More Truthiness: Climate Change

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Global Warming, Global Schmarming
See!? It’s SNOWING! Take that, Al Gore!!

When the East Coast got whacked by the biggest week of blizzards in a century this week (well, only the part of the East Coast that counts to the news media—D.C.), some commentators took the opportunity to crow that this was evidence that global warming is a fraud.

More! Yesterday (2/12), 49 of the 50 U.S. states had measurable snow on the ground (kudos if you can figure out which didn’t!)—up to 4-6 inches across the Deep South.

The two-part mid-Atlantic storm was so heavy that Baltimore had more snow so far this season—six feet!—than Buffalo, NY. Meanwhile, of course, the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, BC, struggles with trucking in enough snow for the mogul and Xtreme hills, and Utah (“Greatest Snow on Earth!”) is at 63 percent of normal snowpack, the weather moguls say, predicting another year of significant drought.

But never mind. Some media pundits used the East Coast blizzard as a way to poke the Obama administration and environmentalists over their “hysteria” about “alleged global warming.” See this clip from The Daily Show, in which Jon Stewart and friends showcase some of the climate change discussion. Many more conservative (whatever that means) politicians and media (like the Wall Street Journal) also took the storm as an opportunity to poo-poo science and political positions they dislike. See this link to “Media Matters for America” (a liberal—whatever that means—media watchdog group).

Closer to home, the Utah Legislature this week passed a formal resolution questioning whether global warming exists (and what about that Utah drought-y thingy?), leading scientists from that radical campus to the south (B-Y-U) to send a formal letter of protest and then to testify before a legislative hearing.

USU science Professor Will Popendorf writes: “Regarding the resolution, you may be aware that some faculty from BYU were involved in testimony to the legislature on this topic. . . . In addition, a group of their faculty initiated a letter response (see PDF at http://utahjwj.org/img/Legislature2.pdf). My understanding is that this letter is being supported by
faculty at the UofU.”

So, where does all that leave us? As normal humans with no particular position or expertise on this topic, how are we to respond to these kinds of strong statements from elected representatives and prominent news people? How can we make sense of these things? Certainly, we have seen the pictures of disappearing glaciers, and heard about declining stocks of fish that apparently can’t find food in warming oceans; and then there are those poor polar bears whose icebergs are melting. Al Gore won the Nobel Prize, fergoodnesssakes!, for his work on climate change, including “An Inconvenient Truth.” There’s got to be something to all that. But what about all these other people who also seem to know what they’re talking about?

How do we know what we think???

Dr. Ted
Perfesser of Confusing Things
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How (Some) News Media Cover Same-Sex Debate

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Covering the Same-Sex Marriage Debate

Here’s an interesting post on a site called “10000 Words—Where Journalism & Technology Meet” about how some news outlets have used technology in telling the same-sex marriage story. This relates to truthiness in that media consumers are bombarded by so much information (if we choose—or have time—to pay attention to it!) that it becomes difficult for us to figure out what’s true. You can see from this example of impressive coverage how being media smart can be hard work!

El Peez

PS: And in Saturday’s Salt Lake Tribune (2/13), this conversation about the distinction between religious/church marriage and civil unions. Is this really a religious issue, or a social/civil issue? The opposition to same-sex marriage seems to come on religious grounds, but few same-sex couples seem to want church weddings—the California law that was struck down by Proposition 8 in 2008 permitted civil marriages by mayors and judges, not church weddings, which are up to individual religions.

In her story, Rosemary Waters writes: “When a bride and groom exchange vows in a cathedral, chapel or temple, they receive a marriage license, blessed simultaneously by their clergy and their state.

But why? Other religious ceremonies aren't wedded to civil ones. The county clerk doesn't issue a baptism license. A priest doesn't deliver a funeral eulogy and then sign the death certificate.”

For couples—gay or straight—the central issues of marriage may be as much about matters like inheritance, health care and insurance as anything else. Oh, and love and commitment, too, of course. (Happy Valentine’s Day—to all loving couples!)


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Examples of Truthiness at Work

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Dear Smarties:

I have noted a couple of examples of the ramifications of the “truthiness” syndrome in the press this weekend.

Yesterday (2/6), the Herald-Journal ran this wonderful letter from a guy in Smithfield named Russ Larsen, titled “Gore & Co. distorting facts,” about what he calls “all the recent ‘hoopla’ about global warming.” Click here for the full letter. Note the “facts” Mr. Larsen is citing. Wherever you stand on the question of global warming and environmental change, this guy’s understand of reality is a little skewed. I’m not saying he doesn’t believe what he’s saying, but why does he believe it?

Another example is yesterday’s appearance at the Tea Party convention in Nashville by Sarah Palin. Without asserting any facts, Palin pumps up the crowd with her anti-Obama rhetoric, which then can be reported as news on outlets including Fox, which employs her as a commentator. Again, wherever you stand on Obama, reality is being created by the echo chamber of the event, the coverage and the creation of news from the event and the coverage. This morning, Chris Wallace was interviewing Palin (again, a Fox employee) on the Fox Sunday talkshow.... If you repeat something often enough, it becomes important, and maybe even “true.” (See Christian Science Monitor coverage here.)


One more example: In today’s (Sunday 2/7) Salt Lake Tribune, columnist Peg McEntee addresses climate change as a “conspiracy theory”—NOT! (And cartoonist Pat Bagley, right, also focuses on this.) This is targeted at Utah state Rep. Mike Noel of Kanab, who thinks scientists, government officials and liberals are conspiring to force global cooling on us. Last year, Noel asked USU President Stan Albrecht to discipline some USU climate researchers because they had testified before state legislative panels about climate change (they believe it). Noel said these guys are on the state payroll, and shouldn’t be allowed to promote lies. (Noel later backed down). As McEntee reports in her column, Noel and others who see global warming as a fake left-wing conspiracy (like Mr. Larsen from Smithfield, above; Gov. Gary Herbert also thinks humans have nothing to do with climate change) think this is an effort at world population control. Bills are pending before the Utah Legislature to shut down the federal Environmental Protection Agency until “a full and independent investigation of the climate data conspiracy and global warming science can be substantiated.”

So this “truthiness” stuff is complicated. How do we “know” what we think we know? We see letters like Mr. Larsen’s or columns like McEntee’s, or cartoons like Pat Bagley’s, or coverage of rhetorical entertainment like Sarah Palin’s or Glenn Beck’s or Rachel Maddow’s (or Jon Stewart’s!). Yikes! How to decide what to believe? See how important it is to be critically thinking media smarties???

Keep thinking, Smarties.

Dr. Ted
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