To: Brumar89 who wrote (70226 ) 5/27/2016 11:13:14 AM From: Eric Read Replies (2) | Respond to Climate change scepticism Climate Consensus - the 97% Climate denial arguments fail a blind test Visually impaired Alexei Orlov (R) guides a touch tour around the city of St. Petersburg. Photograph: Ruslan Shamukov/TASS Dana Nuccitelli legal ruling against Peabody coal , arguments and myths that are based in denial of the reality of human-caused global warming rarely withstand scientific scrutiny.In a new study published in Global Environmental Change , a team led by Stephen Lewandowsky tested the accuracy of some popular myths and contrarian talking points sampled from climate denial blogs and other media outlets. The scientists searched the blogs for key words related to Arctic sea ice, glaciers, sea level rise, and temperature to identify the most popular arguments. Not surprisingly, they found some common myths:nearly two-thirds of all mentions of temperature on the three top contrarian blogs included a claim of “cooling”; and likewise more than a quarter of all mentions of arctic ice alluded to its “recovery”, and so on. our 2015 study attempting to replicate climate contrarian research (cherry picking data, for example).For example, the [glaciers] scenario pairs the claim that “our country’s rural population is growing, not shrinking” with a figure that showed the change in population for numerous individual villages, akin to a figure depicting the mass balance of individual glaciers. In addition, an alternative statement was constructed for each scenario that summarized the mainstream scientific interpretation of the climate data, again translated into economic or demographic terms (e.g., “almost all of the rural regions of the country are losing population”). Arctic sea ice surpassed 1989 levels in 2009; Arctic sea ice “rebounded” in 2013; Glaciers are growing, not shrinking; Relatively cool temperatures in the US, China, and Russia in 2009 told us something meaningful about global warming; Global sea levels didn’t rise from 2003 to 2011; and Global sea levels rose faster in the early 20th century than in recent decades. Mean correctness scores and 95% confidence intervals for expert economists. Any negative value indicates that a claim was judged to be incorrect or misleading, whereas any positive value indicates that a claim was found to be accurate or in accord with the data. Illustration: Lewandowsky et al. (2016), Global Environmental Change In a similar previous study , Lewandowsky found that economists thought the notion of a “pause” in global surface warming was “misleading and ill-informed” when the temperature data were instead labeled as agricultural output. This was a particularly important test, because the pause myth has become the basis of most arguments against taking action to curb global warming, despite the fact that any temporary slowdown in global surface warming is now over .public statements by contrarians fail to meet expert approval. Their uncritical inclusion in media discourse therefore does the public a disservice and confirms that media ‘‘balance’’ can be a form of bias or even self-censorship if contrarian views override scientific opinions. false balance in climate reporting, exposing their audiences to these myths in order to give equal time to “the other side.” As this study shows, on the subject of climate change, the favored arguments of “the other side” tend to be inaccurate, misleading, and misinform people who are exposed to them.theguardian.com
