Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
When journalists, particularly television
reporters, cover a story, they typically in-
terview people representing opposing sides
of an issue, in the climate change arena no
less than in others. Thus despite the over-
whelming scientific consensus that global
warming is a serious, imminent danger,
news stories in print or on television will
inevitably feature someone with the “mi-
nority view,” either denying or minimiz-
ing the risks of climate change. This keeps
a handful of industry scientific spokes-
persons busy.
If you are cognizant, you will undoubt-
edly recognize the names and faces of these
climate change deniers, as they frequently
appear in the press. However, you needn't
take our word for it. Jules and Max Boykoff
compared the coverage of global warming
in the scientific press to the coverage of the
same issue in “prestige” United States news-
papers from 1998 to 2002. They found that
while there was vast agreement in the sci-
entific community that “human actions are
contributing to global warming,” the major-
ity of newspaper articles gave roughly equal
treatment to the view that “humans were
contributing to global warming, and the
other view that exclusively natural fluctua-
tions could explain the earth's temperature
increase.” The study concluded, “balanced
reporting is actually problematic in practice
when discussing the human contribution to
global warming.” “Balanced” reporting legit-
imizes marginalized views and contributes
to the success of the climate change deniers.
Also contributing to the success of those
who deny that climate change is a threat
is the twenty-four-hour news cycle, which
provides a forum to climate denial spokes-
persons (once again benefiting from the
concept of “balanced” reporting). Con-
servative talk radio has also boosted the
fortunes of the deniers by repeating their
messages to an audience eager to receive
anti-government, anti-scientific, and anti-
“élitist” propaganda. And last but not least,
the Internet and in particular the blogo-
sphere provide endless opportunities to
circulate articles or opinions long after
they may have been debunked. Hoggan and
Littlemore describe as an “echo chamber”
the “reverberating network of think tanks,
blogs, and ideologically sympathetic main-
stream media outlets that distribute and
circulate contrarian information.”
Orrin Pilkey and Rob Young published an
op-ed piece in
USA Today
in January 2010.
They noted that there are many observ-
able indicators of global warming besides
atmospheric temperature measurements
and climate models (no mention was made
of the human connection). Within a couple
of days there were about seven hundred re-
plies from (we assume) nonscientists. What
emerged from the response was that there
is an element of the American population
with an alarming distrust not only of their
own government but also of science and
scientists in general. What also emerged
is a glimpse of the efficacy of the “echo
chamber” and the success of the climate
change denial industry. In rough order of
frequency the responses were as follows:
