Photo: Ivan Lian from Flickr Creative Commons
I should have known better. I have, in fact, known better in the past. But I went ahead anyway and opened the “global warming: yes or no?” can of worms.
Out wriggled literally thousands of impassioned words; dozens of links to this or that scientific study, all allegedly contradicting each other; a few ad hominem attacks; and copious use of words like “scathing,” “harsh,” “propagandists,” “internet troll,” “fears,” and (directed at me) “ludicrous!”
And that was just on the blog. Into my email inbox fell 29 messages and thousands of more six messages with quite a few words more from Marc Morano’s Blackberry. (Although I do appreciate the attention from the director of communications for Republican Senator James Inhofe on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, I may not have time to follow all the links in all the comments and messages until May when classes are over.)
What did it all signify? Not much, I’m afraid. I doubt a single mind was changed by the discussion, let alone opened to new ways of thinking about the issues. I doubt the debate helped to increase policy options. And despite my best efforts, I doubt that a respectful and civil tone was encouraged. On a skeptic’s blog, I learned that Morano had “wiped the floor” with me, and I was obliquely referred to as a “denier.” Of what I’m not entirely sure. After posting here that I found comparisons between climate skeptics and Holocaust deniers offensive (and taking quite a lot of flak from folks on the left for saying that), I found this particularly distressing. (To his credit, the blogger has since apologized.)
A dispassionate reader who knew nothing about the subject before encountering my blog posting and the nearly 40 comments would probably conclude that the IPCC is either infallible or some sort of evil political body intent on shoving scientific, socialistic authoritarianism down the throats of the world’s citizens. They might also conclude that erstwhile respected scientists with many years of impressive research to their credit are actually scientifically incompetent and a bunch of political hacks. That people who say humans are causing global warming and that the future holds risks we ought to avoid, are actually perpetrating a “hoax” — meaning they know what they’re saying isn’t true but are misleading people to advance their own agendas. And that people who believe humans are not causing global warming are as deluded or execrable as Holocaust deniers.
Most important, this hypothetical dispassionate reader would probably conclude that if humanity really does face serious challenges related to consumption of resources and resulting environmental stresses, we’re pretty much doomed because on these issues we resemble tribes of warring primates throwing scat at each other.
Yes, I exaggerate. And I am not accusing Marc of, well, scat-slinging. (He’s too talented a debater to have to resort to that.) I do admit that overall, the debate while impassioned was not offensive. But after an exhausting couple of days of trying to keep up with all the posting back and forth, the deluge of email messages, and the dozens of links to articles and studies, we didn’t accomplish much.
I see my job as a journalist and an academic as not just opening cans of worms but helping people bring some order to the mess. I don’t think I accomplished that here.
Addendum: For a thoughtful and informative response from a journalist, see Ann Menard’s blog here. Correction: In a previous iteration of this posting I said that Marc Morano had sent me something like 29 email messages. That was not correct. I forgot that every comment on the blog winds up as an email message in my inbox. I mistakenly counted all of the messages from Marc in my inbox. But as I said to him in an offline message, 29 total messages and comments on this posting is still pretty impressive.
This thing has 3 Comments
Tom -
I think your experience here raises important questions about how best to do journalism in this environment. The audience for your blog is self-selected, and is therefore not necessarily of the audience for journalism on this topic, but it is at least representative of a portion of that audience. What does that say about how your messages, and those of the students you’re sending out into the world, are received by audiences?
Great question John. I don’t know the answer — I have to give it some thought. But right off the top of my head (always dangerous!): Our audiences are fragmenting, just as our work is. Daily journalists may file multiple times per day to the Web, then a final “story” at the end of the day, and then they’ll blog about the process for a readership interested enough to want conversation (or a shoutfest, depending on the topic). There are probably different audiences for each component. And each probably receives information differently. I’m not a media studies guy, so I’m afraid of going any further than that. But I’m going to ask my buds here at the J-school about it. Maybe I convince one of them to weigh in.
To do this you have to narrow the ground. Explain the universe, give two examples does not work, nor does climate change, true or false. What might work better is to look at a single issue, for example, are planting dates in the US getting earlier? Or is the arctic ice pack declining in the winter and/or the summer. Get a reasonable agreement on those, and then follow up with why…..FWIW
OTOH, Morano is not a skilled debater, he is a data dumper.