Evaluating Climate Evidence, Claims, and SolutionsCornell Course

Effective climate action begins with a clear understanding of how climate science is established and evaluated. In this course, you will assess and quantify the forces that stabilize and disrupt Earth's climate system, with a focus on carbon dioxide and its associated downstream impacts that influence climate stability over time. Using examples from Earth's history, you'll examine how natural climate shifts have occurred in the past and why those shifts differ fundamentally from the pace, scale, and causes of contemporary climate change.

You will then evaluate how climate claims are made, challenged, and misrepresented in public discourse. The course focuses on distinguishing credible scientific reasoning from misinformation, denialism, and distortions of scientific uncertainty, while clarifying how scientific consensus is established through evidence and expert evaluation. You'll also assess the feasibility of energy alternatives and carbon reduction strategies across sectors, connecting scientific credibility to the practical evaluation of climate solutions.

By the end of the course, you will be prepared to interpret climate arguments more critically with a stronger grasp of the scientific principles, credibility standards, and solution pathways that underpin climate projections, policy, energy transition, and implementation.