Oh Goody! There's A New Use For AI Slop - Cranking Out Climate Lies And Anti-Science (At Minimal Cost!)

At the start of June, MSN, the world’s fourth-largest news aggregator, posted an article from a new climate-focused publication, Climate Cosmos, entitled: “Why Top Experts Are Rethinking Climate Alarmism”. The article – by “Kathleen Westbrook M.Sc Climate Science” – cited a finding from the “Global Climate Research Institute” that “65 percent of surveyed climate professionals advocate for pragmatic, solution-focused messaging over fear-driven warnings.”

But there were a couple of major problems: the Global Climate Research Institute doesn’t exist, and nor does Kathleen Westbrook, whose profile on Climate Cosmos has now been renamed to ‘Henrieke Otte’. The article accused those who advocate for climate action of overstating the harms caused by burning fossil fuels. It also promoted the work of Bjorn Lomborg, who has repeatedly called on governments to halt spending on climate action.

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Climate Cosmos is “clearly the lowest possible level spam – they’re just trying to put out content out for some easy clicks, hence the clickbait-y titles,” said Philip Newell, communications co-chair of the Climate Action Against Disinformation (CAAD) coalition. “AI has brought the cost of disinformation down to nothing. It has automated bullshit.” “It appears to be mostly AI slop, rather than a concerted disinformation operation,” he said – adding that AI has “no concern for accuracy”. Climate Cosmos posted a host of articles on MSN every day and has more than 45,000 subscribers on the aggregator. However, in July, all of its MSN content disappeared, as did all the content produced by other publications belonging to its parent company.

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Even despite – or perhaps because – of this historical lack of editorial rigour, Climate Cosmos has been used by multiple anti-climate campaign groups and publications. The website’s content has been cited by the Heartland Institute, Wattsupwiththat, the European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE), and the American Spectator. The climate denial project CFACT also reprinted an article from Climate Cosmos on its own site. Climate Cosmos “appears to be climate denier propaganda posing as a science blog,” said Michael E. Mann, a leading climate scientist and Presidential Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania.

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https://www.desmog.com/2025/08/27/ai-slop-websites-are-publishing-climate-science-denial/