I do a tremendous amount of environmental outreach, talking to people almost every day about conservation and sustainable living, and the most frequent issue that arises is that people have difficulty finding trustworthy sources of information. In an ideal world, all the information that we need to make conscientious, informed decisions would be easily apparent and available to us. At Do It Green! Minnesota, we try to provide the public with factual, up-to-date information, but we can only cover so many topics. Unfortunately, in the world we live in, there is a deluge of opinions and misinformation masquerading as honest facts, and we need to be able to tell the difference.
Just last week I spoke with a woman who was upset that she had received some very inaccurate information from a business trying to sell her some products. Now, most of us are hesitant to take at face value everything that a salesperson says to us, but this woman was shocked to find out that anyone would give her blatantly wrong information. She was quite upset about it and asked how she was supposed to find good sources of information.
The advice that I gave her clearly reflects the type of person that I am. As a scientist, I prefer to receive my information about the environment from original research published in peer-reviewed journals or in government reports. Of course, much of that information is difficult (but not impossible) for the general public to access and certainly not easily understood. However, many university, government, and nonprofit websites contain summaries or stakeholder reports that convey these scientific results in everyday terms.
Government and university information, including websites and handouts, should be trustworthy, as they usually avoid clear bias, but mistakes or old information can certainly be found. For that reason, I always recommend checking multiple sources, as well as looking for publication dates on all materials. Information from nonprofits is also usually factual, but many environmental nonprofits have clear missions and goals that might unintentionally bias the information they provide. If you are using information from a nonprofit, keep their overall mission in mind in order to evaluate their information.
Personally, I always treat information from businesses and individuals with a handful of grains of salt. Businesses tend to be more focused on their bottom line than on educating consumers, and information from other members of the public (like a blog), is just one person’s opinion, rather than the conglomeration of data that you might find in a government report. When evaluating businesses, resources like the Do It Green! Directory and the opinions of other consumers can be very helpful; many green or eco-friendly businesses do want to share good information with their customers- the trick is to identify them! When dealing with a new business, it’s always a good idea to fact check some of the information they are giving you with sources that you already trust. Once you’ve established that you’re getting truthful, valuable information from them, you can add the business to your list of reliable resources!
Some of you might not be comfortable trusting the sources of data I prefer. If that’s the case, I encourage you to find your own sources, but to always double check and evaluate a source before trusting it implicitly.
