#FactBack: A Tool That Buries Climate Change Deniers' Tweets in Truth

POW Canada invites people to #FactBack against climate change deniers with the Fact Avalanche.

MONTREAL, Sept. 23 2019 /CNW Telbec/ - Just in time for the Canadian elections, Protect Our Winters Canada has created an online tool that allows the public to #FactBack climate change deniers on Twitter. Every time a false fact is tweeted, the Fact Avalanche sends an alert inviting participants to respond together using proven scientific facts from Canadian universities and partners (IC3), burying false climate tweets under a massive amount of truth.

A study from Oxford university reveals that only 3% of the content regarding climate change on Twitter is from an expert scientific source, while another study led by the University of California found out that climate deniers get 49% more visibility in the media and online compared to scientists.

POW (Protect Our Winters) Canada hopes that the initiative will help to solve the issues of misinformation and skepticism around climate change while empowering Canadians with more knowledge. The non-profit organization recognizes that the climate change fight is now a political one, and hopes that by bringing unbiased scientific facts into the conversation, earth advocacy will become a common priority for Canadians, no matter their political views.

"As Canadians, winter is part of who we are and the sports we love. Losing it would be like losing a part of our identity. We hope giving people the facts and making sure misinformation isn't part of the conversation anymore will empower Canadians to finally come together as one and become climate leaders for the rest of the world. And we think the Canadian election is the perfect moment to do that." ? David Erb, Executive Director of POW Canada.

The Fact Avalanche follows the Twitter accounts of the most influential climate deniers and political figures from all over the world who might have an impact on Canadians' point of view on climate change. From now on, if they happen to tweet a falsity about climate change, the Fact Avalanche will automatically send an alert to everybody who joined the list and invite them to respond to the tweet by choosing targeted scientific facts from the tool's database. Facts were verified and provided by climate change experts from the Interdisciplinary Centre on Climate Change at the University of Waterloo (IC3).

To join the Fact Avalanche community, people can visit the website www.factavalanche.com and choose how they want to be alerted: SMS, Email or Slack. The Slack app allows companies that want to play their part in the climate change conversation to add the Fact Avalanche to their own company's channels, alerting employees every time a Fact Avalanche is triggered.

To see the video of the initiative: https://youtu.be/bAUFnsQy-To  

About POW:

Protect Our Winters Canada is a passionate community of enthusiasts, professional athletes and industry brands uniting the outdoor community to address climate change. We believe our love of adventure in nature, demands our participation in the fight to save and protect it. Protect Our Winters was formed in 2007, by pro snowboarder Jeremy Jones. He found that more and more resorts he'd always counted on for good riding were closed due to lack of snow. Something was clearly going on. He felt the need to do something. And so, he founded Protect Our Winters.

Our organization has grown from a kernel of an idea into a worldwide network of over 130,000 supporters ? a social movement on climate, designed to activate a passionate community and create the will for meaningful climate action across the globe. To join visit: https://protectourwinters.ca/

To Follow POW Canada:
Twitter: @protectwintersc
Facebook: @protectourwinterscanada
Instagram: @protectourwinterscanada

SOURCE POW Canada