Data from Union of Concerned Scientists"Everywhere I go, what I hear quoted back to me as scientific fact is often wrong," said Brenda Ekwurzel, a UCS staff scientist who presented the study to an audience gathered to discuss the state of climate communication with TIME environment editor Bryan Walsh and Harvard oceanographer James McCarthy. "That, to me, is so discouraging."
What's especially creepy about the study is how low the bar is for what constitutes "accurate." From the study:
Citations deemed to be misleading questioned either the reality of climate change or the fact that recent climate change is largely due human activities, or they advanced other arguments that dismissed established climate science.In other words, this is quantitative proof that the climate change debate in America is still mired in bickering over whether the problem even exists or not. Here's the breakdown on the shapes misleading statements took between the two outlets, which together reach an audience of nearly four million:
UCS
UCS After releasing the study, Ekwurzel led a group from the New York
Public Library science branch to Bryant Park, to stage a mark-up of all
the errors in a recent Wall Street Journal editorial, which was roundly rebuffed by the very scientists it quoted. News Corporation has a history of blantantly misrepresenting science,
of course. But since, as McCarthy reminded the crowd, "most of the
public doesn't have the opportunity to have a conversation with a
scientist on climate change," findings like these go a long way toward
explaining why many elected officials are completely intransigent on
climate action.Source: mother jones
Author: Tim McDonnell
No comments:
Post a Comment