Anti-climate action statements get more visibility in news coverage, study finds | Hacker News Reader

Anti-climate action statements get more visibility in news coverage, study finds

brown.edu

161 pointshhs109 comments

> Approximately 14% of press releases opposing climate action or denying the science behind climate change received major national news coverage, she found, compared to about 7% of press releases with pro-climate action messages.

There might be a very simple explanation: there are significantly more pro-climate change press releases, than anti. Comparing percentages without correcting for that seems to be dishonest.

It's in The very Fine Article:

"While just 10% of the press releases Wetts found featured anti-climate action messaging, those rarer releases were twice as likely to get coverage as pro-climate action press releases"

"Wetts said the results seem to support the popular opinion that mainstream news organizations often mislead readers by giving equal weight to two sides of an argument, even when one side isn’t as widely believed or lacks scientific evidence."

news organizations often mislead readers by giving equal weight to two sides of an argument, even when one side isn’t as widely believed or lacks scientific evidence.

News organizations used to filter out the cranks. Some still do, but more have buckled to the pressure to shove out metric assloads of low-quality content in order to satiate people who only get their news by scrolling. (It's called "feeding the beast.")

And those that still do filter out the low-quality garbage are attacked on social media for being left-wing or right-wing, or whatever wing the social media megaphones decide is bad at that particular nanosecond.

When heads of state of Western nations are pushing the crank theories it's hard to blame the media for not filtering them.

I know this is beside your point, but the following part of the last sentence stung my eyes somewhat:

>even when one side isn’t as widely believed or lacks scientific evidence

This is not how ``Science'' is supposed to work. While the comparison is in all likelihood not accurate in this case (I happen to think that the establishment is usually right, and that it is mostly right when it comes to the subject of climate change), it is very reminiscent of the classic example of how the establishment viewed Gallileo's objections to the geocentric model of the universe. Science is advanced by adversity, and especially by figuring out what should be done when parts of mainstream theories are falsified or challenged. Science is not advanced by eliminating everything that disagrees with the establishment. The establishment are all very excellent scientists, but science (should) never really become ``established''. I think perhaps the most important reason for why the currently mainstream climate models are actually so strong is that it has been necessary to overcome a lot of adversity.

> Science is not advanced by eliminating everything that disagrees with the establishment.

That however has nothing to do with the news coverage. That coverage does a poor job or is even harmful to all the citizens if it falls prey to the manipulations of the political parties and corporations which are making simply wrong claims, using the paid actors.

And that's what is happening behind the "climate change denial."

The most current example of such manipulations, in something much more short-term than climate change, this is just not science:

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/dark-money-pac-s-c...

And these surely aren't Galileos:

https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/87797

"No Evidence That Doctor Group in Viral Video Got Near COVID 'Front Lines'"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/07/28/stella-...

"Immanuel has asserted that many gynecological issues are the result of having sex with witches and demons (“succubi” and “incubi”) in dreams, a myth that dates back at least to the “Epic of Gilgamesh,” a Sumerian poem written more than 4,000 years ago. She falsely claims that issues such as endometriosis, infertility, miscarriages and STIs are “evil deposits from the spirit husband.”"

Likewise, the claims from the "climate change deniers" could be checked by the other scientists, and if they are rejected, it's not because of some conspiracy, but because there is typically no science there. It's just a bit more subtle to be shown to the "common people" than "sex with demons."

The science behind the climate change was developed through the last 150 years. Those that denied until quite recently denied what was already proven 150 years ago, then much later started to deny what was proven 100 years ago etc. That's not science. But boy were they supported politically, by the sponsors and by the news giving them "equal time."

Also:

https://commoninfirmities.com/2015/03/26/the-patron-saint-of...

"Galileo was not dismissed by the scientific experts of his day. His theories and discoveries were controversial, but he was generally acclaimed by scientific authorities. He was punished for contradicting the Church’s entrenched philosophical commitments."

His actual sentence: "suspected of" "having believed" "heresy" "that the sun is the center of the world" "contrary to the Holy and Divine Scriptures":

http://hti.osu.edu/sites/default/files/documents_in_the_case...

"We pronounce, judge, and declare, that you, the said Galileo . . . have rendered yourself vehemently suspected by this Holy Office of heresy, that is, of having believed and held the doctrine (which is false and contrary to the Holy and Divine Scriptures) that the sun is the center of the world, and that it does not move from east to west, and that the earth does move, and is not the center of the world; also, that an opinion can be held and supported as probable, after it has been declared and finally decreed contrary to the Holy Scripture".

By the way Galileo was really the "first" in hist "front line": he constructed his own telescopes and was the first to see the moons orbiting around Jupiter:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galilean_moons

>That coverage does a poor job or is even harmful to all the citizens if it falls prey to the manipulations of the political parties and corporations which are making simply wrong claims, using the paid actors.

This is a statement that concerns that nature of contemporary journalism, and could equally be applied to the findings of the mainstream. You have found several dubious pieces which spread misconceptions -- whether those misconceptions come from a mainstream or skeptic perspective is beside the point. There are plenty of misconceptions in favour of the mainstream which are being spread -- and it's certainly not in the mainstream's interests. The point of the OP article is that a relatively larger number of skeptic views are spread, but that is to be expected when the figures are so imbalanced and has already been discussed elsewhere in this comments section.

>And that's what is happening behind the "climate change denial."

I'll be fair -- seeing as you are using quotes around "climate change denial", I will assume that it's not a term that you yourself favour. But is the term not very reminiscent of the word "heresy"? In what fine points do the terms differ?

>And these surely aren't Galileos:

>Viral video [....] sex with witches and demons [...] etc

I mean, OK, if your crusade is against these sorts of things, I can only wish you luck. I wouldn't pick that particular hill, though.

>The science behind the climate change was developed through the last 150 years. Those that denied until quite recently denied what was already proven 150 years ago, then much later started to deny what was proven 100 years ago etc.

I'm sure you are right, but I really fail to see how this is relevant or detracts from my earlier points.

>"Galileo was not dismissed by the scientific experts of his day. His theories and discoveries were controversial, but he was generally acclaimed by scientific authorities. He was punished for contradicting the Church’s entrenched philosophical commitments."

This is simply wrong. This is the main reason I'm responding at all -- I'm not interested in a long back-and-forth exchange, but I felt that this had to be addressed, and that I might just as well address the other points at the same time. The linked blog article contains no sources, and for good reason. He had adherents, of course, but so do many contemporary fringe scientists -- even climate change skeptics. Still, calling their views ``controversial'' is a gross understatement.

Here, for example is what Descartes has to say regarding Galileo:

“without having considered the first causes of nature, [Galileo] has merely looked for the explanations of a few particular effects, and he has thereby built without foundations” [1]

For a thorough review of the views of the Aristotelian establishment of the time, and the many flaws in Galileo's reasoning I recommend [2]. It may also be one of the most interesting (if not important) books that you'll ever read, and my poor argumentation here cannot do it justice.

>By the way Galileo was really the "first" in hist "front line": he constructed his own telescopes and was the first to see the moons orbiting around Jupiter

This is quite true. But one should also remember that in order to be first in his front line, he had to use equipment which very few of his contemporaries had access to -- which is why they were not initially able to confirm his findings, and many rejected them outright [3]. I do not think that "first in his front line" is how the majority of his contemporaries would have described him. And that, really, is the point.

[1] - https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes-physics/

[2] - Feyerabend, Paul. Against method. Verso, 1993.

[3] - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00774t5 -- I think. I recall hearing this on an epsiode of In Our Time, and I think it was this one.

>Science is not advanced by eliminating everything that disagrees with the establishment.

It is also definitely not advanced by presenting fringe theories that very few scientists actually consider relevant as actually being about as close to the truth as a theory that is believed to be the most accurate by the vast majority.

The article is not saying these theories should be suppressed, but that they are presented as more relevant to current scientific consensus than they actually are. There's a huge difference.

"Truth is out of style" -- MC 900 ft Jesus

The comparative value of "beliefs" is derived from the quality of the predictions based on those "beliefs".

I've observed that other people's "beliefs" are based on identity, culture, "truth", whatever.

I'm provisionally calling my new worldview as "post-Popperian". Until the smart people, philosophers & epistemologists, share the proper phrase with plebes like me.

Tying this back to the OP...

The "beliefs" of the climate change skeptics have negative value, because their predictions have been consistently wrong.

About everything.

"Negative value" meaning harmful, potentially maliciously, akin to Murray Gell-mann's pejorative "worse than wrong".

Equally presenting heterodox theories with less evidence to casual news readers doesn't drive science forward so much as it gives people a confused sense of what conclusion most scientists and experts in the trenches believe is most plausible. Which is then used as a lever to promote agendas which very much fly in the face of what evidence suggests that we should do.

Climate science is pretty old (50s). Sure, back in the day they got the details wrong but it was pretty much set in stone that things aren't going to get better by doing nothing. I don't remember the exact time frame but 20-30 years ago pretty much every politician was openly in favor of climate friendly policies.

Although there was no consensus on what exactly needed to be done to slow down climate change, nobody was questioning whether it was happening at all. Empty promises were still better than the active sabotage we see today. I don't know what changed but it feels like being against climate change policies is a very recent phenomenon and not something that had been the default stance for decades.

My only guess is that climate change denial is happening in response to something. Democrats [0] have basically no problem with the topic. Does it boil down to plain old populism?

[0] http://climatecommunication.yale.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019...

Isn’t this just the nature of news? Common events are not news, uncommon ones are. So news is always going to give more coverage to the less common theory.

10% of anti-climate action messaging isn't causing ~30% of people being opposed to taking measures against climate change. It's the other way around.

In fact, i think that is the entire point. Our media is built on clicks and eyeballs. Promoting the idea of legitimate "debate" in the science helps drive more clicks and eyeballs. It's the same things media does with politics.

Covid has really driven home a point to me. As a society, we are statistically illiterate. Politicians and journalists particularly so. Most of our important, newsworthy information today is statistical.

This is a real problem. In the context of public schooling, I think statistics needs to become the primary discipline taught in high school maths. It's more useful to our work life, and (relevant in the context of public schooling) essential to informed citizenship.

Literacy is a pretty close analogy here. The average person is totally ill equipped to to read politically relevant news and form an opinion about it. Often, the person who wrote it is just as ill equipped.

Statistical statements have a tricky form. They seem like a statement of fact. They are, kind of. It's a fact that this researcher measured what she measured. The implication though, that's conjecture, and it may or may not be a good one.

Upvoted because it's a good point but I think the problem goes deeper. Simply expressed most people will deny or plain block out what they don't want to hear, and education can't cure that. There are plenty of people still denying that covid is of significant risk - and we're right in the middle of it!

Statistically and scientifically illiterate, yes. There is this overall belief that one person's opinion, however gained, is equal to another person's opinion, however gained. If one opinion is the result of multiple well designed scientific studies and the other is the result of some late night YouTube indulgement then no, they're not equal.

If anything, COVID drove the opposite point for me.

The whole "masks don't work" spiel that the WHO did was statistically legitimate... We really don't have proof (or whatever the medical community considers is "proof" - like double blind large scale trail with less than 5% chance of being false) that masks work. Statistically, we don't know.

But operationally masks have negligible risk and practical burden, while having a huge potential benefit (stopping the pandemic in its tracks), so even if the overall probability of this benefit is low (or at least not necessarily 95+%), it's the correct decision from an executive perspective.

Basically: scientific / statistical opinion: masks aren't proven to work; executive decision: recommending masks has minimal downside and massive potential upside;

I was under the impression that masks only work to protect you from transmitting to others. Has that aspect not been studied yet?

Or are you talking about the efficacy of masks protecting the person that wears it?

Appreciate your time.

The largest reduction in rate of transmission is when the infected person is wearing a mask. However if both the infected, and uninfected person are wearing masts, it drops just a little bit lower. But you're right that if an unmasked infected person comes in contact with a masked healthy person, the masked person is still very likely to get infected.

It's much like flossing. The mechanism is so obvious, we didn't need a statistical study to be confident. We now have statistical evidence from Covid-19 spread.

No idea. I’m not an expert.

My physics intuition says that air filter is almost equally effective whereever it is (your mouth or another person’s mouth). It depends on the details though - how big the virus is? How far does it travel? How much of it comes out “dry” vs in water droplets? How big are these water droplets? What’s the distance it can travel in a droplet vs “dry”? And so on and so on. My prior says that eyes aren’t a big transmission factor (as the virus has particular affinity towards lung cell receptors) and that the only way that mask efficiency is radically different depending on who’s wearing it is, if the virus is mostly exhaled in water droplets and most of them evaporate in the next 1-2 meters (so when you inhale through a mask, it doesn’t filter the tiny virus particles, whereas exhaling into a mask does filter the less tiny water droplets).

But the bigger point is, it doesn’t matter. Masks can help, and that should be enough to make a decision, like a general rule or recommendation to wear masks (or face coverings).

The latest EconTalk episode talks about this: https://www.econtalk.org/nassim-nicholas-taleb-on-the-pandem... ... Once the Pandemic hit, we should have worn masks. Statistical studies aren't the only form of human knowledge - we understand that when we speak, air and saliva leave our mouth, carrying viruses along. Masks catch air and saliva (and as you say, have low cost). Therefore, wearing masks makes sense as a matter of logic. We don't need to drag p-values into everything.

The last few years have made it very clear that worldwide the medicine regulation sector sucks at cost-benefit analysis.

Masks reduce spread of the virus by already infected people. They work because even people who don't even know they are sick are wearing them from the beginning to the end of their infection. When it comes to exponential growth it doesn't matter if the masks reduce infection rate by 10%, 1% or even 0.1%. Alternatively, even if masks don't work physically there is a psychological component to wearing masks that can reduce the infection rate by reminding people that there is a virus out there and as long as you are wearing the mask you should be extra careful.

There's not much evidence to support anything in your comment.

If masks were so effective it would be easy to find that benefit in any of the good quality trials that have been run, and we don't see that benefit. To see any benefit of mask wearing we have to drop the quality of evidence right down.

One thing often missing from these discussions is the concept of "number needed to treat". How many people need to wear a mask to prevent one additional infection?

https://www.fhi.no/globalassets/dokumenterfiler/rapporter/20...

> Given the low prevalence of COVID-19 currently, even if facemasks are assumed to be effective, the difference in infection rates between using facemasks and not using facemasks would be small. Assuming that 20% of people infectious with SARS-CoV-2 do not have symptoms, and assuming a risk reduction of 40% for wearing facemask, 200000 people would need to wear facemasks to prevent one new infection per week in the current epidemiological situation.

Statistical literacy doesn’t necessarily help. Economists have proven to be “excellent” armchair virologists. They understand the statistics well enough that they think they can give an informed opinion, but because they don’t actually understand viruses and infection their opinions are dangerously uninformed.

Knowing statistics isn’t enough, you also need to know the field those statistics are applied to, because otherwise you can reach statistically sound but inherently meaningless conclusions.

I call it "functional innumeracy". Our society is stuck at a local-maxima for communicating via headlines and short-conversations where we can only really compress and encode signed-keywords to each other. Meaning like, musk+ or musk-, bitcoin+ or bitcoin-.

If we want to take things to the next level of numerical understanding, where we "graph" all sorts of rates, distributions, curves, crossover and inflection points, etc, then what do we do? Fuck around in a spreadsheet for an hour and screen shot that and upload it to imgur and put the link in here? Comb through google images for something close enough and maybe photoshop some arrows on it?

We need a better communication toolkit than a few hundred bytes of ascii to make it possible for people to introduce a heightened degree of numeracy in everyday conversations and decision making. Image macros and emojis and infographics are pigin attempts to go down this road, but we're not there yet (that i've seen, links if you got 'em).

Imagine you're a journalist right now, you're logged into wordpress, you need to explain the insane disaster of today's GDP report, and you have a deadline of finishing your post before lunch. What do you do?

Possibly tangential, so apologies for that, but I am reminded of the "Linda problem"[1], as posed by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman.

Michael Lewis's book The Undoing Project[2], which in my opinion provides an accessible and informative look into the work of Tversky and Kahneman, is worth a read.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conjunction_fallacy

[2} https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Undoing_Project

Just like COVID-19, education is also a politicized platform in America. It's not a coincidence that the same politicians who are trying to downplay the global pandemic and effects of the virus are colleagues with, if not the same, politicians that are trying to reduce access to education.

If you agree with the premise of the parent poster that improper education is "a real problem", change towards a more educated citizenship begins in November.

Not everything is conspiracy. The US isn't unique here. Statistics is more important than it used to be. Schooling just hasn't changed.

If I could upvote this twice I would. The basis for our childrens' education is missing statistics and finance/economics.

My kids' school does teaches basic consumer protection and critical thinking "how to spot ads/scams"

Teaching those should be the foundation on which we teach other things.

Thanks.

I agree on extending the point past statistics. When we talk a lot about schooling tha should prepare kids for the world, that talk is usually directed at work-ready type skills. Coding, resume writing, etc.

We really need to update our fundamentals, near the epistemological level.

As a society we are increasingly illiterate. Mathematical or statistical knowledge isn't achievable without reading comprehension that is above the average person.

The real problem is we aren't teaching kids to read well enough to have a chance of them establishing a foundation in anything else. Statistics needs a base understanding of arithmetic and algebra (calculus would help a ton but lets be realistic in expectations), it's just even more math the average student won't understand. We need to get the basics actually taught to the point of mastery for most students before adding stretch goals.

This entire debate is about dishonesty. It is like supporters of football teams at this point.

How would that explain things? If there were significantly more pro-climate action press releases than anti-, you'd expect to see similar a proportion of coverage, not the opposite. A better explanation is that the news likes to focus on rare, novel, and/or controversial statements.

It's also worth noting that the article doesn't seem to differentiate between positive and negative coverage. So anti-climate action press releases might be receiving significantly more negative coverage.

The old explanation that "dog bites man" is not news, but "man bites dog" is. I do wonder what the effect is when the news on a topic is all "man bites dog". Does an appreciable percentage of readers begin thinking that "man bites dog" is so incredibly common now that something must be done and that "dog bites man" is just a myth?

When you "consume" a new piece of information you have are three options: verify it yourself, believe without proof or dismiss it without proof.

The problem is that some claims are hard to verify so you immediately have to believe or dismiss the claim without proof. However, when you receive new information it is possible to change your stance on unproven claims. Over time you develop a network of claims that strengthen each other. This makes you less susceptible to obviously wrong information because you can easily cross check it based on several existing claims. The downside is that when you see a new obviously correct claim it could potentially require you to throw out a large portion of your existing beliefs. It's less risky to just deny the claim even if it had substance.

I think the explanation about why certain things get more news is in the word "news". News is just that, new. New, interesting, unique, different, something to be talked about.

An accepted truth like "climate change is real" isn't really that new today. Page 10: "Another professor agrees with the professor from last week who talked about this topic, read more on page 56." A protest turned riot about climate change is news. Crackpot theories are also new and news worthy.

The entire premise that the news is impartial and should cover issues statistically equally is utterly at odds with the core principle of what the news actually is.

The news is not information and never has been. It's telling stories about the world.

>The news is not information and never has been.

Assuming that's true then perhaps we need more journalism & less news.

Journalism here being performance of those duties implied by the 1st Amendment's Freedom Of The Press clause.

No one was ever going to win a Pulitzer for "yet another climate scientists agrees with widely accepted consensus." I do believe journalistic standards have fallen in recent times, but their job has always been to update us on new and surprising developments, not provide all the information a person would ever need. Climate change, just as an example, is a complicated process and the science behind it can not be accurately conveyed in a 30 second snippet by a layman. A responsible citizen should be able and willing to go out and acquire the background information they need to make an informed opinion, and in this day and age that information is probably only a few clicks away.

> Crackpot theories are also new and news worthy.

Only when the crackpots have wealthy benefactors.

Most climate change news is always the same "eat your veggies" style reporting. We need x,y,z and we have time until current date + 30 years [0]. There is also the opposite. "Wind power and grid expansion permits have started piling up for the third year in a row". Not exactly exciting. There is also the yearly CO2 tax article and people always respond "I hate taxes". Usually the only exciting times are when the government decides to change things up.

[0] worst cases keep getting worse but the amount of work stays the same, if you tell people we have 12 years left to reach the old temperature goal they'll just give up and call you a doomsayer

> there are significantly more pro-climate change press releases, than anti

This was my immediate thought. There have got to be at least twice as many "climate-change-is-happening"[1] articles as "climate-change-isn't-happening" articles, given the current indications that climate change has, in fact, happened and continues to do so.

[1] I can't bring myself to call it 'pro climate change' or 'anti climate change' because it's about whether it's happening, not whether I think it should.

I wouldn't call it dishonest but it is important context. "Study says same thing as consensus" doesn't garner clicks. I think the broader issue is how much the news is tilted towards focusing on contrarian viewpoints.

I don't think it's dishonest. I expect editorial responsibility, and lack thereof discredits the publication.

If there are 100 press releases that say "earth is round" and 10 press releases that say "earth is flat", how many of each should be publicized by your local newspaper?

90% of press releases were pro-climate action, only 10% were anti-climate action. That’s makes it less newsworthy if an org is pro climate action.

Let’s also talk about scale in the study- it looked at 1,794 press releases. Only 10% of those were anti climate action, and only 14% of those were cited, so we are talking about 25 press releases over 20 years, as opposed to 113 pro-climate press releases. That means that 81% of covered PRs are pro climate action instead of 90% of press releases- readers would still get the impression that an overwhelming majority of orgs are pro climate action.

I have other quibbles here (climate consensus has changed over the last 35 years), but I definitely didn’t come away agreeing that there is something fundamentally wrong with journalistic standards as the article and abstract imply.

Murders are rare and newsworthy, but while they get news coverage, it's rare for a killer to get favourable news coverage. It's not rare for liar-liar-pants-on-fire level of climate denialism to get favourable news coverage.

90% of press releases were pro-climate action, only 10% were anti-climate action. That’s makes it less newsworthy if an org is pro climate action.

"When a dog bites a man, that is not news, because it happens so often. But if a man bites a dog, that is news."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_bites_dog

What do you mean, climate consensus has changed?

To be clear, I'm talking about views and understanding in broader society, not the scientific community. 35 years is a long time- roughly half the humans in the US weren't alive 35 years ago. It'd be surprising if nothing had changed.

(edit: although maybe things have not changed as much as my lived experience tells me: https://news.gallup.com/poll/1615/environment.aspx)

Debate on climate is now much more interesting than whether or not climate change is real or caused by humans. Those things are pretty well established. Now people are debating what the appropriate actions are, and it's much more nuanced.

For example, we have the "eco-pragmatists" like Michael Shellenberger publishing "Apocalypse Never" that involves some really interesting interviews and points about how economic development can be more important for people living on the edge of the Amazon rainforest or alongside Virunga National Park in the Congo from the perspective of climate resilience. In other words, having modern electricity and infrastructure seems more likely to help people in these situations than rapid decarbonization, especially given our slow progress in decarbonization and that fact that the world today is still >80% fossil fueled.

He also suggested a merit order of fuels that went: biomass < coal < natural gas < nuclear. Moving from left to right is good, but moving from right to left is bad, he argues.

He published this with a pretty abrasive blog post featuring undersupported controversial points and basically got blacklisted and deplatformed by the major media outlets. Yes, he seems to have cherry-picked a bit to support his narrative, but that's something all authors do.

And we have the Michael Moore produced doco on Youtube (Planet of the Humans) that criticized the mainstream green energy narrative and also got temporarily deplatformed due to outcry.

I have found interesting insight in these people even though I've considered climate change one of the major challenges of our time for 20 years now. It's certainly interesting times.

>And we have the Michael Moore produced doco on Youtube (Planet of the Humans) that criticized the mainstream green energy narrative and also got temporarily deplatformed due to outcry.

That pseudo-documentary was so dishonest, though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_of_the_Humans#Factual_a...

As Dana Nucitelli said: "The film's case is akin to arguing that because fruit contains sugar, eating strawberries is no healthier than eating a cheesecake."

That section lists very weak criticism. Some solar farms are lower efficiency than others. So what? That doesn't go against any of the points made in the film. They did not say that all solar farms have lower-than-average capacity factors. The fact that you can get deplatformed for this really surprises me. This level of technical criticism is not even remotely proportional to the massive negative backlash it got. Clearly there's a higher-level battle being fought.

A lot of what it had to say about the combustion of renewable biofuels (air pollution, carbon emissions) was pretty right-on though, and is not very well known.

The fact that there are indeed actual externalities to renewable energy is a conversation that needs to be had. I think a lot of people are hoping they won't be too bad at scale.

I would say that a major question now is not "are humans responsible", or even (merely) "what should humans do about it." The real unsettled question now is: how bad is it going to be, and when we don't know for sure, how much should we weight the various bad outcomes?

Without some understanding of this, it's really hard to know how to weigh remediation arguments. If we're facing even a small possibility of worse-than-expected outcomes (as several models are currently predicting [1]) or methane feedback loops [2], then arguments like Shellenberger's aren't really that persuasive.

Unfortunately we're barely getting to the point where a majority of Americans even accept that humans are causing this, despite the overwhelming evidence. So I'm not expecting a particularly informed debate until it's way too late.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-03/climate-m... [2] https://www.sciencealert.com/there-s-a-strange-methane-leak-...

>The real unsettled question now is: how bad is it going to be, and when we don't know for sure, how much should we weight the various bad outcomes?

If you wave a magic wand and reduce CO2 emissions by 90% today we will still reach the same bad outcomes eventually. Politicians are going to tell us we still have 100 years left and will just ignore the topic until it becomes a priority again.

Think of it like having a back injury that gets more painful over time. You're going to react based on how intense the pain is, not based on how much time has passed.

I think of it like having a growing tumor. Maybe it doesn't hurt now, but all the doctors are telling you that you need to take it out or it will metastasize. You won't live forever if you take it out, but you'll potentially live a whole lot longer.

After reading this article, my mind simplified the findings as: organizations that have more money get more press than those that have less. Seems pretty obvious when framed in this manner.

If two very reliable scientific studies come out about the same subject, one confirming what everyone already knows about it, and the other one finding some basic flaw in the accepted science that entirely challenges our understanding of it- in that case, which one do you think would have more press?

It seems only natural to me that the more interesting one is the one challenging our knowledge: its (potential) information content is higher, simply because it is less probable.

In other words, in the current world an article pushing for climate change activism might be the classic "dog bites man" while the opposite is "man bites dog".

I agree with your premise, but nobody is finding basic flaws in climate science that challenge our understanding of it.

But you don't know that unless you read the article, right?

Warning: light hyperbole in this first paragraph: We don't really know because anything that could challenge it sadly get summarily downvoted without an explanation.

I believe in it but it is sad to see that we are so scared of it that we cannot even bother to explain why something is wrong and instead have to opt for

- name calling

- appeal to authority

- strawmen

every time.

Again: I don't work for big oil. I don't fly and haven't for years. I reduce, reuse and recycle and do all the right things.

But there are still a number of questions I have that I cannot get answers for because if I ask them before anyone who knows has a chance to answer someone will summarily downvote and/or flag it and say I am a JAQ-ing shill. (JAQ = Just Asking Questions is a known bad tactic, but it is incredibly frustrating to be accused of that when I just want to know the answer.)

Something getting downvoted is different from a study presenting solid data not getting published. As far as I know there is no solid data refuting the consensus as described for example in the IPCC reports.

But then maybe we should treat with the same scepticism studies diverging from the IPCC consensus in either direction. Those that downplay the risks of climate change as well as those that announce catastrophic outcomes that are not considered likely by the IPCC.

If you look at climate policy we treat everything with extreme skepticism that tells us any change is necessary. Announced climate goals fall way short of anything the IPCC reports would support, and implemented policies fall short even of those unambitious goals.

There isn't, but I frankly think that many people would call the IPCC consensus "anti-climate action" if you summarized it without telling them what it was. The IPCC consensus doesn't predict anything tremendously apocalyptic; they just think the required adaptations will be disruptive and costly, enough so that some countries won't be able to afford them.

If someone in academia spent serious time and money trying to disprove climate change, they would be laughed out of their job. But this is a horrible culture because we won't learn anything by publishing the same dogma over and over.

Even if you are 100% convinced climate change is happening (as most of us are), funding people who are trying to disprove it is a necessary and useful function of science.

Every one in academia working towards proving that climate change is real is also working towards proving it's not real.

In fact, if you go into it with a pre-conceived bias that disagrees with everything everybody else has seen, you'll be laughed out of it. You should be laughed out of it too if your bias aligned with what everybody else has seen.

Agree in theory, but alas, not in practice. Nobody's going to get funding for disproving/attacking climate theories.

But everyone is getting funding for collecting new and looking at existing data and thinking of new ways to validate that our climate models can be trusted. If they happen to find evidence that disagrees with the established theory they're in great luck because surprising results get published whereas confirming what we know lands in third tier journals.

Just having the mindset of "we need to validate this" isn't enough. Having the mindset of trying to disprove a theory encourages people to look in new areas. Diversity of thought is important because a monoculture stalls innovation and creativity.

I am making a general argument. Things that are somehow unexpected tend to get more attention that those which are granted.

The article says:

"While just 10% of the press releases Wetts found featured anti-climate action messaging..."

Which means that 90% of the press releases contain pro climate action statements. Seems only natural that people tend to be more curious towards information that is less expected. According to the numbers given (90% vs 10%, 7% vs 14%) about 80% of all the information the public is exposed to is pro climate action.

Correct, and pretending it does just gives the climate deniers legitimacy.

> “Journalists seem to feel that they always have to include opposing voices when they report on climate change,” Wetts said. “But sometimes they give those opposing voices so much weight, they lead readers to believe that climate denial is more than a fringe stance.”

Interesting. I agree that false equivalency should be avoided. But in all honesty, humans love novelty, so disproportionately covering things like this makes sense, even if wrong

There is really nothing novel about climate denial.

"Novel" as in less-ordinary compared to what my filter bubble shows me, not as in new

If a large portion of the population thinks climate denial is not a good thing climate denial is also an outrage prompter, prompting outrage is good business in 2020.

> prompting outrage is good business in 2020

Yes, in the social media sense. But there's plenty to be outraged about regardless of that.

I don't know if this is a US thing. Here in Europe, and as an avid reader of the news and various reporting, I can assure you that climate change activism is as mainstream as it can be (also because it easily inserted itself over a generic green, new age-ish movement that was there much before climate change became the focus of attention).

And I don't know how niche HN is (not much, I'd say, although it's certainly not a generalist forum either) but also here you can see that any comment that can be construed as the vaguest criticism of climate change action is promptly downvoted.

> Here in Europe, and as an avid reader of the news and various reporting, I can assure you that climate change activism is as mainstream as it can be

I'm from Germany, and certainly the situation is different from the US. However I'd argue in large parts we just have a different flavor of climate denial. I.e. "yeah climate change is happening, but [something unrelated that changes nothing about climate change]... let's not do too much".

I mean no european country is on a trajectory of acting on climate change with the speed needed to fulfil even the goals that every country already agreed to.

"climate denial" is a purely polemic, derogatory term with no meaning and sole intent to put skeptics in the same corner as Holocaust deniers.

What makes them different apart from the subject? People saying anthropogenic climate change isn't real are ignoring overwhelming historical evidence, as with Holocaust deniers.

First of all, Holocaust deniers deny that the Holocaust happened, when the Holocaust is an indisputable historical fact with thousands of survivors and millions of relatives of victims and denying that is offensive and malicious. So-called "climate deniers" deny neither the existence of climate, nor climate change, nor anthropogenic climate change (most of them anyway), they are simply not convinced that the magnitude of the effect of human carbon dioxide emissions is represented correctly in the alleged "consensus" (which it provably isn't) of climate scientists. Especially after climate scientists were caught in the act of tampering with data in order to hide past warming periods. So there is a difference regarding the malicious intent, the moral dimension and the legitimacy of claims. As anyone who tries to debate it with an open mind and honest arguments would know.

Ah, I generally don't consider doubts of that nature (merely the magnitude of our effect being questionable) to qualify someone as a "climate denier", at least personally. I reserve it for the ones who call it a hoax, or say that warming trends are completely natural, or one of the many other easily refutable claims.

Well, I don't know what to tell you but CO2 emissions from fossil fuels accumulate in the atmosphere. There is this weird thing happening that since 1960 the CO2 content in the atmosphere has risen from 300ppm to 400ppm. It's up to you to believe whether that is a coincidence. Random googling tells me we emit 36 billion tonnes per co2 per year. Even more random googling tells me there are 3 trillion tonnes of CO2 in the atmosphere. It's not hard to put them together and conclude that humanity responsible for growing the CO2 in the atmosphere by 1% every year right now. Now lets say these numbers are complete garbage and inaccurate (which they certainly are) and say they are off by 70% (which they certainly are not) and the a highly conservative number is closer to 0.3%. After 30 years 9% of CO2 in the atmosphere is man made assuming we start off with 0% man made CO2 (obviously not true).

The point of this comment is not to prove that there is a certain percentage of man made CO2 in the atmosphere because I don't have accurate numbers. The point is that humanity is powerful enough to reach an arbitrarily high percentage of man made CO2 in the atmosphere and it is certainly possible for 50% of the CO2 in the atmosphere to be of human origin if we wait long enough and do nothing.

> After 30 years 9% of CO2 in the atmosphere is man made assuming we start off with 0% man made CO2 (obviously not true).

So why do you try to argue something based on assumptions that are by your own admissions obviously not true?

What is the "normal" amount of CO2 in the atmosphere? What amount is optimal? What difference does it make to the atmosphere whether the CO2 is according to us of human origin or not?

Presumably, nobody sane believes we're at historically high levels of CO2 right now, past levels at 1000-4000ppm are not really disputed in the scientific community.

It's the rate of change in CO2 levels that is unprecedented in human history and for a long time in earths history. The effects of that change include ocean acidification and habitat loss for many species. It stands to reason that atmospheric change on a timescale much smaller than what natural selection and species adaptation normally occur at could be very damaging to all sorts of ecosystems.

The reason to include alternative views isn’t for when you’re right (as in climate change), it’s for when you’re wrong (Iraq, Libya). You cannot know in absolute terms when you’re right or wrong, so you have to allow for dissenting views. It makes things more muddied and complicated, but the alternative leads to top down authoritarianism “because we said so!”

I fail to see how freedom of speech applies to academia.

What? It’s just as important here. Let’s say we’re looking for a vaccine for a pandemic disease. Do you want people to censor what’s allowed to be published before we know what works and doesn’t?

That is not quite how it works. In fact, major science journals would review submissions and decide which ones are publishable.

Should anybody be able to publish anything, even if it is wrong or outright false, in the same platforms used to spread actual, verifiable, knowledge? I don't think so.

Science journals review articles based on the quality of their methods, not their accuracy. If I do an experiment and find neutrinos moving faster than light, it's almost certainly incorrect, but if none of the reviewers can find an actual issue with the methods, it's still very much publishable. They can't stop something from being published just because they don't like what its saying.

> They can't stop something from being published just because they don't like what its saying.

This is still not an issue with the methodology itself. Science journals do not abide to the general notion of freedom of speech.

Lots of places have restrictions on how you can say something, but still give wide berth to what ideas you can say. Just because I'm not free to express my distaste for The Last Airbender by punching M. Night Shyamalan does not mean I am not free to voice that opinion. Science journals can require your speech to be in a certain form, namely it must be science, but you are not barred from publishing anything because of what you are saying. While some institutions, like the US Federal Government, might be held to higher standards, this is what most people are referring to when talking about freedom of speech on a platform.

There are alternative views and there are disingenuous views. Do you include the ones you believe to be disingenuous as well?

I think

"Climate change is a hoax" - Exxon consultant with a phD in communications

is a lot more useful than

"Climate change is a hoax" - Professor that the media doesn't want you to hear from

If you include disingenuous views, you can counter them, and present your evidence for why you believe them to be disingenuous. If you ignore them, they will simply take their spiel to the next news outlet until one of them gives them a platform.

Any article about impending catastrophes that may well end up wiping us all from the Planet are a bit hard to tolerate. When we are confronted to them our brain automatically trigger its best protection mechanism, which is denial. We immediately think of thousands of reasons convincing us that the article is wrong, misinformed, etc. Another article with any explanation of why the first one is wrong is therefore much more pleasant to our brain. That's why denial articles get more coverage. That's also why we don't clearly see the reality and why we do nothing to prevent our impending doom.

Yet post-apocalyptic entertainment media is a thriving niche.

Would that be for the same reason automobile traffic slows to a crawl when there is a traffic accident to view? (Not talking about traffic in the same direction which is subject to lane closure and slowed down for safety of responders but traffic in the opposite direction.)

Or they're sensationalistic worst-case scenarios that get views. There's a big difference between climate change being an ongoing challenge for civilization and we're all doomed.

Alcohol has positive health benefit articles get far more shares than alcohol has negative health benefit articles. People/companies like to share things that support their views and advertising dollars.

Reading the linked article, and not the full text of the article, I do not see what the criteria was for determining what constitutes a position "opposing climate action." Is it defined more in the full article? Opposing climate action can be defined on a broad spectrum, which will cross political and other boundaries. For instance, if a company or group opposed Green New Deal legislation, that is a big difference from opposing implementation of any action.

1922 Walter Lippmann kickstarted the idea of "news value" which lists criteria predicting whether an event or narrative is worth printing.

He proposed the following, and we can apply them here to compare the two types of news:

Oddity: anti-climate wins

Sensationalism: anti-climate wins

Damage: anti-climate wins

Establishment, Duration, Structure, Relevancy, Use, Prominency, Proximity: about equal

(Translations mine, couldn't find good English ones)

Thus, the result is little surprising. Still a good study, the obvious should also be proved!

> When organizations take a stand against actions to combat climate change, they get more news coverage than their pro-climate action peers

Could it be that news organizations are doing this as a way of publicly shaming? In which case the discrepancy makes perfect sense.

Broadly speaking, the press loves the nutters. They make a sensational story and draw eyeballs. This is fine, but then both-sidesing leads to the normalization of nuttery. Fact checking is hard work, and not adequately compensated. It's a public good problem, a failure of capitalist incentives to protect the public interest. Often the impulse is to use regulation to circumscribe such damages, but in the case of the press, doing so has unconscionable consequences as well. It will take a simple act of genius, restructuring the markets for public information (supply side), and/or a leap in public education and conscience (demand side) to address such a wicked problem.

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Clickbait study finds clickbait generates clicks.

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