Fakegate: a loss is as good as a win for climate sceptics

In an obvious echo of the Climategate affair, leaked documents from the US Heartland Institute, a leading propagator of climate sceptism, show the organisation funded prominent climate sceptics such as Australian Bob Carter. The sums are not huge: climate sceptics will point to larger sums spent by governments and other organisations putting the climate change message across.

But to compare dollar for dollar spending is too simplistic because climate sceptics have some big advantages in this debate.

1) Climate sceptics get disproportionate media coverage. Less than 3 per cent of climate scientists dispute man-made climate change, yet sceptics often get as much press coverage as the mainstream science, for two reasons. Firstly, because white conservative men - the demographic most likely to be climate sceptics - are overrepresented in the media. And secondly, it's because journalists think - and report - in adversorial terms.  If someone says yah, they'll find someone who'll say nay. It  looks like balanced, impartial reporting even if one of the viewpoints has no credibility. And conflict makes sexier copy.

2) Dealing with climate change requires huge change. To go down that path, politicians need a huge groundswell of public support. Sceptics only need to create a little doubt to scare politicians off such a big challenge. Sceptics don't need to win - or even draw - the argument. They simply need to make people think there IS an argument.

Equally worrying, however, has been the decline in media coverage of climate change since Copenhagen, according to a recent study. (Read more in this other Climate Progress blog).

As with all long-term issues, the media loses interest. It's no longer "news". Climate change? Been there, done that.

But the study also shows that public concern over climate change (or any other issue) directly correlates with both the amount of media coverage and how often political leaders talk about the issue. Less media coverage means less public concern

After all, if it's not on the news, it can't be that important.

Can it?