A climate of desperation
Francis Sedgemore, Wednesday 17 March 2010
When it comes to the public dissection of climate denialism, there is little to beat Peter Sinclair’s series of short videos titled “Climate denial: crock of the week”.
I am a science writer by trade, which seems a bit of a waste now that people are increasingly turning away from reading in long form, preferring instead the ‘associative thinking’ of web-based reality, and to immerse themselves in a multimedia world. This is of course a fancy way of saying that moving pictures is pretty much all that such people can cope with, and ideally no more than 10 minutes at a time, so as not to overly tax an ever decreasing attention span.
Peter Sinclair is a better science communicator than I can ever hope to be, and I would raise my hat to the man, if ever I wore such a ridiculous thing.
Feed the writer! 
Wednesday 17 March 2010 at 19:54 GMT
He’s an excellent communicator… but how do we get Fox and the corporations and the politicians to listen?
The whole anti-science, climate change denial totally mystifies me.
Thanks for the post.
Wednesday 17 March 2010 at 21:17 GMT
Anne – Fox News you can forget. This is a not a proper media organisation, but rather a propaganda outfit for which ideology is everything and morality nothing.
Many corporations are listening, as are politicians within democratic states who rely on and trust in expert counsel, even if they do not always act on the advice given. The problem is that for both these groups short-term expedients can cloud judgement.
The main problem is with mere mortal folk who are science illiterate, generally ignorant and selfish, or a combination of many such traits. Science illiteracy is a massive problem, and it can only be addressed fully in the longer-term. However, policy reactions to anthropogenic and natural climate change cannot be further delayed.
Communicating science could be improved dramatically in the shorter term if journalists and PRs were to focus on communicating the nature of uncertainty and risk. That is, all science is provisional. It may be subject to both gradual improvements and radical revolutions in understanding, but just because we know nothing with absolute certainty doesn’t mean that we can safely ignore what the weight of current evidence is telling us.
As for risk, the challenge is to equip people with the skills necessary to properly quantify and qualify risk in their own lives, and through that enable them to clearly see the bigger picture.
Friday 19 March 2010 at 18:49 GMT
It’s a good thing to see the rebuttals, but I’m afraid that personally it just makes me want to weep for the stupidity of the human race… I have no confidence that we’re going to come through this challenge alive.
Friday 19 March 2010 at 18:54 GMT
Francis, you’re right about Fox – not sure we’ve got a real news organization anymore, at least not main stream.
We used to have basic science education in our schools… somehow we’ve lost that. Regan? Corporations? Fundamentalists? I’m not sure, nor am I sure how to get it fixed.
I had hopes for this administration at one point… working not to move into hopelessness. Like Geoff, I’m down almost to wishful thinking.
Friday 19 March 2010 at 22:24 GMT
The stupidity and selfishness of our species should never be underestimated, but then neither should its ingenuity. My confidence is low, but not to the degree that I’ve begun pricing weapons, ammunition and dried foodstuffs in bulk quantities.
Saturday 20 March 2010 at 12:17 GMT
Especially when the BBC is promoting paganism as a means of controlling the weather:
Saturday 20 March 2010 at 12:34 GMT
“You pay the licence fee, it’s your BBC.”
And you own the Interwebs, they are your truths.
Saturday 20 March 2010 at 23:01 GMT
Leonard Pitts