Last week, Danny Wilson, our environment columnist, posted a very thorough analysis of a very thorough Yale report about climate change. He notes that
Only 39% [of respondents] believe that “most scientists think global warming is happening.” This statistic is by far the most damning, and the most revealing.
I agree that this is the most damning of the findings — how could our democracy move forward on an issue which is invisible to the naked eye and which appears to lack a scientific consensus? (It should go without saying in this forum that an overwhelming scientific consensus does exist.)
But I think that his conclusions miss the mark about who is to blame and what needs to be done to combat this gross misperception. He is way too tough on scientists, lets the media off too easily, and doesn’t even mention the impact of irresponsible politicians. He writes
The onus … is on scientists. … This consensus is so broad that scientists must do a better job of communicating the evidence for anthropologic [sic] climate change.
First a general point: If the need to communicate clearly has anything to do with the breadth of consensus, then an issue with a broad consensus should need less clear communication than a disputed issue does. Something else must be at play.
Scientists are not capable of convincing the public of their findings without the help of the media. The media control the flow of knowledge and ideas to the public at large, and they must try harder to convince the public of the truth. Ask yourself: Have you been underwhelmed by attempts to explain global warming in the popular media, or have you just not heard that many?
Too often, media attempts at “fairness” lead to them creating the impression of an equivalence between two sides of an argument, even if that equivalence is manifestly false. Even PBS calls its online feature “The Global Warming Debate.” [emphasis added].
Darren Samuelsohn at Politico wrote earlier this week that
It would be great if scientists could come up with such a lucid explanation of modern climate science that by and large convinced the American public of the pending dangers of global warming. But Republican politicians have always had access to the best scientists and continue to deny the truth of the science. As long as the media tries to justify the views on both sides of the aisle — and one side remains obstinate with an incorrect stance — Americans will remain divided on an issue about which we should have agreed years ago.