One of Simon Clark’s most popular TikTok videos begins with him playing the part of a clueless climate contrarian. Adopting the overconfident tone that is common among social-media influencers, he proclaims: “Renewables are a scam!” Cut to the real Clark, who has a PhD in stratospheric dynamics and uses the handle @simonoxfphys, as he dismantles several myths about renewable energy using a deadpan style and a torrent of charts. The video, with almost 180,000 views, is an effort to fight misinformation by meeting people where they are, he says.
Clark started making YouTube videos more than 15 years ago as a master’s student in physics at the University of Oxford, UK. He wanted to help others learn about getting into elite universities and navigating the collegiate system. After he got his PhD from the University of Exeter, UK, he decided to make content creation a full-time career. “The natural thing in my field was talking about the climate crisis,” he says, “the physical causes behind it, the solutions we have to it, and increasingly at the moment, why we aren’t implementing those solutions.”