Despite the nearly unanimous agreement among climate scientists that humans are warming the Earth, business interests have more media access to foster doubt among the public. A recent Gallup Poll shows 41% now think the science is exaggerated, even as most scientists fear their message is not getting through.
If the science is as solid as it's ever been, if not more so, why is the public less concerned? Because global warming skeptics have many media outlets willing to pimp them, whereas climate scientists are rarely seen on TV.
Peter Dykstra, a climate change columnist for the Mother Nature Network, told RAW STORY that one of the main reasons for this drop in concern can be attributed to the success of climate change deniers in disseminating their message. While they are no more credible now than they were a few years ago, the difference today, says Dykstra, is that they have more friendly media outlets that are willing to broadcast their message.
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“[Climate change deniers] have an outlet everywhere,” Dykstra said. “A day doesn’t go by where you don’t hear Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and whoever crying through the national media that [climate change deniers] don’t have a [national news] outlet.”
The denial lobbyists have the money on their side. The scientists have the facts on theirs. Is the fact that the former gets more air time because skeptics make better TV, or have more powerful allies?
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Part of the problem is also with the Global Warming Advocates like Al Gore who take positions like shutting down all our coal fired power plants in 10 years. People are worried by these fanatics. They don't want to give up electricity for their homes, loose their jobs, or worse, just because Al Gore has an agenda. Denial seems like a reasonable alternative.
I agree that the science behind global warming is pretty solid. The question is; What do we do about it?
In economic terms we know that global warming will cause significant damage to our environment in the future. Rationally, we should be spending money now to mitigate those damages. The present value of a future amount is always discounted, so the amount we should spend now to mitigate damages 50 years from now is fairly small in economic terms.
What the debate should be about is how much we want to spend now to mitigate future damages. The 'sky is falling' people and the 'head in the sands' people are both wrong.
For example, the cost of replacing 50% of our generating capacity in 10 years with wind and solar would be a huge expense. Where are we going to get the money? What would that do to our economy?
A more rational approach would be to stop building new coal fired power plants and generate our increased power demand from environmentally cleaner sources such as solar, wind, nuclear, and natural gas.
The George Bush "head in the sand" approach was to build as many coal fired plants as possible now before the Al Gore "sky is falling" approach tears the plants down immediately at any cost.
In 50 years all of the coal fired plants will have reached the end of their life-span and will be retired.
Maybe that is not enough, but it is doable and would at least get us started in the right direction.
Part of the problem is that on the Christian right, global warming is not seen as a threat... it is seen as a SIGN. It is seen as the beginning of 'the end of times'. Most people do not realize it, but there is a segment of our society that is awaiting the destruction of the world with gleeful anticipation. They do not want global warming curtailed because they see that as interference with 'God's plan'. But... they (shepherds) can't come right out and SAY that, because 'the flock'... so-called 'moderate Christians' (sheeple)... would never go along with it. So, they deploy the tactic that has ALWAYS worked on Christians... bamboozlement. They simply DENY that there is a problem, and then trot out phony data and bogus interpretations, confident that 'the flock' would never even DREAM of verifying their claims via genuine scientific sources.
Also, these folks aren't the least bit worried about passing on a crushing debt burden to future generations, either. Why? Well... because they don't think there will BE more than a few future generations. They don't care about the debt because they don't think there will be anyone around to COLLECT on it.
“My responsibility is to follow the Scriptures which call upon us to occupy the land until Jesus returns.” ~ James Watt, Former (US) Secretary of Interior, Washington Post, May 24, 1981
“We don't have to protect the environment, the Second Coming is at hand.” ~ James Watt, Former (US) Secretary of Interior, Washington Post, May 24, 1981
"I don't know how many future generations we can count on until the Lord returns." ~ James Watt, to a Congressional committee in 1981, quoted from "A Brief History of the Apocalypse"
"We will mine more, drill more, cut more timber." ~ James Watt, Former (US) Secretary of Interior, 1981
DuckPhup:
Interestingly, the younger generation of evangelical Christians is getting very concerned about global warming and other environmental issues. Check out the Evangelical Environmental Network, for example.
There are Evangelicals on both sides of this issue, but like I said, it's mainly the younger ones who are interested in saving our environment. Not to sound callous, but a lot of the older evangelical leaders are REALLY old, and won't be with us much longer.
i agree..lets really do something, ...lets disarm the world off there bombs, starting with America, because that nations leaders have a ichy trigger finger..
i can stop driving my car,.. but the polution a f16 causes is much more severe then my car,. so lets start by dismateling the war mechanism globally!!!
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