Cranky Uncle is created by John Cook, a senior research fellow at the Melbourne Centre for Behaviour Change at the University of Melbourne. He obtained his PhD at the University of Western Australia, studying the cognitive psychology of climate science denial. His research focus is understanding and countering misinformation about climate change. In 2007, he founded Skeptical Science, a website which won the 2011 Australian Museum Eureka Prize for the Advancement of Climate Change Knowledge and 2016 Friend of the Planet Award from the National Center for Science Education. John authored the book Cranky Uncle vs. Climate Change, that combines climate science, critical thinking, and cartoons to explain and counter climate misinformation. He also co-authored the college textbooks Climate Change: Examining the Facts and Climate Change Science: A Modern Synthesis and the book Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand. In 2013, he published a paper finding 97% scientific consensus on human-caused global warming, a finding that has been highlighted by President Obama and UK Prime Minister David Cameron.
