A media scholar surveys an emerging science journalism trend: The dominant way of thinking about the role of science journalists historically was to view them as translators, or transmitters, of information. Now, however, a powerful metaphor for understanding their work as science critics is to see them as cartographers and guides, mapping scientific knowledge for readers, showing…Continue Reading…
In his 2010 book, The Climate Fix, Roger Pielke Jr. writes: The view that decarbonization of the global economy is a political problem and not a technological problem has been strongly influenced by a 2004 analysis by two Princeton researchers, Stephen Pacala and Robert Socolow, that was published in Science. The analysis is often referred…Continue Reading…
They capture our imagination. They help frame public discourse on important issues. Just one problem: some of our most famous eco-metaphors have not held up to the test of time. At the Yale Forum on Climate Change & the Media, I suggest that some of the more popular ones stick around past their expiration date. Have…Continue Reading…
On Sunday, a longish AP article appeared, with this headline: The American ‘allergy’ to global warming: Why? The reporter, Charles Hanley, takes stock of the hardening U.S. attitudes on climate change, including the sharp divergence between Democrats and Republicans. But Hanley seems to conflate the reasons for this state of affairs. Charlie Petit at The…Continue Reading…
On that latest bit of ugliness to rear its head at a Republican Presidential candidate debate, a James Fallows reader writes: I think the booing encapsulates what the Republican party we could once vote for now represents to moderate independents like myself: – A few people loudly proclaim repugnant (or in other cases nonsensical) things….Continue Reading…
Here’s the publisher promo for James Lawrence Powell’s new book, The Inquisition of Climate Science: Modern science is under the greatest and most successful attack in recent history. An industry of denial, abetted by news media and “info-tainment” broadcasters more interested in selling controversy than presenting facts, has duped half the American public into rejecting…Continue Reading…
Here’s the charge, from Chris Mooney: Political conservatives in the U.S. today have overwhelming problems with science. They reject, in large numbers, mainstream and accepted knowledge on fundamental things about humans and the planet”“evolution, global warming, to name a few. I also recently posted about how systematically conservatives undermine science with respect to reproductive health. And this is…Continue Reading…
There’s a lot of teeth gnashing in green circles over the Solyndra fallout. Even if it wasn’t an election year, Republicans would be cynically milking the story for all it’s worth, and that spigot shows no sign of going dry anytime soon. Are they being hypocritical? Sure. You bet they are. But let’s at least be honest and…Continue Reading…
This is the suggestion from a Columbia University researcher, whose work I discuss in a post at the Yale Forum on Climate Change & the Media. If you have a nuanced response, give it to me over there.
That’s my translation of Monbiot’s position on the huge gas reserves recently discovered in the UK. Today, in a follow-up post, he writes that any shale gas finds raise our exploitable reserves of fossil fuels, just as we should be reducing them. The world’s minerals companies have already found far greater reserves than we can afford to…Continue Reading…