“Earth is now substantially out of energy balance. The amount of solar energy that Earth absorbs exceeds the energy radiated back to space. The principal manifestations of this energy imbalance are continued global warming on decadal time scales and continued increase in ocean heat content.” (James Hansen 2018)

“The people have no voice since they have no information” …“No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity – much less dissent.” (Gore Vidal)

With the exception of the few who comprehend the nature of a Faustian Bargain^[1], some billionaires, captains of industry and their political and media mouthpieces are driving humanity toward self-destruction through the two biggest enterprises on Earth, the fossil fuel industry, which is devastating the Earth atmosphere, and the industrial-military machine leading toward nuclear war. The rest of the world is dragged subconsciously, induced by bread and circuses.

[ 1880 - Feb. 2016 temperature anomaly from 1951-1980, source ]

By close analogy with the tobacco denial syndrome^[2], albeit with consequences affecting the entire Earth, the fossil fuel industry has been paying climate pseudoscientists to propagate fabricated untruths regarding the origins and consequences of global warming, widely disseminated by the media.

Despite irrefutable evidence for global warming, such fabrications are still quoted by pro-coal lobbies and compliant politicians, including:

1. Denial of basic laws of physics, i.e. the blackbody radiation laws of Plank, Stefan-Boltzmann and Kirchhoff^[3]
   
2. Denial of direct observations and measurements in nature, in particular the sharp rises of temperatures, ice melt rates, sea level rise and extreme weather events.
   
3. Denial of the global warming origin of extreme weather events, i.e. the closely monitored rise in storms, hurricanes, fires and droughts in several parts of the world.^[4]
   
4. Denial of the bulk of the peer-reviewed literature summed up in the IPCC reports.
   
5. Denial of conclusions of the world’s premier climate research organizations (NASA, NOAA, NSIDC (National Snow and Ice Data Centre), Hadley-Met, Tindale, Potsdam, WMO (World Meteorological Organization), CSIRO, BOM and other organizations).

In view of the rapidly growing direct evidence from the increase in extreme weather events, the common tactic has changed from outright denial to a minimization of the significance and consequences of the shift in state of the climate.

READ MORE: Crimes Against the Earth

Whereas news items channeled by international news agencies regarding extreme weather events are generally reported, at least by national broadcasters, the plethora of discussion and debate programs on TV and radio stations mostly overlook the enhanced toxic effects of carbon gases^[5], or relegate it behind sports and entertainment news. In most instances discussion panels focus on the inside political machinations rather than the critical issues themselves.

According to Mary Debrett^[6]:

“We are now in the middle of perfect storm of miscommunication about climate change. Various factors have converged to confound rational public conversation. Public opinion polling indicates that although there is widespread acceptance of climate change resulting from human activities, the public’s preparedness to pay for action to mitigate climate change is actually declining – even as climate scientists warn of the increasing urgency for action. These results signal a serious problem in the public communication of climate change. They reflect this perfect storm – where tensions between the media, politicians and various lobby groups have made it impossible for scientists and others with appropriate expertise, to cut through.”

The major influence the media exerts on public opinion^[7], and the extent to which it can be referred to as the “tail which wags the political dog”, allows it nearly as much, or more, political power as political leaders, chief bureaucrats and heads of corporation. A power accompanied with little responsibility.

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Notes

[1] To “strike a Faustian bargain” is to be willing to sacrifice anything to satisfy a limitless desire for knowledge or power. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Faustian_bargain

[2] https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/12/suppl_3/iii23

[3] https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/wea.2072; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-body_radiation

[4] https://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/science/climate_assessment_2012.html; https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/

[5] https://johnmenadue.com/andrew-glikson-the-abc-2018-year-roundup-and-the-defining-issue-of-our-time/

[6] https://www.latrobe.edu.au/big-fat-ideas/bold-thinking-social-conscience/the-media-on-climate-change-a-perfect-storm-of-miscommunication

[7] https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/the-role-of-media-in-public-opinion/8213158

The original source of this article is Global Research.

Andrew Glikson

by Dr Andrew Glikson
Earth and Paleo-climate science, Australian National University (ANU)

ANU Planetary Science Institute
ANU Climate Change Institute
Books:
http://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319079073
http://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789400763272
http://www.springer.com/us/book/9783319745442
http://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319225111
http://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319572369
http://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789400773318

Hearings of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology recently degenerated into a farce, as three fringe scientists were paraded next to “mainstream-scientist” Michael Mann. The Hearing turned out to have little or no intention to live up to its stated goal of examining the “scientific method and process as it relates to climate change” and instead turned into a theater to stage climate science denial.

Reports of the event confirmed the bias of mainstream media to focus on climate denial while ignoring the side of the Climate Spectrum that is sounding the alarm, as also illustrated by the image below.

Indeed, in discussions on climate change, why ignore the side of the Climate Spectrum that is sounding the alarm? Accordingly, a poll at the ArcticNews group asked: “Who would you instead like to appear in a discussion with Michael Mann?” The results are shown below:

It must be said that not all media are ignoring the warnings. Some media did pick up alerts, e.g. those contained in a recent post at Arctic-news, with the RT video getting a lot of views, shares and comments on facebook and youtube. Will there be further media following these examples?

Embed from Getty Images

David Cameron undertook a considerable gamble when he promised to try and get some reform of the EU in Britain's interests, in order to then pursue a referendum on continued membership.  Both elements of the same strategy, they were designed to lance the most lethal boil on the Tory body politic, Europe.

The country at large is not particularly bothered about Europe.  It's there, we're members, it's probably corrupt like most political institutions but hey, what can you do.  That's the broad line of thought - if any exists - that the majority probably have towards Europe.  It is completely at odds with the Tory world's utter obsession with the project.  The Telegraph's usually reliable sketch writer, Michael Deacon, tries to have a pop at Cameron's new deal by picking out its most obscure element and sarcastically suggesting it'll be the talk of the pubs (“Oh, well that changes everything. If Cameron’s won a declaration on the subsidiarity implementation mechanism and a burden reduction implementation mechanism, I’m definitely voting to stay in.")  

But the joke is surely on him, and the legion of other vein bursting commentators in today's papers.  People aren't talking about anything to do with Europe, subsidiarity implementation mechanism or otherwise.  This has always been about a Tory war in which the Prime Minister commands much the more depleted army.

Mr. Cameron has probably done as well - or better - as any leader of a single country within a large regional organisation could hope.  One Belgian MEP quickly ran through the gains Cameron had made on the Today programme, and it would be difficult to suggest that nothing has happened as a result of his intensive lobbying.

Whatever the Prime Minister has secured, he must always have known that it would be roundly and vigorously criticised by the die-hard Euro-scpetic establishment.  Herein will lie his most significant and dangerous battle.  Not in Brussels, amongst well-meaning diplomats and fellow politicos who are seeking some sort of helpful compromise that can keep Britain inside the EU.  It will be out in the newspapers of Britain.  Mr. Cameron will follow in John Major's footsteps in unleashing the full fury of the print press on him.  A glance at today's front pages gives you the general gist, and that's before you open up to read the splenetic outpourings of a legion of sclerotic right-wing iconoclasts.

British press owners are relentlessly anti-Europe for relentlessly commercial reasons.  With barely a single British taxpayer among this largely foreign domiciled elite, they can all see that a Britain freed from the market regulating restrictions of the EU is a country in which their commercial interests can thrive and survive with far less intrusive inspection than if she stays in.  It's good for their business to come out, even if that might not be the case for British business at large.  A Murdoch or a Barclay would much rather deal with the looser UK system than the prying eyes of EU commissioners.

The happy press owners are thus keen to give full leeway to their EU-hating writers, editors and pontificators.  This will be Cameron's battle.  He may be Prime Minister, but in this war he and his small band of supporters are going to be very much the David to the British media's mighty Goliath.  Every single news item about Europe, every apparently objective report on Cameron's negotiations and deals, will have to be read through the all-pervading anti-EU filter.  It will be a war of attrition - which started years ago - and the surprise will be if, at the end of the referendum process, the British people remain inured to their newspapers' injunctions and vote to stay in.  If they do, it will be one of the biggest blows to the power of the press ever struck.  The EU is almost a bystander.

Lynton Crosby is certainly entitled to a bit of triumphalism.  Getting Boris to London City Hall is one thing, but getting David Cameron back to Downing Street with a majority against all the odds certainly ranks as one of the great Lazarus tricks of modern politics.  So well done Mr. Crosby.  If you weren't already in the super-league of international political consultants, I guess you must be not only in it but near the top of it now.

He's left us with a bit of a gift too.  Not a big speaker to the press (no good campaign manager wants to be the story during a campaign, as Alastair Campbell should have realised) he has now given a departing interview to the Daily Telegraph.  Amongst all the post-election ink flow, this one provides some of the more interesting and controversial analyses, coming as it does from the man who won.

As I read his interview, I warmed to the man, far more than I might have expected.  It was two points in particular that produced that feeling of positivity towards an undoubted political rottweiler of the right.  First, apropos of a more significant point, he quoted that well worn canard that "Those who can do, those who can't teach".  I sighed internally for a brief instinctive moment as I read that one.  No teacher in this country has gone through their lives without having that one quoted incessantly at them by hilarious friends heading off to their long lunches in the city, or gobby students who have just been told off for yet another tedious infraction.  But my sigh quickly turned to a gasp of surprise.  Crosby was quoting this to do it down.  His wife, it turns out, was a teacher and "I don't really agree with that" he said.   Well, well.  Here was a human side I hadn't realised before.  And a possible explanation for one of his earliest influences on the Conservatives' election campaign - the removal of toxic Michael Gove from the Department of Education to the hidden (until the fiasco of the attempt to unseat the Speaker) realms of Chief Whip.

But the second reason for warming to Mr. Crosby was his second, more significant point.  He claims that it is not only pollsters who should be hanging their heads for failing to misread the nation.  He has a very vigorous, and heartfelt it seems, pop at the world of the political commentariat.  He adapts his teacher comment for the world of politics to read "Those who can do, those who can't commentate."  It was a feeling I'd had myself.  Not, I hastily add, the insight that the commentators had it all wrong.  That was a Crosbian intuition based on extensive internal polling.  My feeling was an increasing level of irritation at the apparently all knowingness of commentators who hadn't stepped out of the metropolitan bubble.  I blogged about it here, getting particularly irate at the desire of the commentators to keep knocking the campaign for its dullness instead of perhaps trying to enagage a little more deeply with the actual issues.  Andrew Marr was an annoying example of one who praised the wonderful brilliance of the commentariat but thought the actual campaign being waged by, you know, actual politicians on the ground, was just "tooth-grindingly awful".

Well, Crosby has launched his mighty artillery at them, and is firing a shot in defence of those who have bothered to participate.  The street pounders, canvassers, representatives and their agents, all seeking to do something a bit more than carp from the sidelines.

We need good commentators.  At their best they provide a much needed guide to the often treacherous paths of political discourse.  Divorced from the need to please an electorate they can bring some objective perceptions that illuminate the world that should so fascinate all of us.  But Crosby rightly condemns those who seem to see politics more as entertainment.  Better paid than many of the ordinaries whose vote is the warp and weft of the active politicians' work and voice, they have become too comfortable in their carping sanctimony.  I don't agree with his picking out of Tim Montgomerie necessarily, who has after all been engaged with the political world of both policy and voters rather more directly than many writers, but I do laud his broader principle.

We get the politics we deserve, but very often it is the media not the politicians themselves who too often frame our polity.  Yes, they should start taking some responsibility for that.