[lbo-talk] Climate change and elections

[Eleutherios]

There's a piece in Rolling Stone about TV weather presenters as 
denialists. Some are meteorologists, many aren't, and those that are 
rarely posses advanced degrees or are/ever were practicing scientists. 
Among those with some meteorological background, the "broadcast 
meteorology" (Mississippi State University is a major player) degrees 
are specifically designed with hard science removed. RS importantly also 
goes into structural reasons why climate change is discouraged being 
discussed, even when one understands science and admits anthropogenic 
global warming. 
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/forecasting-denial-why-are-tv-weathercasters-ignoring-climate-change-20121205

FAIR did do some work on it:
http://fair.org/take-action/action-alerts/global-warming-silence-on-sunday-tv/

http://www.fair.org/blog/2012/11/06/yes-you-can-talk-about-climate-change-on-tv/
http://www.fair.org/blog/2012/11/05/worst-media-moment-on-hurricane-sandy/
http://www.fair.org/blog/2012/11/01/howd-you-like-that-hurricane-we-made/

I can say that the papers/presentations at the ongoing AGU Fall Meeting 
in San Francisco http://fallmeeting.agu.org/2012/ are foreboding. 
Scientists are extremely concerned as uncertainty on the overarching 
stuff has all but evaporated. Substantial warming, with 4 °C very likely 
and 5 °C quite possible is coming, with massive disruptions to 
civilization such as severe cuts in food production (e.g. 27% decrease 
in rice production, 42% decrease in irrigated wheat --this is coincident 
with rising demand and accounts for areas that will increase and 
decrease production), coastal flooding, and increased extreme weather, 
as well as environmental destruction such as mass extinctions (the rate 
of extinctions, already elevated 100-105% above background, will rise 
another 10-100%, with one study finding 10% of global species going 
extinct for each 1 °C in warming). Paper after paper is coming out 
showing warming at the high end (or above) of projections across various 
subdisciplines.

4-6° of warming is utterly out-of-kilter with natural history 
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/ca/EPICA_temperature_plot.svg/2000px-EPICA_temperature_plot.svg.png 

as is CO2 concentration 
http://climate.nasa.gov/system/content_pages/main_images/evidence_CO2.jpg


> On 31-Oct-12 19:21, Nicholas Roberts wrote:
>> Its an amazing example of thought control in democratic society that the
>> election candidates, and the tv news, especially the weather channel can
>> talk at length about sandy but never mention the cc word
>>
>> Climate change
>>
>> What is FAIR doing? Any news content a analysis on this?
>>
>> Chomsky help?
>> ___________________________________
>> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>