Twenty years ago, on this day, November 1st, 2004 two academics write a crucial article about how the media works and is worked by denialists…
Journalistic Balance as Global Warming Bias
And the academic article is here
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 378ppm. As of 2024 it is 4xxppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the denialists had been able to get lots of their bullshit published in mainstream outlets, not on the basis of, you know, peer reviewed science or anything credible, but simply by using (or abusing if you want) the idea that the media has to show “both sides.” This is aside from the fact of who owns the media and what their long-term interests or short term interests are. And here we have a paper which lays that out by Boykoff and Boykoff. A good paper, you should read it. Unfortunately, it’s still largely relevant. And if you’re like me, he went through the naughties and teens writing to the BBC complaining about all the space given to nutjob denialists and getting the form response about BBCs responsibility for impartiality and giving both sides of an argument and then you would write back and say you don’t give Holocaust deniers equal billing. And then they wouldn’t reply to that. At least some of these people must have known better, but consider themselves blameless. Everyone is blameless. So it’s someone else’s fault.
What I think we can learn from this is that “our” systems of thought and truthiness have been successfully hacked.
What happened next: The denialists kept using the argument around impartiality and then complaining about censorship, etc. Some media outlets banned denialist comments from under the line. But on the whole, they didn’t. And the thing about climate change is it enrages so many people. And part of the reason it enrages is that humans are not on top. And another part for a lot of them is that they kind of by now know that they backed the wrong horse. And they hate the fact that the hippies were right and that they were wrong.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
References/see also
Also on this day:
November 1988 – Australian Mining Journal says C02 is a Good Thing
November 1, 1959 – M1 motorway section opened
November 1, 1974 – UK civil servants writing to each other on “Climatology”
November 1, 1989 – Senior Australian politician talks on “Industry and Environment”
November 1, 1989 – “Greenhouse Action Australia” launches…
November 1, 1975 – Stephen Schneider tries to clear up the “Carbon Dioxide Climate Confusion.”