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So, how do you get your mind off the methane clathrates?
February 23, 2006 3:12 PM
Correspondent Bill Blakemore blogs about covering global warming full-time for ABC News:
There are remarkably few of us mainstream professional journalists covering global warming, given the enormity of the story. This is, after all, a story in which the most credible scientists now say life on earth could become unbearable for most humans - widespread famine and political chaos, possibly even within the lifetime of today's toddlers - if we don't soon curb greenhouse gas emissions.
We find ourselves phoning each other not only to chat about the latest scientific study or compare notes on the relative credibilities and quirks of different experts, but also sometimes to do a little mutual therapy.
“How do you get your mind off the methane clathrates?” (whose leaking from the seabed during natural warming millions of years ago is thought by scientists to have sent global temperatures soaring), or “I know, I felt bad for a few days after I read about James Lovelock’s new book too.”
It is a normal part of the correspondent’s job to experience the psychological impacts of a story first, before they are felt by those to whom we then report it. We few who have been covering global warming have thus come to understand the natural denial that editors and public have when first trying to absorb the realities of it.
The other frustrations of covering this story are more familiar to journalism - how to explain the unfamiliar science, how to get our arms around the many parts of this story with its financial, political, biological and epidemiological impacts. These frustrations are of the sort we professional journalists enjoy overcoming - it’s our craft and solving such difficulties of communication is what we enjoy doing.
But the enormity of the danger itself? It will be a relief - albeit a sad one - as more and more of the public begins to acknowledge and deal with the true scale and impact of this story, as seems to be happening now, so that we who cover it may come to feel less isolated.
It can be great to be alone on a story - the admittedly vain thrill of being first to discover important facts that people are clearly going to agree they needed to learn, of mining exotic and unexplored mother lodes of startling information with a few respected colleagues - but only for so long.
February 23, 2006 | Permalink | User Comments (4)
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Anyone who thinks they know "Global Warming" is actually ocurring is either too arrogant or too poorly educated in basic reasoning to take seriously.
Systems such as the global climate and the stock market are extremely complex with literally thousands of variables interacting in real time.
Let's use the stock market as an example.
I challenge any of the fervent believers in Global Warming to use their ability to see into the future to predict what stocks will go up and down. Surely a man-made system like the stock market is much easier to predict than the weather patterns of an entire planet.
Use any and all information at your disposal and tell me for certain what stocks will go up or down at least 10% over the next month.
Any takers ?
Posted by: Skeptico | Feb 26, 2006 10:08:25 AM
If I light a match any where and heat any amount of the atmosphere any fraction of a degree, can I possibly deny that I have had an effect that raised the temperature of the atmosphere? I could argue that the heating effect cannot be measured by anything man has created, but I would be foolish to deny that there was heat generated when I struck the match and it warmed a portion of the atmosphere. How is it wise and demonstrative of great learning to deny that people create and warm the air around them? How can anyone turning on any electrical device argue that they haven't warmed something besides the hearts of the energy company stock holders?
Posted by: Dick | Feb 27, 2006 11:58:28 AM
No one who has posted replies so far knows anything about climate change science. So why are they so sure they know what they're talking about?
Take a crack at these two things. The White House-commissioned National Academy of Science report from 5 years ago:
http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?id=3713&method=full
These 10 peer reviewed articles demonstrating anthropocentric warming:
http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?id=3458&method=full
If your conclusion is that this is just a vast conspiracy of egghead scientists, I say that it's awfully convenient that you like all the cool techy stuff they brought you, but when they bring some bad news, you treat them as if they were all beneath contempt...
Posted by: J. | Feb 28, 2006 4:20:55 PM
Bill Blakemore writes, about global warming, "This is, after all, a story in which the most credible scientists now say life on earth could become unbearable for most humans - widespread famine and political chaos, possibly even within the lifetime of today's toddlers - if we don't soon curb greenhouse gas emissions."
What credible scientists have said anything like, "Global warming could make life unbearable for most humans"? Or that "widespread famine and political chaos" could result from global warming?
Posted by: Mark Bahner | May 16, 2006 8:17:12 PM
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