Beam me to Planet Gore !
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."
There's a reason I dropped subscriptions to both Scientific American and the Smithsonian magazine:
They're more political than my senator and representative...and I live in California.
Where’s the puke alert?
I thought the title was enough..:=)
Well I think you all have had enough beans. pheweww... The movie is a classic. heheh.
“Former decades long subscriber with multiple science degrees here.”
As a scientist, would you care to offer an opinion as to why there seem to be so many scientists on the AGW side?
I thought that by now the tide would have turned and more of them would be looking at it more objectively.
How about the so called scientists were claiming another ice age in 1975.
I hope they are not relying on Mann and the hockey stick. His numbers suck and he did shoddy work. See “The Hockey Stick Illusion” by AW Montford.
The tree rings are a joke - and if that is what they are using to refute the Middle Ages Warming Period - it is obscene. Montford knocks the dog spit out of them.
The IPCC jokers were another running obscenity, with Himalayan glaciers gone by 2035 - without evidence and on hearsay. Posing as scientific truth, the actual year was 2350, and there was no work done to back it up so they were wrong on both counts. They scream their threats from the highest mountain and then when they find out it was completely wrong they act like it was just a slight misunderstanding and the real truth still stands.
Then Al Gore has millions invested in green energy and expects us to believe him, more like believing Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. The make-up is the same!
Don’t give me East Anglia University either, or how those criminals were involved with their own investigation and unsurprisingly absolved themselves of any wrongdoing. Climategate was real and ugly, and they act like it was just another small misunderstanding in a series of small misunderstandings. The other irrefutable fact - when you read the Climategate emails you finally understand that their numbers sucked, and even their analyst couldn’t figure it out. I was amazed how sloppy their work was - and they are using it to tax us by the trillions.
I ask the green left, who on your side do we believe? Stop saying there are thousands of scientists - when in fact it is the same 30 people circulating the same papers or extorting publishers not to publish contrary works. It is a crime family protecting their turf. Witness the ugly personal attacks are contrary opinion, full of venom and hate - they need to demonize and not argue.
Then go back a few years and look at your predictions - all wrong. Don’t point to an African country that is in the middle of a man made famine and blame Global Warming. If these island nations are disappearing then why is it that New Jersey is still here? Why did Al Gore spend $9 million on a mansion on the sea? Why isn’t Manhattan flooding?
It is political not scientific. It is the left losing the ideological battle and now fighting the same war by wearing a green uniform rather than a red one.
The scientists are not yet born, the software not yet written the computers not yet designed, the sensors not yet created, the engineers not alive that can build an interplanetary climate model that approaches the predictions claimed these “political” scientists. They simply don’t have a clue. Yes more Co2 is pouring into the atmosphere, but there were tons more in the atmosphere eons ago and the Earth found a balance, through both cold and hot.
No one is buying it, they are too busy shoveling snow.
CO2 is about .03% of the atmosphere. As a greenhouse gas it is about half as able to hold heat compared with another greenhouse gas...H2O. H2O is from trace to about 3% of the atmosphere. That is about 1 to 2 orders of magnitude (tens to hundreds with more likely in toward hundred) more effective at containing heat.
H2O is not in the models because it is difficult to model accurately, ask any weatherman or weathergal.
So, in the AGW model they LEFT IT OUT!
How did this follow the scientific method again? Or even why is it considered science even?
DK
“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”
Translation: “Because of the internet and the free flow of information we have lost the ability to frame the debate on our terms. “
You need to know that while I have those science degrees, I have always made my living programming computers and betting on horses.
I have taken a couple of classes in major university global warming courses as a visitor; and the professors who have invited me to participate have probably regretted doing so.
I merely apply common sense to what I see going on. The people who participate in all the global warming studies are almost entirely funded by government grants. If they were to say that there were no such thing as global warming, or at least no such thing as anthropomorphic global warming, there would be few additional grants to study it. Their funding would dry up. IMHO, the people who espouse this nonsense are whores.
I hope I answered your question.
ML/NJ
Well, the bottom ones don’t include the html, so the links don’t work. :)
Ummm, at the end of my backyard is salt water - it's been there at the same level ( depending on tides) for years. No change...
No one is retreating from the water or the shore. Any 'retreating' going on it's been by people frightened by liberal elite 'scientists'... and their fear mongering.
Yes, that answers my question. Money trumps science, even in the supposedly objective scientific community.
“You need to know that while I have those science degrees, I have always made my living programming computers and betting on horses.”
Programming computers and betting on horses to make a living? Those two don’t usually go together. :-)
Folks generate CO2 and the increase in atmospheric CO2 due to that generation and release will result in an increased equilibrium temperature of the Earth's surface components. That scientific fact can not be denied.
What can be denied is the significance of the effect, which is only a couple of degrees. The maximum increase in atmospheric energy is Tfinal/Tinitial, where T is in Kelvins. The average temp. is about 15oC now. So:
Tfinal/Tinitial=(273+17)/(273+15)=0.69%.
That's a 0.7% total change in energy content and the maximum available for a "change in climate", or an increase in weather intensity. Folks can't even distinguish a few degrees F change from their thermostat settings. That's how significant the effect really is. So all that's left after considering the relevant science is the exposed power play to grab control over the energy supply.
"I thought that by now the tide would have turned and more of them would be looking at it more objectively."
Most of the "scientists" are ignorant in the matter.
None of their supposed science meets the standard of the “Scientific Method.” It is contrived worthless propaganda with the intent to continue funding for those who print the lies. This is the biggest snake oil sales convention the earth has ever seen.
I’m not ill-informed; I merely think their conclusions erroneous. Erik the Red could have a farm in Greenland around 1000 AD. That implies a climate warm enough to do so. Automobiles, factories, and other such things that are generally blamed didn’t exist. Logically, then, the whole global warming “theory” cannot be correct. Not to mention I find the fact that those who support this theory generally are in sympathy with international communists enough to consider any claims they make absolutely invalid.
When I think of the Penn State efforts to obfuscate, control the debate and minimize dissent ... the single word that comes to mind first is arrogant; but evil is not far behind
Planetary Warming ... now that I can subscribe to ... we're warming as much as Mars or Jupiter, after adjusting for solar radiation variance and solar flares
Talking about solar flares ... more are on the way. See http://spaceweather.com/ and the approaching active region.
Why don't people think Obama and Carter are really great presidents?
Why does communism have such a bad name?
When will Americans realize that they need to just curl up and die, for the benefit of the rest of the world?
So many questions.
They’re MORE informed these days. That’s why they’re not swallowing the AGW bait hook, linem and sinker, anymore. THAT’S what’s bothering these leading lights of science. Those hucksters have ruined science for many people in this country. Folks will no longer believe what the scientists have to say, once they’ve learned how the junk science folks manipulate the data to create any ‘reality’ they desire.
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