I’ve written a post on EcoDirectory.com.au about how CleanUp Australia exemplifies our approach to environmental problems – those that care try to do something while those that don’t give a monkey get off scott free.
Posts tagged sceptics
What motivates a climate sceptic?
Here’s an interesting little thing. Some US sociologists asked some politically conservatives whether they accepted the science on climate change. But the question was framed in a way that suggested the way to solve the problem was either a) greater government regulation or b) deregulation to encourage nuclear power.
Those given the latter scenario were much more willing to accept the basic science.
As the researches put it, people “resist factual information that threatens their defining values”.
Now, we know this is crazy. Whether climate change is real doesn’t depend on the implications on economic policy. It’s either happening or it isn’t. But this is how people think and we’ve got to find a way round it.
Climate sceptic myths
Climate scepticism recalls the way the tobacco industry aimed to sow doubt about the science linking smoking and illness to maintain their sales. This article in the Sydney Morning Herald explores the link between the oil industry and climate sceptics.
In related coverage, these Herald articles examine the current state of scientific opinion on climate change and looks at the common myths being put about by climate sceptics.
A tale of three meetings
March 15, 2009 · Filed under commentary · Tagged climate change, sceptics
This is a quick tale of three international meetings that took place this week.
The Sydney Morning Herald’s resident climate denier Miranda Devine was allowed to devote a page lead op-ed story to report on a climate sceptic conference in the US, where a few of the usual suspects rehashed familiar, discredited, climate sceptic lines.
Elsewhere, more credible scientists were meeting in Copenhagen for an International Scientific Congress on Climate Change. The congress issued an urgent appeal to world leaders to act now on climate change, warning that in the last two years global warming seems to have speeded up dramatically, surpassing the worst predictions of even the most recent IPCC report of 2007, and we may only have a few years to prevent an irrevesible planetary catastrophe.
Curiously, none of Australia’s op-ed writers picked up on that one.
And where were those world leaders?
Many of them were meeting in England to discuss the economic downturn – a “crisis” they clearly believe is more urgent and important than climate change. (After all, where is the trillion-dollar environmental crisis package we really need?)
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