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Here you go [1]. If you don't want to read the whole thing, a relevant part: "News media is tightly entwined with the attention economy. Newspapers try to captu

Here you go [1]. If you don't want to read the whole thing, a relevant part: "News media is tightly entwined with the attention economy. Newspapers try to capture people’s attentions through headlines. TV and radio stations try to entice people to not change the channel. And, indeed, there is a long history of news media leveraging fear to grab attention, often with a reputational cost." [1] http://www.poynter.org/2012/fear-undermines-an-informed-citizenry-as-media-struggles-with-attention-economy/192509/ http://www.poynter.org/2012/fear-undermines-an-informed-citi...

DasIch 11y ago
This argument ignores the overwhelming scientific evidence. There is no one who deserves to be taken seriously arguing that climate change doesn't exist or isn't caused by humans.
- mikeash 11y ago
  This really should not be downvoted. It's absolutely true. Yes, there are good reasons politicians and news organizations would want to peddle fear. But in this particular case, the origin of the fear is the work of thousands of smart people who have made it their life's work to study this stuff, and they almost all come up with the same answers over and over and over again. The media wants to scare us? Sure. Politicians? No doubt. But tell me why (and how!) all these climate scientists would want to predict disaster when there isn't any.
  - midwest1 11y ago
    I used to evaluate the work of scientists for the US government. You would be surprised at the rampant amount of fraud in science. To answer your last question, job security. Many other reasons... adulation, professional competition. Generally the types who go into environmental science are true believers to begin with. In rare cases, there is some money to be made by whoring yourself out.
    - mikeash 11y ago
      I don't doubt there's fraud in science. Stories pop up pretty frequently that show researchers claiming some new breakthrough with fudged data. But what would be required here would be far more than that. Individual fraudsters wouldn't be enough. Even systemic fraud wouldn't do it. It would need to be universal fraud, across basically the entire world. And it would need to be coordinated, to ensure everybody gives the same kind of fraudulent results. It's especially unbelievable because many countries have a vested interest in the world's ability to continue burning fossil fuels. If climate change were a fraud, they would have a huge incentive to show that. Why would places like Saudi Arabia, Russia, and indeed even the United States not massively fund climate science to debunk the climate change fraud? I could buy the fraud argument if it were a few people. I could even buy it if, for example, there were a massive schism in the field, with one big group saying climate change is real, and another big group saying it's not. But when they all speak with one voice, aside from a few tiny dregs of dissent, fraud isn't a good explanation.
      - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
        Another reason: the evidence is worldwide and obvious. Siberia melting in a couple of years, which it hasn't done in 40,000 years. All the glaciers receding drastically. The Antarctic ice shelf undergoing irreversible melting. It doesn't take a century of temperature measurement to see the result of heating up.
        midwest1 11y ago
        Did a scientist tell you this? That is not how science works. You cannot attribute events around you to some notion of obviousness. That reasoning would not pass any physicist's approval. Climate science is predicated upon a proper understanding of physics. Any scientist who tells you that worldwide evidence is obvious should be treated with the same level of respect as Dr. Oz. The typical response would be that the physics is proven. Well, AFAIK, yes, at least to the degree that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and that it has SOME effect on climate. The magnitude of contribution to toal effect by various sources and sinks seems far from certain. To draw a parallel, which a physicist (scientist) would do when instructing - this is like saying salt makes blood pressure go up, so it's bad for you... And ignoring all the ways the body can come to equilibrium. Stop eating salt, today, or you'll burst. So if a physicist calls it bullshit, that's pretty much your trump card. Which is why people put so much stock in Dysons opinion, because he was an expert in properly using the tools that most climate scientists are not experts in. Were you to go study physics at a masters level for a bit, and then read scientific studies yourself with a critical eye, you'd learn how much of what we call science is grade A bullshit. Until then, I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to debate with you. It's kind of like me arguing American football with John Madden.

DasIch 11y ago

This argument ignores the overwhelming scientific evidence. There is no one who deserves to be taken seriously arguing that climate change doesn't exist or isn't caused by humans.

mikeash 11y ago
This really should not be downvoted. It's absolutely true. Yes, there are good reasons politicians and news organizations would want to peddle fear. But in this particular case, the origin of the fear is the work of thousands of smart people who have made it their life's work to study this stuff, and they almost all come up with the same answers over and over and over again. The media wants to scare us? Sure. Politicians? No doubt. But tell me why (and how!) all these climate scientists would want to predict disaster when there isn't any.
- midwest1 11y ago
  I used to evaluate the work of scientists for the US government. You would be surprised at the rampant amount of fraud in science. To answer your last question, job security. Many other reasons... adulation, professional competition. Generally the types who go into environmental science are true believers to begin with. In rare cases, there is some money to be made by whoring yourself out.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    I don't doubt there's fraud in science. Stories pop up pretty frequently that show researchers claiming some new breakthrough with fudged data. But what would be required here would be far more than that. Individual fraudsters wouldn't be enough. Even systemic fraud wouldn't do it. It would need to be universal fraud, across basically the entire world. And it would need to be coordinated, to ensure everybody gives the same kind of fraudulent results. It's especially unbelievable because many countries have a vested interest in the world's ability to continue burning fossil fuels. If climate change were a fraud, they would have a huge incentive to show that. Why would places like Saudi Arabia, Russia, and indeed even the United States not massively fund climate science to debunk the climate change fraud? I could buy the fraud argument if it were a few people. I could even buy it if, for example, there were a massive schism in the field, with one big group saying climate change is real, and another big group saying it's not. But when they all speak with one voice, aside from a few tiny dregs of dissent, fraud isn't a good explanation.
    - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
      Another reason: the evidence is worldwide and obvious. Siberia melting in a couple of years, which it hasn't done in 40,000 years. All the glaciers receding drastically. The Antarctic ice shelf undergoing irreversible melting. It doesn't take a century of temperature measurement to see the result of heating up.
      - midwest1 11y ago
        Did a scientist tell you this? That is not how science works. You cannot attribute events around you to some notion of obviousness. That reasoning would not pass any physicist's approval. Climate science is predicated upon a proper understanding of physics. Any scientist who tells you that worldwide evidence is obvious should be treated with the same level of respect as Dr. Oz. The typical response would be that the physics is proven. Well, AFAIK, yes, at least to the degree that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and that it has SOME effect on climate. The magnitude of contribution to toal effect by various sources and sinks seems far from certain. To draw a parallel, which a physicist (scientist) would do when instructing - this is like saying salt makes blood pressure go up, so it's bad for you... And ignoring all the ways the body can come to equilibrium. Stop eating salt, today, or you'll burst. So if a physicist calls it bullshit, that's pretty much your trump card. Which is why people put so much stock in Dysons opinion, because he was an expert in properly using the tools that most climate scientists are not experts in. Were you to go study physics at a masters level for a bit, and then read scientific studies yourself with a critical eye, you'd learn how much of what we call science is grade A bullshit. Until then, I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to debate with you. It's kind of like me arguing American football with John Madden.