Mark Thompson
I retired in early 2024 after forty years in engineering, technology innovation and clean energy in the public sector. I'm now a public speaker and blogger and campaigner FOR facts and against DISINFORMATION about climate change and decarbonisation.
The challenge of climate and decarbonisation is hugely challenged though by something invisible, damaging and everywhere, misinformation.
Misinformation and its darker cousin disinformation is the greatest threat to our future success as a society, stifling change and preventing people from understanding the balanced facts, the choices and the big picture on a huge range of subjects.
Misinformation is cunning though. How it works and how it can masquerade itself is extremely diverse and can be very sophisticated. As a result, the public at large is often naive to it and so vulnerable. What makes this vulnerability even more troubling though is many people think it is easier to spot than it actually is as I will evidence on this site.
Misinformation affects many areas of society of course, but it is PARTICULARLY prominent, sinister and damaging in the area of decarbonisation solutions and climate change more generally.
There are many many vested interests out there behind it too. Some of these dark forces or mischievous are obvious of course, such as some fossil fuel vested interests, but many are not at all obvious, as I will expose with evidence in blogs on the site.
I am determined to change this situation, and to help people
understand where misinformation comes from, how to spot it for themselves, and the role everyone can play in stopping it spreading.
Once you know the basics on what to look for, you won't forget them.
They will forever help you reduce your chances of being "had" by the dark forces of the disinformation out there, on ANY subject.
Professional background
After studying physics and electronics at university, I've spent my career in engineering and innovation including:
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Bentley Motors in Crewe as factory engineer, playing with cars and electronics. Great fun!
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Technology commercialisation support at the University of Manchester.
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Innovation management with the UK power grid companies at the Energy Innovation Centre.
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From 2015 until retirement in a wide range of energy innovation roles at the UK government innovation agency Innovate UK. This included latter leading the energy programme and as director of clean growth and low cost nuclear programmes.
Long term personal interests in misinformation
Having given talks to the public on a wide range of energy and decarbonisation subjects since 2019 I realised after a couple of years that most of my efforts were to correct flawed beliefs audiences had that were basically a product of misinformation sources. Audiences were simply unaware of the facts and had been "played" by the dark forces of disinformation.
So, I set out to learn about the subject, so I could understand and communicate how the world of misinformation works.
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There are no courses or qualifications on misinformation and how to spot it though. So I simply read a ton of books on the subject in 2021 as well as learning a lot from the inspiring work on this subject by Dr Jon Cook from The University of Melbourne. I now speak regularly to audiences on the subject and share what I've learnt through this site.
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As far as I know I am the only person in the UK giving talks to the public specifically on this subject.
