Alarming Weather and Global Warming
Our provocative science columnist John Tierney endured a hailstorm of responses for a column and blog post this week on the tendency of some climate campaigners to focus on extreme weather as a selling point for cutting greenhouse gases. Today he’s posted an explanation and defense of his view, echoing a lot of what I’ve been writing over the past several years.
My take is that the tug of war over what’s causing today’s telegenic heat waves, floods, tempests — and even Arctic sea-ice retreats — distracts from the high confidence scientists have in the long-term (but less sexy) picture: that more CO2 will lead to centuries of climate and coastal changes with big consequences for a growing human population (for better and worse in the short run, and likely mostly for the worse in the long run).
And, as I blogged recently, the media definitely have a tendency to get seduced by the “front page thought” when dealing with questions about climate and, say, hurricanes, and thus can miss the legitimate questions still surrounding the science that explores links of that sort. Journalists often migrate too quickly to conflict, as well, and thus can miss the strong consensus on the basics by paying outsize attention to stray, but loud, voices.
John and I often disagree, and we definitely have different roles in the media landscape. But on this overarching theme there’s a bit of synchrony.
To be continue in other article...
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