Posted on 02/23/2011 4:00:11 PM PST by PROCON
Scientists and journalists debate why Americans still resist the consensus among research organizations that humans are warming the globe
As glaciers melt and island populations retreat from their coastlines to escape rising seas, many scientists remain baffled as to why the global research consensus on human-induced climate change remains contentious in the U.S.
The frustration revealed itself during a handful of sessions at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C., this past weekend, coming to a peak during a Friday session, "Science without Borders and Media Unbounded."
Near the forum’s conclusion, Massachusetts Institute of Technology climate scientist Kerry Emanuel asked a panel of journalists why the media continues to cover anthropogenic climate change as a controversy or debate, when in fact it is a consensus among such organizations as the American Geophysical Union, American Institute of Physics, American Chemical Society, American Meteorological Association and the National Research Council, along with the national academies of more than two dozen countries.
"You haven't persuaded the public," replied Elizabeth Shogren of National Public Radio. Emanuel immediately countered, smiling and pointing at Shogren, "No, you haven't." Scattered applause followed in the audience of mostly scientists, with one heckler saying, "That's right. Kerry said it."
Such a tone of searching bewilderment typified a handful of sessions that dealt with the struggle to motivate Americans on the topic of climate change. Only 35 percent of Americans see climate change as a serious problem, according to a 2009 poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.
It's a given that an organized and well-funded campaign has led efforts to confuse the public regarding the consensus around anthropogenic climate change.
And in the absence of such a campaign, as in South Korea, there is no doubt about the findings of climate science, said Sun-Jin Yun of Seoul National University. All three of the nation's major newspapers—representing conservative, progressive and business perspectives—accept climate change with little unjustified skepticism.
Still, it is hard to explain the intransigence of the U.S. public and policy-makers on the issue.
Explanations abound: Is it the media? Under-education? Denialism? Tom Rosenstiel of the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism pointed at the media, focusing on its overall contraction in the past two decades. Shrinking budgets have led to a proliferation of quick, cheap reporting, as well as discussion and commentary formats that rarely provide informative discussions of actual science results.
"What is shrinking is the reportorial component of our culture in which people go out and find things and verify things," he said. Truth has little chance to make itself known in the new narrow and shallow public square.
Poll after poll, and even late night TV talk shows, seem to revel in Americans’ ignorance of basic scientific facts, including the fundamentals of physics and biology.
Is this "science information deficit model" then the reason for our failure to accept climate change? Naomi Oreskes, a University of California, San Diego, science historian rejected that hypothesis during one of the sessions on denialism. "It's quite clear there are many highly educated people who do not accept global warming," she said. Still, scientists "must communicate climate science as clearly and effectively and robustly as we can," she added.
The current political and cultural context drive the nation's denialism around climate change, evolution and vaccines, said Gavin Schmidt, a climate scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, during a session. Education and scientific literacy and general intelligence levels are not causing the problem.
Meanwhile, most Americans in fact are ignorant of the facts of climate science and even "confuse climate change with the ozone hole," Schmidt remarked. The processes around the latter's disappearance are related to global warming but "how is that a basis for having any sensible conversation?" he asked.
Solutions: Smart talking and media mastery Surveys show that most people want more information about climate science, Schmidt said, so scientists should engage in public forums such as blogs, question-and-answer sessions and public talks, provided they are not simply stacked with angry debaters.
Scientists must engage with the public and be vigilant against projecting stereotypes of their profession—such as the elitist, arrogant scientist, Schmidt said.
Rosenstiel echoed this advice and further urged scientists to bypass the media, who are no longer critical intermediaries for reaching the public given the growth of the blogosphere and the general fragmentation of the industry.
He advised scientists similarly to make sure their points are very clear and to avoid giving climate deniers an opportunity to extract a phrase from ones communications or answers to questions that fits an anti-science theme.
In fact, Thomas Lessl of the University of Georgia called science communications "naïve" and said the entire enterprise of communicating science about climate change needed to be reformed. More information will not help. "Personal knowledge always trumps technical knowledge in public communication," he said.
Some of Rosenstiel's advice recalled Lessl's observation when he reminded the audience that interviews are entirely on the record and that they are not conversations. "One way of doing that is to be like a politician and answer what you want to answer and not answer fully what they have asked," he advised. Also, "if you feel the question is loaded, give them the answer that you would have given if the question were not loaded."
NASA's Schmidt suggested that further public engagement to fill the gaps in understanding between soundbites and scientific literature would be useful, but that there are no guarantees.
M.I.T.'s Emanuel offered a familiar explanation for why some scientists are allergic to public forums: "There's an attitude in our culture that if we're doing outreach...we may be engaging in a kind of advocacy that is poisonous to science."
Despite the concerns, optimism prevailed regarding the role of journalists and scientists in better communicating climate change in the future. There will be more reporting and it will be more accurate in the future, but the current media landscape may be the ultimate decider, Emanuel noted.
"Fourth estate reporting will get better," he added. "The fact that we're here today is an indicator of that. At the same time, the availability of the Internet soapbox will ensure that the amount of background noise will go up. I don't see any way of preventing that."
Too late, not only are you arrogant, but you're on the wrong side of true science!
Ping!
Because perhaps you so called climate experts keep changing the definition to suit what you currently put out? Like it was global warming until we caught on to that scam so now it’s climate change? In my neck of the woods that happens four times a year.
Because we can be!!
Between work, sleep, eating, MSM, televised pro sports and xBox, who has the time to read up on this stuff?
Or they could just hit my list, in chronological order:
‘Blue Dress’ Update: Media Sat on ClimateGate Info
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2392941/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2392924/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2392915/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2392908/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2392968/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2392981/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2392001/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2393005/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2393411/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2393379/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2393485/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2393468/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2393603/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2393615/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2393644/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2393670/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2393675/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2393848/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2393891/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2394040/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2394038/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2394026/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2394006/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2393987/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2393970/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2393966/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2395122/posts
New zealand
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2395120/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2395112/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2395227/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2395258/posts
Unique title:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2395954/posts
Flat earth society gw
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2395940/posts
Worst scientific scandal of our generation.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2395938/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2395906/posts
Past concerns about reliability of scientific community:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2397685/posts
Nice scientist rundown
http://acapella.harmony-central.com/showpost.php?p=37687551&postcount=190
http://acapella.harmony-central.com/showpost.php?p=37681280&postcount=175
http://acapella.harmony-central.com/showpost.php?p=37681322&postcount=176
Really exposes the computer code stuff:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2397837/posts
gREAT RUNDOWN WITH LINKS
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100018556/climategate-its-all-unravelling-now/
The Decline they hid
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2398684/posts
Scientist circle jerk
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2398834/posts
mORE PEER REVIEW
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2399073/posts
Earth counters co2
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2399087/posts
Now NASA is in this?!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2399513/posts
Copenhagen, we have a problem
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2400351/posts
1700 scientists sign “petition” supporting AGW
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2404633/posts?page=4
Homogenization of temperature series: Part I
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2403761/posts
Smoking Guns Abound in Climategate Scandal
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2404724/posts
Look at the polar ice caps
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2405207/posts
Why they fell for the global warming hoax
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2406165/posts
Climategate: One Must Ignore 200 Years of Observations to Believe in AGW
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2406178/posts
Lord Monckton adresses a Greenpeace-campaigner on global warming
http://dittosrush.blogspot.com/2009/12/lord-monckton-adresses-greenpeace.html
Hitler Youth in Denmark – again - why this thing must be stopped.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2406589/posts
Climategate: the video everyone should see
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2406604/posts
CLIMATE CHANGE IS NATURAL: 100 REASONS WHY
http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/146138
Climategate: Faster and Faster, the Dominos Fall
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2409800/posts
Global warming and the ‘settled science’ baloney
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2411011/posts
Finally, the great climate change lie begins to unravel
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2411415/posts
God in Charge of Climate
http://www.magic-city-news.com/J_Grant_Swank_61/God_in_Charge_of_Climate_Obama_No_World_Messiah12745.shtml
Obama does it again
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2411579/posts
The Hockey stick vs Ice Core Data
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFbUVBYIPlI&feature=player_embedded
UN IPCC Head Not Qualified for Post; Has Huge Conflict of Interest Issue
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2412358/posts
ClimateGate: 30 years in the making
http://joannenova.com.au/2009/12/climategate-30-years-in-the-making/#comments
Surface station data
http://www.surfacestations.org/
Global Warming “Premeditated Fraud”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2424592/posts
How Climategate killed ‘peer review’
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2427444/posts
Climategate Chapter 2—More Nails in Coffin of Global Warming
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2428339/posts
Son of Climategate! Scientist says feds manipulated data
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2429870/posts
Climategate goes American: NOAA, GISS and the mystery of the vanishing weather stations
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2429917/posts
Four segments utterly debunking
http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/81583352.html
Global warming is dead. What’s the next eco-scare?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2434119/posts
EU Parliament Member Calls Global Warming a “Scam, Scam, Scam”; Calls Al Gore a “Crook” - Video
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2434120/posts
Surface Stations:
http://www.surfacestations.org
More Global Warming Scandals Implicate IPCC Climate Scientists
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2435060/posts
NEW Evidence: Climate Change Scientists Are Manipulating Data
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2436723/posts
http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Scientists+using+selective+temperature+data+skeptics/2468634/story.html?utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=co2hog&utm_source=co2hog
Climate Change Authority Admits Mistake
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2436720/posts
Climate Flimflam Flaming Out
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2437170/posts
IPCC didn’t research Amazon climate change
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2437694/posts
Climategate Redux: IPCC Forced to Retract Alarming 2007 Warming Report ( IPCC Chairman - Pachauri)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2437678/posts
Amplification of Global Warming by Carbon-Cycle Feedback Significantly Less Than Thought
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2439446/posts
Climategate: NOAA and NASA Complicit in Data Manipulation
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2440126/posts
The Hottest Hoax in the World....(The climate change fraud unprecedented in its deceit)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2441790/posts
Forests Are Growing Faster, Ecologists Discover; Climate Change Appears to Be Driving Acc’d Growth
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2443478/posts
Mark Steyn: Change of Climate
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2443524/posts
‘ClimateGate’ Inquiry Determines Investigation Warranted in One of Four ‘Possible Allegations’
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2443566/posts
Is The UN Climate Chief Starting to “Lose It?” Blames Mysterious Conspiracy For HIS Mistakes
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2443617/posts
Climategate Chapter 10—No Apology from IPCC on False Information
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2443628/posts
India to ‘pull out of IPCC’
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2444277/posts
Error in Dutch polder data undermines trust in IPCC (more climate deception)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2444245/posts
A Blizzard of Climate Scandals
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2444406/posts
Hacking into the mind of the CRU climate change hacker ( how did climategate happen?)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2445089/posts
New errors in IPCC climate change report
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7177230/New-errors-in-IPCC-climate-change-report.html
The IPCC’s Latest Climate Change Blunder “To Boldly Go Where No Stupidity Has Gone Before.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2446504/posts
So many ‘gates’
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2447088/posts
Climategate: The SEC Takes On … Climate Change
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2447586/posts
Bishop Hill: Gonzo science and the Hockey Stick ( Prof Mann and the Hockeystick )
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2447650/posts
(Arizona) Calling It Quits
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2452576/posts
Three Major Firms Pull Out of Climate Change Alliance [ConocoPhillips, BP America and Caterpillar]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2452778/posts
Root Causes of the Global Warming Hoax and Highjacking of Science
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2453295/posts
The winter of global warming
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2454108/posts
Big Business Jumps Ship from the S.S. Climate Change
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2454293/posts
Global Warming? LOL! Revelations of slipshod and sinister “global-warming science.”
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2454318/posts
New Paper in Science: Sea level 81,000 years ago was 1 meter higher while CO2 was lower
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2455706/posts
The Mythical Global Warming
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2455706/posts
OOPS Never-mind! Climate Scientists Withdraw IPCC-Related Article Claiming Sea is Rising
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2456333/posts
Climategate U-turn
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2456763/posts
New Climate Agency Head Tried to Suppress Data, Critics Charge
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2456823/posts
Climate4you
http://www.climate4you.com/
CEI, Science Groups Petition EPA to Reconsider Increasingly Dubious Global Warming “Endangerment” Finding
(http://cei.org/news-release/2010/02/...s-global-warmi)
US Reps from Mo. to propose blocking EPA gas rules
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100202/...nergy_missouri
Senior Democrats floating bill to block EPA on plans for greenhouse gas rules
http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677...climate-change
World’s biggest coal company brings U.S. government to court in climate fraud
http://www.climategate.com/worlds-bi...-climate-fraud
Barbour Lobbies Fellow Governors to Oppose EPA Regulations
http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/02...epa-61154.html
Texas, Utah, Virginia Sue over Fraudulent Global Warming
http://www.resistnet.com/group/watch...ginia-sue-over
Va. AG: Leaked e-mails basis for EPA challenge
http://www.wtop.com/?nid=600&sid=1890032
UPDATE 1-Texas to challenge US greenhouse gas rules
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1661844120100216
Climate scientists withdraw journal claims of rising sea levels
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...etract-siddall
The Logical Fallacies of Anthropogenic Global Warming
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2458806/posts
Some straight talk about what “Climate Scientists” need to do
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/25/judith-i-love-ya-but-youre-way-wrong/
U.S. Data Since 1895 Fail To Show Warming Trend
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2459890/posts
Unsettled Science
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2461107/posts
Climategate hits Westminster: MPs spring a surprise (’Don’t panic, carry on’ isn’t working)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2462446/posts
Phil Jones called out by Swedes on data availability issue ( Relates to Jones stmt at UK Hearing )
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2465619/posts
CONSENSUS EXPOSED, PART 1
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2464444/posts
EPW POLICY BEAT: CONSENSUS EXPOSED, PART 2 ( Global Warming Consensus that is )
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2463372/posts
CONSENSUS EXPOSED, PART 3: ‘HIDE THE DECLINE’
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2464461/posts
Climategate: Knowledge, Belief, and Global Warming
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2471252/posts
Climate change, happening before your eyes (Arctic sea ice returns to normal levels)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2484701/posts
Thomas Jefferson on Global Warming (He wrote of warming from Little Ice Age)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2488183/posts
NOAA: Global Temps Push Last Month to Hottest March on Record
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2494492/posts?page=1
750 Peer reviewed deniers
http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html
Left-wing Env. Scientist Bails Out Of Global Warming Movement:— a ‘corrupt social phenomenon
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2559232/posts
Official: Satellite Failure Means Decade of Global Warming Data Doubtful
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2572436/posts
Declining solar activity linked to recent warming
Is the Western Climate Establishment Corrupt? Part I
Famous Physicist Resigns from American Physical Society to Protest Global Warming
Quote of the Week – Judith Curry asks warmists: “How are Things Going for You Lately”?
If Al Gore’s Chicago Climate Exchange Suffers Total Failure, Does the MSM Make a Sound?
R.I.P.: Al Gore’s Chicago Climate Exchange Has Died
Carbon Trade Ends on Quiet Death of Chicago Climate Exchange
Canadian Senate kills climate change bill
November 20, 2009: the day that sank “global warming”
IPCC Official: “Climate Policy Is Redistributing The World’s Wealth”
One Year Ago Today – Breaking News Story: CRU has apparently been hacked –
Cancun Global Warming Petitions UN to Ban DiHydrogen Monoxide (Water, US Economy to be Limited)
Little Ice Age And Expanding Arctic Ice -“Climate Forecasts Will Have To Be Thrown In The Dustbin”
Urban Heat Island Effect Can Be Up To 9 degrees C , Says NASA
2010 tied for ‘hottest’ year?! Relax, it is ‘purely a political statement’
Climate change study had ‘significant error’: experts (OOPSIE!)
The oceans, clouds and cosmic rays drive the climate, not CO2 ( Dr Noor van Andel ....)
15 Quotes From Conservatives On The Global Warming Hoax
Translation: Why don’t Americans believe our made up facts, lies and falsified data even after we got caught covering it up?
Maybe it’s because the “science” is bought and paid for by leftist political interests, and whenever the data is examined it seems to have been manipulated. In the same direction. Every time.
Then there’s the annoying refusal of the planet to actually get warming, despite the steady increase in CO2 levels.
Climate Change?
Did the evolution of the planet stop all of a sudden? The planets what. 4 to 6 billion years old. How many hot and cold cycles has it gone through?
What a load of patronizing shiite muslims.
That’s a room full of people trying to get gubment grants.
Come on, Rob, don’t you have anything else!!..:=)
Because science isn’t consensus? Because we were told that global warming would mean winters without snow and now we are told that global warming meansxwinters with more snow?
You’d think someone from a magazine called “Scientific American” would be familiar with the scientific method. I’m guessing the author was one of those people who didn’t think she should have to take math and science classes in high school because she’d never use what she would learn in the real world.
Consensus??? Last I heard 80% of the atmospheric scientists say man is not the cause. In fact the consensus of most credible scientists say that global warming is a natural occurrence related to the sun's activity and there is nothing we "MAN" can do about it.
The real question should be “How can ANY American be skeptical of AGW, in spite of decades of the ‘noble’ monolithic leftist media-education-union complex trying to indoctrinate the ‘peasants’”?
Grant whores!
They can take their climate change and shove it. I really am getting to the point that total eradication of the planet would be a blessing.
I had a subscription for years, but...now I can see I was right to let it lapse.
Many moons ago. Another reason I don’t read National Geographic anymore.
Easy to explain. Humans are not warming the globe. That premise is a colossal lie. If humans could alter the climate, it would have been screwed up beyond habitability long before now, because as a whole, humanity is a fallible lot.
BECAUSE AGW IS A LIE AND YOU ARE ALL ****ING LIARS!
LLS
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