Climate Change

We should probably get away from calling it "global warming" and back to the original "climate change." The loud-mouthed crowd would have a harder time deriding that. You know the crowd I'm talking about - the idiots who believe the record snow storms they're experiencing disprove global warming, while at the very same time they are having snow storms, other parts of the world are suffering through another hot summer. Perhaps to those loud-mouths, there is no other part of the world.

At any rate, Juan Cole has advice for climate change scientists.

The falsehoods in the media are not there because you haven't spoken out forcefully or are not good on t.v. They are there for the following reasons:

a. Very, very wealthy and powerful interests are lobbying the big media companies behind the scenes to push climate change skepticism, or in some cases (as with Rupert Murdoch's Newscorp/ Fox Cable News) the powerful and wealthy interests actually own the media.

b. Powerful politicians linked to those wealthy interests are shilling for them, and elected politicians clearly backed by economic elites are given respect in the US corporate media.

[...]

c. Media thrives on controversy, which produces ratings and advertising revenue. As a result, it is structured into an 'on the one hand, on the other hand' binary argument. Any broadcast that pits a climate change skeptic against a serious climate scientist is automatically a win for the skeptic, since a false position is being given equal time and legitimacy.

[...]

Every single serious climate scientist should be running a blog. [Emphasis mine] There is enormous thirst among the public for this information, and publishing only in technical refereed journals is guaranteed to quarantine the information away from the general public. A blog allows scientists to summarize new findings in clear language for a wide audience. It makes the scientist and the scientific research 'legible' to the wider society. Educated lay persons will run with interesting new findings and cause them to go viral. You will also find that you give courage to other colleagues who are specialists to speak out in public. You cannot depend on journalists to do this work. You have to do it yourselves.

[...]

If you just keep plugging away at it, with blogging and print, radio and television interviews, you can have an impact on public discourse over time.[...] It is a lifetime commitment and a lot of work and it interferes with academic life to some extent. Going public also makes it likely that you will be personally smeared and horrible lies purveyed about you in public (they don't play fair-- they make up quotes and falsely attribute them to you; it isn't a debate, it is a hatchet job). [...] But if an issue is important to you and the fate of your children and grandchildren, surely having an impact is well worth any price you pay.

Excellent advice. Take it, scientists.

Every new generation is indebted to, and R.I.P., Rachel Carson.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.