most future events and circumstances cannot be predicted with certainty. There are simply too many variables, including the chaotic variable of chance. That’s why people bet on horse races and boxing matches. That’s why the weather report is wrong nearly as often as it is right, especially when it is for more than four or five days in the future. This kind of prediction is more like a wager; your odds of winning are better the more you know the horses, the boxers, and the meteorological conditions. But you will never get it right consistently.
    The take-home message here is predictions are not the same as facts. We are constantly bombarded with predictions of future climate change, sealevel rise, floods, droughts, hurricanes, mass exodus of climate refugees, mass species extinction, and the end of civilization. These predictions are based largely on computer models, very complex computer models that purport to tell us what the climate (average weather) will be like in 50 or 100 years from now. The problem is that as complex as they are, the computer models are nowhere near as complex as the earth’s climate system and all the variables involved, some of which we don’t even understand. Frankly I wouldn’t give two bits for these computer-based predictions. I give the modelers A for effort, but I would bet on the stock exchange or the outcome of the World Series long before I would bet on climate change.
    As a first-year science major at the University of British Columbia I was lucky enough to enroll in a course offered by the English faculty, aimed at teaching critical thinking to science students. We took a copy of Time magazine and deconstructed it from cover to cover. The lesson I remember best is, never believe an article that has the words may or might in the first sentence. If you see a sentence with may in it, read it again but add or may not as in, “Chemical X may or may not cause cancer.”
    So whenever a statement is made by a politician, an activist, a journalist, or by me that purports to be a fact, take a closer look. Is it really a proven fact? Or is it a correlation masquerading as a causal relationship? Is it a proven causal relationship, such as “Light from the sun makes plants grow?” Or is it just a prediction of something to which we don’t know the answer? Adopting this analytical approach will give you the power of critical thinking and make you a much more sensible