Posted by: sustainadelic
on 27 Apr, 2012
There's a saying in journalism: everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not to their own facts.
If you can't distinguish fact from opinion, debate is reduced to a shouting match.
That was the problem with last night's ABC climate special, in which climate activist Anna Rose tried to convince former Liberal senator and climate sceptic Nick Minchin about climate change.
As one of the people interviewed, English science writer Ben Goldacre, said, it just lent the appearance of credibility to Minchin's "own facts" on climate, which simply are not true. Of course, there was climate activist Anna there to counterbalance his view. But the format of the program gives the impression both views are equally valid. That's wrong.
The key fact is this: more than 97 per cent of climate scientists agree humans aredangerously warming the planet through greenhouse gas emissions. That counts as a scientific consensus. The views of people like Minchin - and mining fat cat Clive Palmer, who appeared on the following Q&A panel discussion - are as flaky as those who believe vaccinations do more harm than good, or smoking doesn't cause cancer.
Unless people like Minchin and Palmer accept basic facts such as the existence of a scientific consensus on the subject then their opinions are not fact-based and should not be presented in a context that suggests they are credible. It's nothing to do with free speech. Rather, the media has a responsibility to separate fact from opinion. Programs such as this confuses the two. That's simply bad journalism.
To put this media failure into perspective, one of the Q&A panellists, pollster Rebecca Huntley, noted her research showed less than 15 per cent of Australians understand the basis science of global warming. That represents a huge failure by our media to communicate the fundamentals of the most significant issue of our (and probably any other) generation.
It's not just a failure of the media, but of politicians. A recent US study concluded that (given most people can't understand the science) the main drivers of public opinion about climate change are the media and the attitudes of politicians.
For more, read Professor Stephan Lewandowsky in the Age or Glive Hamiltion in Crikey!.
Posted by: sustainadelic
on 29 Mar, 2012
A US study has concluded young people today are less concerned about the environment than previous generations. The longitudinal study of college students found only 5 per cent of young US students considered themselves "committed environmentalists" with 90 per cent saying they wouldn't be seriously inconvenienced or pay a cost to protect the environment.
Commentators in this New York Times article blame the decline in environmental concern on the fact that fewer young people today have much physical contact with the "unpaved world", and on fatigue and confusion over climate change created by vocal climate sceptics.
Posted by: sustainadelic
on 24 Feb, 2012
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).
Posted by: sustainadelic
on 19 Jan, 2011
The first two episodes of 2011 of ABC Radio National's Science Show, with Robin Williams, have been exceptionally good.
Posted by: sustainadelic
on 18 Feb, 2010
Finding it hard to keep track of all the Climategate nonsense? Real Climate tackles the points raised in recent sceptical attacks on the IPCC, while Australian physicist John Cook has a list of responses to climate sceptic arguments on his Skeptical Science website - and even now available from the website as an iPhone app!
Posted by: sustainadelic
on 30 Jan, 2010
Climate deniers such as Lord Monckton peddle tired old furphies that have been dismissed time and again by credible scientists. Yet they enjoy vastly inflated media coverage, thanks mainly to green-hating conservative media pundits.
How should we respond to these deniers?
Posted by:
on 24 Apr, 2009
If you want major coverage in our media's opinion pages, write a book denying climate change is happening. That's what Professor Ian Plimer's has done, and his book Heaven and Earth, a supposed debunking of climate change theory, has been receiving the usual uncritical praise from familiar climate denial commentators such as Andrew Bolt. There's a more critical assessment on
Tim Lambert's Deltoid blog.
Posted by:
on 31 Jan, 2009
Here's a little experiment that sheds some interesting light on why people choose to reject the scientific consensus on climate change.
