Newspapers/govt seed scientific ignorance

Written By: - Date published: 9:12 am, March 16th, 2010 - 46 comments
Categories: climate change, Media, science - Tags:

Yesterday, the Dompost had this to say about public perceptions of science:

Science might be finally emerging from the shadows, its non-sexy status having long been reinforced by an often scientifically ignorant public, suspicious of the work many scientists do… How will the May Budget tackle the tyranny of distance and New Zealand’s lack of cash let alone the suspicion of science that permeates a sometimes ill-informed community?

Yes, why would the public be so unwilling to accept valid science, what could be causing that? Maybe we should look at this op-ed published in the Dompost today for clues:

“Now that the heat has gone out of the global warming scare,…the global warming alarmists were in full cry…won’t make a blind bit of difference to global warming, assuming such a phenomenon exists…”

Maybe, just maybe, the fact that our major newspapers print anti-science climate change denialist propaganda nearly every day has something to do with the public’s perceptions of science.

Or maybe we should be looking at the government. Despite John Key’s rhetoric about investing in innovation and his pledge to lead the world in agricultural emissions reduction research, things are going backwards in the real world. Just last week 43 jobs were lost at government agricultural science research organisation Agresearch due to budget cuts and the Government’s anti-science policies.

After all, our Prime Minister did say: “This is a complete and utter hoax, if I may say so. The impact of the Kyoto Protocol, even if one believes in global warming—and I am somewhat suspicious of it—is that we will see billions and billions of dollars poured into fixing something that we are not even sure is a problem”

46 comments on “Newspapers/govt seed scientific ignorance ”

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  1. tc 1
    16 March 2010 at 9:20 am

    Scientists, academics, teachers anyone with intelligence and/or a view contrary to the idelolgy of the Nats……watch your back. Once again the msm plays their part in assisting the Nat’s dumbing down of our research/academia etc

  2. TightyRighty 2
    16 March 2010 at 9:28 am

    could you please clear up marty, once and for all, the fact that a sizeable portion of the scientific community don’t think AGW to be true? and that because our newspapers choose to print both sides of the debate, how does that make them anti-science. i would have thought the knowledge that leading pro-agw’ers were withholding info and not properly engaging in peer review was anti-science?

    • Lanthanide 2.1
      16 March 2010 at 10:04 am

      Depends on your definition of ‘sizable’, doesn’t it?

      • TightyRighty 2.1.1
        16 March 2010 at 10:11 am

        more than a few, less than many. i.e between 10-40%

        • mickysavage 2.1.1.1
          16 March 2010 at 10:12 am

          Do you have any reputable data to match that up?

          • TightyRighty 2.1.1.1.1
            16 March 2010 at 10:38 am

            did marty have any reputable data to back up his “fact that our major newspapers print anti-science climate change denialist propaganda nearly every day”? no, but you believed it like a shill.

            here we are

            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming

            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_consensus

            http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/15/reference-450-skeptical-peer-reviewed-papers/

            http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/07/30/american-chemical-society-members-revolting-against-their-editor-for-pro-agw-views/#more-9680

            while not all of the points referenced explicity state numbers, there is a enough dissent to make it a sizeable portion. I have discarded the oregon petition, as too many signatories can’t be attributed to people who have scientific backgrounds.

            now proof that the science is settled please, and also proof of the “fact that our major newspapers print anti-science climate change denialist propaganda nearly every day” and how it is anti-science.

            [lprent: These ‘lists’ have been long discredited.

            You notice that there are FEW working earth scientists listed. In fact it seems to mainly be chemists and engineers who have about as much idea about earth sciences as a newspaper editor (ie nothing much)…

            People have been tossed in the lists because they published a paper with a single disagreement about a facet of the IPCC report based on new data. They then find it impossible to get off the lists. For instance your third list is exactly that. But of course you don’t understand enough science to understand what the point of difference is.

            In fact I think I’ll start a list called ‘scientific idiots I’ve seen’ and add you at the top of list….. If you want to troll, then please don’t use crap links… ]

            • mickysavage 2.1.1.1.1.1
              16 March 2010 at 10:52 am

              Same old same old. Another climate debate another troll.

              • TightyRighty …
                16 March 2010 at 11:02 am

                same old same old. another climate change propogandist who can’t stand to be challenged.

                again, where is the evidence of the “fact that our major newspapers print anti-science climate change denialist propaganda nearly every day’ and how it is anti-science?

                • lprent …
                  16 March 2010 at 11:30 am

                  For that you need to talk to Marty or r0b, or better still go and have a look at a site that looks at the articles and public statements. For instance http://www.hot-topic.co.nz

                  I don’t spend a lot of time looking at the news media on this topic. They really know jackshit from any side…

            • NickS 2.1.1.1.1.2
              16 March 2010 at 11:02 am

              Ah, What’s up with Watts, the perfect example of a pseudo-science blog if ever there was one, since Watts can’t science to save his life, let alone not fail epically at basic statistics or time-series analyses. Per all the stuff on Open Mind et al.

              But hey, who needs to be right, when you have rabid fanbois instead?

              • TightyRighty …
                16 March 2010 at 11:14 am

                whose a rabid fanboy? just qouting from his blog. he’s not the only voice on climate change to get things wrong, on both sides of the debate.

                why will no one answer this question?

                again, where is the evidence of the “fact that our major newspapers print anti-science climate change denialist propaganda nearly every day’ and how it is anti-science?

                it’s not that hard. so where the hell is the answer?

                i probably shouldn’t hold my breath. this site is not one to tolerate, let alone answer, dissenting questions

              • NickS …
                16 March 2010 at 11:28 am

                Except of course, Watt’s gets it constantly wrong, and when someone fraks up that much, it’s highly rational to ignore them as a source of information, unless you’re wanting to observe/debunk the stupidity.

                Also, since I’m sick, I can’t do philosophy of science due to cotton-wool-head, and thus can’t get my brain to kick out a good enough piece on what anti-science is, though I will state that one of teh skills involved in science is the ability to pick out empirically false truth claims, and to actually check out the validity of a scientific claim before pushing it as truth.

                Which the author of the Dominion Post op-ed fails to do, instead pushing long-debunked points refuted a thousand times as a truthful opinion.

                Pretty simple stuff really, and fairly easy to note it as “anti-science”, due to it rejecting scientific norms, although I’d more call it pseudo-scepticism, however the terms are interchangeable somewhat.

              • Draco T Bastard …
                16 March 2010 at 11:29 am

                and how it is anti-science?

                It’s anti-science because they’re printing stuff that is completely the opposite of what the science says, marty provided a good example:
                “Now that the heat has gone out of the global warming scare, the global warming alarmists were in full cry won’t make a blind bit of difference to global warming, assuming such a phenomenon exists ‘

                They should be taken to court for lying.

            • Poptech 2.1.1.1.1.3
              17 March 2010 at 1:30 pm

              Do not disregard the Oregon petition, every signatory has a degree in science,

              The qualifications of the signers are here,

              http://www.petitionproject.org/qualifications_of_signers.php

              “All of the listed signers have formal educations in fields of specialization that suitably qualify them to evaluate the research data related to the petition statement. Many of the signers currently work in climatological, meteorological, atmospheric, environmental, geophysical, astronomical, and biological fields directly involved in the climate change controversy.”

              The petition has never been discredited.

              • lprent …
                17 March 2010 at 2:43 pm

                When I read the list I don’t see those. What I see are people with marginal backgrounds in earth sciences…

                Frankly your claim is bullshit.

              • NickS …
                18 March 2010 at 10:26 am

                /facepalm

                Ah, got tired of getting shown to be a complete fool over on Open Parachute did we? Too bad you’re going to get further mocked and shown how utter incompetent you are here as well.

                Funny thing is, when others have gone through the petition they find arts, economics, dentists and other etc who aren’t even close to being involved in the core science of climate change, and then there’s the joke entries + the dead people and those entered into it without their permeation. All of which is nicely documented and argued over on the relevant wikipedia page.

                i.e. enough issues have been raised with it, that trusting the petition appears such a level of stupidity, that one has to wonder how those who embrace it as truth manage to even use the internet.

                So please, burn your computer and stick to writing pointless letters to your local news-rag.

            • Poptech 2.1.1.1.1.4
              17 March 2010 at 1:33 pm

              The third list has not been discredited either. It is currently over 500 papers,

              http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html

              All the papers on the list support skepticism of AGW or the environmental or economic effects of it.

              • lprent …
                17 March 2010 at 2:36 pm

                Only if you take the most extreme view of what ‘skepticism’ is.

                If you look at the reputable authors in earth sciences looking at the physical issue (as opposed to the papers by earth science illiterates), what you find is that you have almost entirely papers that disagree with an aspect of the IPCC models. In other words trying to get the models changed because they have found proof or have a theory about how the IPCC models could be improved.

                That does NOT mean that those papers disagree with the concept of anthropogenic climate change despite what the dickhead author of this list thinks.

                Now point me to 10 earth sciences papers in that list by people with an earth sciences background that do not conform to what I just described. You will be hard pushed to find 10. But I’ll review them for you to explain why you made an error, or the background of the paper.

                The ones you find will all be by the handful of actual earth scientist skeptics, most of whom will either be in the employ of skeptic company or institute, or will be past retirement age supplementing their pensions.

              • NickS …
                18 March 2010 at 10:40 am

                Ah, that list, btw, any and all biology papers are off the cards as they’re generally dealing with separating out other drivers of biodiversity change from climate change, which due to ecology being messy, is a pain in teh butt sometimes. Or are looking at impacts on a given species, of separating drivers of change may be on the difficult side. And then there’s future predictions, which of course are going to have serious, critical discussion over them. Though, given all the lovely evidence about shifts in species ranges and emergence/flowering times over the last 50 years+ that’s explained by climate change, one has to wonder how you missed this…

                Also, any paper from Energy and Environment is out due to considerable issues with the journal’s peer review process, + a few other journals renowned for being utterly useless and/or non peer-reviewed. But I’m sure you can dig them up.

                Anyhow, one is mostly repeating what’s already been said over at Open Parachute…

        • Bright Red 2.1.1.2
          16 March 2010 at 10:33 am

          Any source on that? And by “scientific community” who are you including? I’m not particularly interested in the opinions of sociologists on the science, not compared to the opinions of climatologists.

        • NickS 2.1.1.3
          16 March 2010 at 10:56 am

          /facepalm

          For frak’s sake, the only opinions that matter from surveys are from the ones who are grounded in the literature, i.e. those active in climatology research/publishing, for they’re the ones with the actual training and knowledge to understand the state of the field. Much like how, the only opinions that matter on evolution when doing such surveys come from frakking evolutionary biologists, not physicists, not dentists, not BA graduates, nor information theorist’s and sure as hell not theologians.

          And when you look at surveys of climatology researchers, much like surveys of evolutionary biologists, there’s only a small percentage of scientists who don’t agree with the consensus. But this is besides the point, for such information is not that helpful, for what matters in science is evidence from the research done, and that’s pretty clear that climate change is occurring, and it’s being driven by human releases of greenhouse gases.

          Of course, just like other forms of denialism, “sceptics” like making use of blogs, discredited scientists, dodgy/refuted journal articles in non-climatology journals, opinion pieces and other resources like Wishart’s moronic book to claim there’s “debate”, when there’s not in the literature…

          /sigh

          Which makes the entire “debate” defence as giant load of steaming sh*t, since we don’t (currently, outside of Jesus/Allah-stan) see Op-Ed’s about who there’s debate over HIV causing AIDS, nor evolution, nor mainstream astronomy and the causes of autism spectrum disorders.

          And thinking a bit, this whole debate meme over climate change is very similar to the Discovery Institutes “Teach the Controversy” bullsh*t.

    • lprent 2.2
      16 March 2010 at 10:47 am

      You are completely incorrect. But then we know your science isn’t up to much so perhaps you’re merely listening to the shrillest voices.

      My first degree was in earth sciences and I’ve kept an eye on it subsequently…

      Quite simply the accumulated data is overwhelming that the anthropogenic greenhouse warming is happening. The only thing that is in contention is how soon and how severe because there are no examples in the geological record that are similar for the speed and sustained duration of the event (natural events are far more punctuated). The only real issue with scientists outside of earth sciences is that there is a hell of a lot of new data that they haven’t had time to catch up on.

      If you look inside earth sciences the level of agreement is as high as it is possible to get agreement amongst scientists (you’ll find more physicists that disagree with the quantum theories that underlay how your computer operates). Amongst the climatologists – well they can see it going on.

      If you look outside the earth sciences than you’ll find a minority that don’t want to believe the evidence. The further away their disciplines are from earth sciences the more skeptical they are. You also find that the older they are the more skeptical they are as well – but that is to be expected – they’re running on passed over theoretical models from another discipline.

      Generally when I look at the ‘skeptic scientists’, there are very few I’d accept as having much credibility in this field. Like that geographer at auckland uni who has never said anything much that I can aggree with based on evidence. Outside of science, there are just the nutters like the looney lord who looks as if he’d have problems tying his shoelaces. Then of course there are idiot journos who really couldn’t give a shit about the subject, but can get a cheap headline out of it.

      Have a look at this post. Remember that this in the US where the majority of earth science grads wind up in the mining industries that frequently have a vested interest in continuing to exploit fossil carbon.

      • TightyRighty 2.2.1
        16 March 2010 at 11:00 am

        ok, and how does that disagree with what i said here

        “a sizeable portion of the scientific community don’t think AGW to be true?”

        I acknowledge what you say that it is impossible to gain absolute consensus on such an issue. i don’t think that 18% disagreeing with the idea that it is Human induced can be written off however. i’m not quoting from the lord monckton, as i don’t think he is all there. for the same reason i write off al gore as he is just an attention whore with vested financial interest in seeing AGW proved right. nor do i care what ian wishart thinks on AGW, as he is not a scientist, like the majority of greenpeace, WWF, Keisha Castle Hughes, Lucy lawless and Rhys Darby.

        • lprent 2.2.1.1
          16 March 2010 at 11:12 am

          If you said that “a sizeable portion of the earth sciences community don’t think AGW to be true?” then it might be relevant. As it is, your statement is perfectly meaningless.

          However, what does a chemist (for instance) like Peter Johns know about earth sciences? Bugger all. If you’re lucky then in their undergraduate degree 20 years ago they did a first year course. Most ‘scientists’ have very little understanding of science areas outside their primary fields of interest.

          The same thing happens if you’re someone like a oil geologist. You don’t have time to keep up on what is happening in an area like climatology (apart from having a vested interest in ignoring it).

          Hell, a friend of mine is a working astronomer with degrees and a track record as long as your arm. His knowledge about an area that I covered 30 years ago is pitiful. He thinks of everything in terms of orbits…

          The only people that are really interesting on the physical aspects are earth scientists, and the particular sub-group of climatologists and paleo-climatologists.

          If you raise others as scientists who could have an opinion, I know you’re just bullshitting.

          • TightyRighty 2.2.1.1.1
            16 March 2010 at 11:16 am

            ok, so how about 18% of said chosen earth sciences participants disagreeing?

            • Draco T Bastard 2.2.1.1.1.1
              16 March 2010 at 11:38 am

              http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/01/19/eco.globalwarmingsurvey/index.html

              # Story Highlights
              # Most earth scientists believe humans cause of global warming, according to survey
              # 97 percent of climatologists canvassed believe humans play a role
              # Petroleum geologists and meteorologists were among the biggest doubters

              I think I’ll do the rational thing and go with the climatologists.

            • lprent 2.2.1.1.1.2
              16 March 2010 at 11:43 am

              Oil geologist? Geologist working for a mining company? You’d need more of a breakdown of data.

              Fact is that a *lot* of earth science graduates go and work for extraction companies especially in the US, canada, and aussie. That survey picked up them as well. Scientists are just as human as the rest of us. It is usually considered that the percentage going into extraction industries to be at least 20-30% in those countries.

              What is surprising in the sciences is that only small percentages disagreed. If you asked the question of physicists “do you think that the speed of light is the final limiting factor on speed”, I suspect that less than 50% would answer yes.

              • Draco T Bastard …
                16 March 2010 at 2:05 pm

                It wasn’t a great article but it did have TRs 18% in it, a breakdown showing that most of that 18% would have, at best, a limited understanding of climate and that the people who do understand climate are near unanimous about the cause – us.

  3. mickysavage 3
    16 March 2010 at 9:34 am

    This phenomenon is appalling.

    I have been following the development of the science of climate change for many years, albeit as a layperson. As time goes by IMHO the science becomes more and more compelling and our poor world is actually showing the exact symptoms that were predicted.

    Yet the deniers become more and more shrill and take delight in the slightest failings of individuals around the world and hold up these failings as proof that the whole thing is a hoax.

    I read recently a comparison being drawn between the debate and the OJ Simpson trial in the US. The evidence of guilt in that case was overwhelming and all that the defence team could do was spend more and more times analysing in detail the smallest of cracks in the case. Eventually the jury became overwhelmed with the volume of evidence and harboured doubt, partially through prejudice, partly in response to the hysteria that had been whipped up.

    Unfortunately a fair proportion of our population is now behaving like the OJ Simpson jury. Just as the oil companies wanted …

  4. Bill 4
    16 March 2010 at 10:10 am

    It’s been said before, but can’t be said too often.

    By extrapolation, science is concluding that neither regulated, central nor free market capitalist economies will survive climate change. Neither will we if we hang on to them.

    But business leaders and political leaders are the people with both the greatest influence in the present and the greatest amount to lose should we discontinue to produce, distribute and consume as we do.

    And we’ve successfully conditioned ourselves to rely on these ‘great leader/saviour’ to take of things for us.

    Hell, we even support and fight their oil wars and meekly allow ourselves to be plunged into situations of long term insecurity and poverty so that they can get their money back and continue to exercise and enjoy inordinate amounts power and immense privileges.

    Our fealty even extends to joining the mob involved in the rounding up and executing of these messengers from science. People accused, death threats received, careers destroyed…it’s like a bigger, madder and badder McCarthyism.

    Wonder how long before school kids have to stand up in assemblies to loudly denounce scientific enquiry and swear allegiance to mumbo jumbo and mysticism?

    • pollywog 4.1
      16 March 2010 at 10:26 am

      “Wonder how long before school kids have to stand up in assemblies and swear allegiance to mumbo jumbo and mysticism?’

      Maori schools are built on that very principle…oops

      *grab’s coat and hides under it*

      To be fair, its all about defining terms of reference and sadly the terms for polynesian mysticism were lost in translation.

      But I’m still holding out for the Einstein of this century to reveal himself and his free energy inspiring theories, leading to open source devices that will eliminate the energy barons control of mankind.

      The hope is to evolve and handle the responsibility that comes with free unlimited power because the ‘aliens’ wont reveal themselves again til we do 🙂

  5. tc 5
    16 March 2010 at 10:32 am

    Nice analogy MS and your point about ‘slightest failings’ is pertinent as the science attempts to predict/based on evidence/reworks the models….it’s an iterative process that’s seeing more and more fringe scientists become convinced as the detailed data in now enetering it’s third decade.

    Gwyn Dyers Climate Wars is essential reading IMHO he outlines US gov’t action plans setup awhile back which anticipate the massive shift in populations as food becomes scarce and people go in search of it…..so here’s a gov’t who is planning for what it’s own scientists are predicting.

    It’s that old marketing ploy of chuck someone in a labcoat and they’ll be believed, so my authoritative bloke in a labcoat denies GWC, your scruffy professor is pro GWC…..style over substance yet again with a complaint msm enforcing the gov’t line.

    Science requires intelligence and rarely delivers certainties as there’s always a margin of error and in this 10sec soundbite, small attention span, game console world it’s losing rather badly without intelligent media to assist it.

  6. freedom 6
    16 March 2010 at 11:19 am

    guys and gals, when the solar radiation storms from massive sunspot activity begin to attack Earth’s atmosphere in 18 months your ‘climate change’ arguments will mean nothing. just concentrate on food, water and power for your families’ survival.

    no i am not on medication, and yes i already own a ‘the end is nigh’ sign

  7. pollywog 7
    16 March 2010 at 11:21 am

    Argue all you like but does anyone believe that voluntary reductions and cap and trade schemes are the answer ?… NO ?

    …then i guess we’ll just have to go full on into hoping a scientific/technological breakthrough will solve the clean energy crisis and that won’t happen unless a next level genius figures out how to get E from MC squared without using it to boil water and drive turbines or mindlessly blow shit up.

    Somewhere out there are some technologically advanced aliens looking at us on earth like it’s some bad reality show and pissing themselves laughing…frankly, i’m embarrassed

  8. PK 8
    16 March 2010 at 11:23 am

    ***Maybe, just maybe, the fact that our major newspapers print anti-science climate change denialist propaganda nearly every day has something to do with the public’s perceptions of science.***

    I thought the mainstream media generally accepted the ‘consensus’?

    “Journalists are wont to moan that the slow death of newspapers will mean a disastrous loss of investigative reporting. The web is all very well, they say, but who will pay for the tenacious sniffing newshounds to flush out the real story? ‘Climategate’ proves the opposite to be true. It was amateur bloggers who scented the exaggerations, distortions and corruptions in the climate establishment; whereas newspaper reporters, even after the scandal broke, played poodle to their sources…

    Of course, reporters have been going native for decades. The difference is that they cannot now get away with it. When acid rain was all the rage in the 1980s, I was a science editor and I relayed all sorts of cataclysmic predictions from scientists and greens about its effect on forests. (Stern magazine said in 1984 that a third of Germany’s forests were already dead or dying and that experts believed all — all! — its conifers would be gone by 1990.) Today, we know that these predictions were wildly wrong and that far from dying out, forests in Germany, Sweden and North America actually thrived during that decade. I should have been more sceptical.

    Yet, this time round, despite 20 years of being told they were not just factually but morally wrong, of being compared to Holocaust deniers, of being told they deserved to be tried for crimes against humanity, of being avoided at parties, climate sceptics seem to be growing in number and confidence by the day. What is the difference?

    In a word, the internet. The Climate Consensus may hold the establishment — the universities, the media, big business, government — but it is losing the jungles of the web. After all, getting research grants, doing pieces to cameras and advising boards takes time. The very ostracism the sceptics suffered has left them free to do their digging untroubled by grant applications and invitations to Stockholm. The main blog used by the Consensus, realclimate.org, exemplifies this problem, because it was set up by a PR company and is run by an employee of Nasa, who ties himself in knots trying to show that he does the blog in his spare time. It is also characterised by a tone of weary condescension and censoring of dissent that you do not find on most sceptic sites.”

    http://www.spectator.co.uk/essays/all/5749853/the-global-warming-guerrillas.thtml

    • lprent 8.1
      16 March 2010 at 11:40 am

      Yeah, I was a climate change skeptic, 30 years ago, when the theory was pretty unproven. If I’d gone on to do the PhD and start working in the field, I’d have been doing my damnedest to chop holes in it. After all that is how you get a reputation, especially if you can chop holes in scientific media whores ideas. I’d have probably wound up on one of wattsup’s lists as a skeptic…..

      The difference is that this area has kept accumulating evidence. Some of it has disproved the earlier predictions. Some has shown that people weren’t thinking wide enough on their predictions. The overall effect is that the bulk of earth scientists now consider that the ideas from decades ago were far too conservative about probable effects.

      The problem is that the media really have no idea how to handle decade long efforts by many people to disprove a theory. There is no easy meme, so they usually drop into personalities..

  9. Kiwi Poll Guy 9
    16 March 2010 at 4:09 pm

    I think newspapers/govt do a lot to seed scientific ignorance, but the implication that it is a right-wing problem I think are over-simplistic. The ability of Hide et. al. to completely disregard the evidence on climate change is an embarrassment, but you could say the same for the “left” in some countries on the topics of nuclear power, whaling, genetic engineering, alternative therapies and many others. Broadening the survey to include statistical analysis and the topics of the gender wage gap, the effect of the minimum wage on unemployment, and the effect of poverty on crime rates also come to mind.

    Newspapers, governments and activists all do their bit to see scientific and statistical ignorance, and they all have a knack for ignoring evidence when it doesn’t work in their favour. But it’s not a problem confined to any one corner of the political spectrum.

  10. Anne 10
    16 March 2010 at 9:00 pm

    As a former Meteorological Service employee, Climate Change first came to our full attention in the 1970s. It was known as the Greenhouse Gas Effect in those days and the main cause was considered to be massive deforestation of the planet which had gone on for centuries. It was during the 1980s that the other human components began to emerge and that is when the trouble started. Margaret Thatcher should be given full credit for bringing the matter to the attention of world leaders at that time. I guess her background in the sciences was a factor in her recognition of the problem.

    I still don’t understand why so many people are in denial over climate change. It’s as though they fear their entire belief system will be turned on it’s head if they acknowledge it. I regard them as the modern day equivalents of the flat earthers of a few centuries ago who charged the scientists of the day with heresy for daring to proclaim that the Earth was round… Every time they looked up to the night sky and saw the full moon you would think something might have clicked, but apparently it didn’t. We have exactly the same problem with CC Deniers today but this time the future of life as we know it hangs in the balance!

  11. Anne 11
    16 March 2010 at 9:41 pm

    Further to my comment…

    It is something of an irony that Rodney Hide et al should be such vocifereous opponents when one of their political heroes, Maggie Thatcher, was such a strong proponent of Global Warming.

    • Bill 11.1
      16 March 2010 at 9:51 pm

      No. There is no irony ( Thatcher aside…unsure abut where you get the ‘climatically aware’ Thatcher line from, not that it matters much).

      Flat earthers stood to lose a view of the world that had zero impact on their day to day lives one way or another.

      Climate change denialists stand to lose everything. As do we all. But, thumbs up liberals contend that as long as we change light bulbs and take part in earth hour and switch off stand by functions and drive a wee bit less then we will be A okay!

      Where is the fundamental difference? Seems to me that the denial is simply one of degrees.

      edit the link above sets out some reasons. Ideology. The state should NEVER interfere or intervene..that’s a motive for denial, or at least being obstructive.

  12. Anne 12
    16 March 2010 at 10:14 pm

    @ Bill
    I can’t recall the precise time, but Margaret Thatcher was prominent in expressing her concerns in the 1980s. I recall at least one TV interview and a speech to an international forum. She had a back-ground in medical science (I think it was) before becoming a politician. I was never a supporter of Thatcher, but I do give her credit for helping to bring international attention to global warming.

    “Flat earthers stood to have a view of the world which had zero impact… Climate change denialists stand to lose everything”. Yes, I touched on that in my last sentence.

    Btw thanks for the link. I’ll listen to Naomi Oreskes tomorrow.