No Se Nada

Enough about twerpboy Deutsch already. Let's get to the real stuff. Last three paragraphs from Revkin's article today:

Yesterday, Dr. Hansen said that the questions about Mr. Deutsch's credentials were important, but were a distraction from the broader issue of political control of scientific information.

"He's only a bit player," Dr. Hansen said of Mr. Deutsch. "The problem is much broader and much deeper and it goes across agencies. That's what I'm really concerned about."

"On climate, the public has been misinformed and not informed," he said. "The foundation of a democracy is an informed public, which obviously means an honestly informed public. That's the big issue here."

I couldn't agree more with the first two paragraphs, but not the first sentence of last paragraph. Hansen leaves something big out here. He should have said, "On climate, the public has been very well informed by some groups, and misinformed and not informed by others."

If Hansen is trying to make the point that public apathy about AGW/CC (anthropogenic global warming/climate change) is a direct outgrowth of its being misinformed or not informed, he's dead wrong.

His own publication in the March 2004 Scientific American is a small part of vast machine of public information that is constantly churning out AGW/CC stories in wide distro zines. These stories are not relegated to obscure scientific journals, but are pasted throughout the SciAm's, Discover's, and NattyGeo's of the world, as well as every newspaper in the U.S. Even the WSJ, easily the most hostile of the major papers, prints front page news on CC that can't be considered misinformation (e.g., link). The public becomes informed through the media, and the last time I read an "AGW is a hoax" story in a popular magazine or newspaper is....well....I can't remember having seen any recently. What I can remember is countless articles like these.

If you know of any glossy, widely read magazines that consistently misinform on climate, I would like to know. There must be some, but I would bet the farm that their numbers are vastly overshadowed by the three magazines listed above and others in that category. And I defy you to find me one article in the past ten years from any of the the well-read science content magazines that describe AGW/CC as being nothing worth worrying about.

To my count, the groups doing the informing and the well-inform[ing] vastly outnumber the ones doing the misinforming. In fact, I can count the misinforming groups I know of on one hand, and they don't seem to get much press.

Hansen might be trying to make the point that it is government's job to do all the informing, and that they are not doing their job. If so, I have two answers: 1- Yes, I agree, some agencies within the Executive branch are not doing their job well lately. 2- Government is only one organization of many who shape public opinion.

The real issue here is not that the American public is misinformed or uninformed. The real issue is that the American public is well informed and still doesn't care. That's the issue you need to address.

LATE ADD: How about some academickese from Myanna Lahsen to say the same thing (link):

Consumers of climate science seldom receive conflicting factual statements with a uniform attitude of skepticism. Rather, they tend to select and uphold as “true” those scientific opinions that support their preferred values, interests, and beliefs, reflective of how sociocultural and political understandings generally mediate perceptions of scientific reality and environmental risks (Douglas and Wildavsky 1984) and of the tenaciousness of interpretive frameworks in the face of countervailing evidence (Kahneman, Slovic, and Tversky 1982).10 Cultural and political meanings guide interpretations toward perceived certainties that reflect and support individual policy preferences. Thus, persons guided by common understandings of science described above are at least as likely to pick their preferred “facts” as they are to be impressed by uncertainty in the face of conflicting expert opinions. The same is also suggested by the considerable correlation between political ideology and environmental beliefs in the United States (Klineberg 1997; Dunlap, Xiao, and McCright 2001). In short, while institutions of reflexive modernization may provide exposure to multiple sources of information, some sources of information tend to be privileged at the reception end.

Right. Couldn't have said it better myself, Myanna.