Monday, October 02, 2017
When a Story Simply Feels Too Good.
It was like throwing raw meat to a school of piranha. A couple of weeks ago a study published in Nature Geoscience had the climate change denialist media (yes, there is such a thing) in a feeding frenzy. They spun the report into a story claiming that the climate change consensus was wrong, that our situation wasn't nearly as dire as those pocket-lining alarmist scientists had claimed and that we wouldn't have much trouble staying within the 1.5C target for global warming.
I read those reports. I even felt a bit of relief. I thought I really should write a post on it, for fairness sake if nothing else but something didn't feel right. Better, I concluded, to wait for the scientific community to respond to the media's take on the story.
As I suspected, the "feel good" news reports were spin.
The Guardian article reveals there were several problems with the study. Foremost among them the authors relied on a Hadley Centre data set that completely omitted the Arctic, the fastest warming area of the planet. There were several others.
Still it's easy to agree with the study's conclusion that the world's governments must act urgently to sharply slash greenhouse gas emissions if we're to have any chance.
The paper was paywalled but reading the abstract showed the deniers were lying. They often report the opposite of a studies results because the deplorables will not read the original.
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ReplyDeleteWell, when lying is your stock in trade, Rumley, what else could we expect? You're right, though. The Gullibillies are content with hearing what they want to hear and then trying to ram the crap they've swallowed down others' necks.
Anyong.....How many times have I heard someone say "the poor has always been with us and they always will". Of course that is a great way to ignore the poor by Christians. The 1% of Americans who own all the money will be able to protect themselves with bunkers and a supply of food for years. So what is wrong with the idea that this is a great way to get rid of the poor by denying Climate Change. Bring on great stories the poor and uneducated will believe by keeping them quiet. Because make no mistake...it will be the poor who will die. There will be great battles over water, food and land. I wonder who will be the first to take the first step? At least I won't be around to see it.
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