“Climate Change” – the new “Global Warming”
CNN.com led with this story recently:
“Climate change makes island kids bony, stunted”
Yet for a good portion of the day, the actual story did not mention climate once. Later, the story was amended:
Maria is fighting to live, wasting away in her remote village where aid officials say climate change has brought on a severe drought in recent years.
Not scientists. Not researchers. AID WORKERS.
Look, I’m not a scientist either, but it doesn’t take one to recognize what’s going on here. CNN runs a section called “Planet in Peril”, which is basically a folder where they file stories about how much humans are mucking things up. This looks like a classic case of journalists driving the news rather than the news driving the journalists.
Are droughts a new phenomenon? Is this the first time there’s been a drought in Timor? I thought droughts have been occurring for as long as humans have been on the earth.
Where’s the science? It seems as far as anyone is concerned, the debate is over, group-think has been established. No need to back these claims up with research before putting them on your front page.
And when it’s on CNN’s front page, for a lot of people it BECOMES truth.
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As someone who takes a major interest in science, human effects on the environment, and global climate change, I agree with you completely – this is bad science reporting, and it makes legitimate science look pretty ridiculous. With reporting like this, science is simply not taken seriously, and I’m especially concerned that people who already lean in an anti-science direction can so easily take fuel from this. “See? Look at the melodrama and the exaggeration. Science really is a bunch of poo-poo!”
And who can blame them when an article like this is published by such a major news source? And yet, true science should not be painted with that same brush, and any real scientist will tell you that articles like this are a bunch of rubbish.
Stay classy, CNN.
The scientific process is (supposed to be) continual.
But there’s another interesting angle here, and politics definitely have something to do with it. Global warming or “Climate Change” is a valuable political wedge, and now that it’s been established as popular truth, the debate is over. Anyone questioning the issue is labeled as a kook. Any politician without a plan for addressing “Climate Change” has already lost.
Science no longer has a place. Any bad weather can be attributed to “Climate Change” and it will be regarded as truth.
Be on the lookout for stories like these – they’re regrettably plentiful. Question what it is they are trying to feed us, and why.
I like Penn Jillette of Penn and Teller and Showtime’s”Bullshit” show which delights at being skeptics on all sorts of crap. Here’s something he recently wrote:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-jillette3-2008jul03,0,5016601.story
His point is well taken. You can’t even say “maybe you are wrong” without being branded some lunatic at the fringe.
Jillette asks:
“But the climate of the whole world is more complicated. I’m not a scientist, and I haven’t spent my life studying weather. I’m trying to learn what I can, and while I’m working on it, isn’t it OK to say “I don’t know”?”
The answer of course is.. NO.
The discussion is over, get on the truth-train.
Major media is pretty transparent in their attempt to define all things as they see fit. Science therefore is what they tell you it is, and there is no discussion. I’m a little wary of the term “Anti-Science” because that concept would promote a close minded look at what is “acceptable” Science. There can be consensus, but to deny questioning is itself unscientific.
Thus far, the only person I am aware of that actually said the debate is over, sincerely that is, is Al Gore. Sorry but as much as he might want to present himself as such I don’t think he is the determining factor on exposing the truth of any matter, and a career in politics doesn’t lend itself to honesty. The big problem, though, is when science is defined by a body with an agenda that can create law based on a false assumption. Stating the obvious maybe, but its perilously close.
Warren
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