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Climate change: The war for hearts and minds in the UK
photo by noodlepie (source: Flickr Creative Commons)
Belief in global warming plummeted amongst the British public after the climate change conference in Copenhagen last December, according to a BBC poll early this year. A similar poll commissioned by the London Times also showed increased skepticism regarding climate amongst those surveyed.
Belief in climate change amongst scientists has not changed, but in the war of the press, the climate skeptics – often called climate deniers – did gain significant ground in Copenhagen’s wake.
From a May 24th article in the New York Times:
Two independent reviews later found no evidence that the East Anglia researchers had actively distorted climate data, but heavy press coverage had already left an impression that the scientists had schemed to repress data. Then there was the unusually cold winter in Northern Europe and the United States, which may have reinforced a perception that the Earth was not warming. (Data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a United States agency, show that globally, this winter was the fifth warmest in history.)
This was the case between November 2009 and February 2010, anyway. There’s been another three-month span since then and the conservative papers have quieted on the IPCC hacked emails scandal. After all, they want to sell copies, not flog dead horses. I wonder how things stand now. My cynical side thinks a ‘don’t care’ option might win out if included in a new poll.
The climate debate in the UK has often been characterized as one between the Right and the Left, but the leaders of all three main political parties in the UK support action on climate change. Skepticism – or outright denial – regarding a human role in climate change is really the domain of particular economic and political interests groups, which are aided by certain members of press. Besides right wing tabloids like the Daily Mail, the Times and the Telegraph – both Conservative papers – have been labeled as home to the skeptics, with the Guardian and the Independent being typically supportive of the scientific consensus. True, big time skeptic James Delingpole writes a blog for the Telegraph, but another anthropogenic climate change skepticism bigwig, Dominic Lawson, has a column in the Independent.
I regularly check out the Environment section of the Times and the Earth section of the Telegraph and lately haven’t found them inundated with climate skepticism. I think they’ve been pretty good recently, if a bit thin compared to the deluge of articles on the environment one finds in the Guardian. Perhaps the Times and Telegraph keep skeptical articles largely out of the environment sections – or on the other hand, debating climate change might not be selling so well these days.
by Graham Land
Additional resources:
Independent – Michael McCarthy: This is no forecast. Climate change is here and now
Telegraph – How big is your carbon footprint?
Times – EU sets toughest targets to fight global warming
Tags: climate, climate change, copenhagen, environment, global, Guardian, Independent, poll, press, skepticism, skeptics, Telegraph, Times, UK, war, warming
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“uncertainties?” “UNCERTAINTIES?” That’s good enough for me not to vote Carbon Taxes if they are not absolutely 100% sure and since it’s been 24 years of WRONG predictions and what with Climate Gate and all and………Climate Change?, Yawn!
Great! Another forum for the usual nonsense/scaremongering/confusion spreading.
a) What 24 years of wrong predictions? Science has warned about GLOBAL warming, and the fact is that the world AS A WHOLE is warmer than 24 years ago.
b) No-one is asking anyone to pay a Carbon Tax, so stop talking nonsense and trying to scare for the sake of it.
c) ClimateGate? Read the article…as it correctly states, the University was CLEARED – there never was any Climate Gate except in the warped world of the climate change deniers. What there was, was an ILLEGAL break-in to computer systems, there was a THEFT of data and personal emails and a DESTRUCTIVE publicising of those emails to attempt to discredit the science. The only thing this tactic has done is to set the world back several years and put more lives at risk…hardly something to be proud of.
Scientists would be more prepared to discuss 100% certainties, if it wasn’t for deniers who will use ANY and ALL means to attempt to keep debate going, slowing the research that would let us get started on fixing this mess.
If you want to deny the overwhelming evidence, then that is fine…just don’t try to mess with the minds of the public who are too busy working to have the time to sort out why your vitriol is nonsense.
Luboš – you have a conspiracy theory about conspiracy theories? I do too, but it isn’t that the Left, which has basically only grown in Latin America, while Europe and the US have steadily gone towards the center/Right, is somehow controlling what the vast majority of the international scientific community says. It’s rather that old school classism and political ideology dictate what many choose to believe is scientifically valid or not. This consistently keeps the money flowing to the same people and maintains social ecology and the downward environmental spiral.
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You may have legitimate gripes about the policies being put on the table by the governments of the world, but practically no government is anywhere close to doing what the science actually recommends.
The belief among scientists hasn’t changed yet because the left-wing crackpots who called themselves scientists and who have been hired to promoted the conspiracy theories about a climate threat haven’t been fired yet. When they’re fired, be sure that the opinions among scientists will plummet, too.
Hi Memem. Voters have political consensus, with no bearing on science. Unfortunately, we must rely on specialists for science, which is not about absolute certainty, but rather the best method we’ve got for observing and understanding data.
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I get you don’t like taxes, but what other issues do you demand 100% certainty (as opposed to risk, cost/benefit, vision, etc.) in order to give your political support to? I bet none.
British Paper Headline:
“The Royal Society is to issue an official guide on climate change to better reflect the uncertainties around the science. ”
“uncertainties?” “UNCERTAINTIES?” That’s good enough for me not to vote Carbon Taxes if they are not absolutely 100% sure and since it’s been 24 years of WRONG predictions and what with Climate Gate and all and………Climate Change?, Yawn!
Voters have the real consensus, not shifty scientists. Imagine that, scientists being just as fallible as you and I and politicians.
How many scientists does it take to change a light bulb?
None, but they DO have consensus that it WILL change.
Mother Nature, ‘The Planet”… are all metaphors for our way of life – i.e. what human civilization is accustomed to. That is the delicate thing. No one in this debate thinks the actual planet is going to be physically destroyed, but sure – a comet, massive underground volcanic activity or any number of things can and eventually will shake things up.
Ah, no. We must like, live with like, Nature? And like, you know, like take care of Mother Nature because she is like, weak and fragile and delicate and …………………AHAAHAAAHAH!
“Another comet hit to kill all life on Earth so the whole process of evolution can start all over again for the trillionth time.” AAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!
Poor helpless 5 billion year old little fragile planet Earth eh?