Posted on Dec 3, 2018
A Major National Climate Report Came Out. Then the Deniers Got on TV. - Stories by weather.com |...
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Since climate change is real, devastating and caused by humans, which at least 97 percent of climate scientists and the scientific counsel of every nation in the world agrees, and it can be mitigated as the report suggests, then should news networks be giving climate deniers a megaphone?
“Absolutely not,” Dr. Lauren Feldman, associate professor of journalism and media studies at Rutgers, told The Weather Channel Digital. “You know, it’s incredibly irresponsible. There is a lot of research that shows that simply having a single individual on a show like this, questioning the veracity of climate change, can sow doubt and uncertainty in the audience. And so by bringing on climate science deniers, it gives the impression that there is a debate around the science of climate change when there is not such a debate. It spreads misinformation and ultimately thwarts discussion about the actions that we could actually take to do something about climate change.”
Television has the potential to outplay even social media for audiences’ attention and attitude toward climate issues, “because of its visual immediacy and authoritative presentation,” Feldman wrote in her 2016 paper, Effects of TV and Cable News Viewing on Climate Change Opinion, Knowledge, and Behavior. “Those skeptical of climate change have been able to exploit journalists’ norms of balance and objectivity to amplify their voices in television coverage of climate change.”
Televising an artificial debate over settled science is a classic example of the magnified minority tactic in climate disinformation campaigns. Placing a climate contrarian beside a scientist is effectively shrinking the 97 percent consensus on the issue to a 50 percent one — two people arguing opposing sides.
“Absolutely not,” Dr. Lauren Feldman, associate professor of journalism and media studies at Rutgers, told The Weather Channel Digital. “You know, it’s incredibly irresponsible. There is a lot of research that shows that simply having a single individual on a show like this, questioning the veracity of climate change, can sow doubt and uncertainty in the audience. And so by bringing on climate science deniers, it gives the impression that there is a debate around the science of climate change when there is not such a debate. It spreads misinformation and ultimately thwarts discussion about the actions that we could actually take to do something about climate change.”
Television has the potential to outplay even social media for audiences’ attention and attitude toward climate issues, “because of its visual immediacy and authoritative presentation,” Feldman wrote in her 2016 paper, Effects of TV and Cable News Viewing on Climate Change Opinion, Knowledge, and Behavior. “Those skeptical of climate change have been able to exploit journalists’ norms of balance and objectivity to amplify their voices in television coverage of climate change.”
Televising an artificial debate over settled science is a classic example of the magnified minority tactic in climate disinformation campaigns. Placing a climate contrarian beside a scientist is effectively shrinking the 97 percent consensus on the issue to a 50 percent one — two people arguing opposing sides.
A Major National Climate Report Came Out. Then the Deniers Got on TV. - Stories by weather.com |...
Posted from features.weather.com
Climate Change
Meteorology
Science
TV
Media
Posted 6 y ago
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Its not about denying or debate. Its about questioning. Science encourages questions and testing. We are constantly trying to find ways of proving Einstein's theories even today. We never really saw gravity waves as predicted by Einstein until 2017. Climate change relies upon modeling that was created by people and people make mistakes. We need time and more data to prove the models are correct.
Remember the old saying about computers: Garbage in/Garbage out.
For example, right now we are exiting a solar period of high activity. According to previous trends over time, we are going to see 11 years of less solar activity meaning a period of cooling. The more cycles we have of solar activity to add to the data store, the more we can actually put our models though testing.
Remember the old saying about computers: Garbage in/Garbage out.
For example, right now we are exiting a solar period of high activity. According to previous trends over time, we are going to see 11 years of less solar activity meaning a period of cooling. The more cycles we have of solar activity to add to the data store, the more we can actually put our models though testing.
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