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PMU199 Week 6: Why are people confused about climate change?

(from the course PMU199H1S: Climate Change - Software, Science and Society)

Ideas we covered this week

Note: you can click on any of the images to expand them

	Who should we believe? We spent some time in class working out where we would put different people & groups on a credibility spectrum, based on how much expertise they have, whether they present personal opinion or a broader consensus, and how much bias they are likely to be subject to. We might differ on where exactly to place different people or organisations, but can probably agree on some general principles for judging credibility. Image Credit: Kate at ClimateSight. See also: Greg Craven's credibility spectrum at the Manpollo project. Greg's book "What's the worst that could happen?" is an interesting personal exploration of how to think about climate change.
	Polished documentaries are very persuasive. We spent some time in class watching (excerpts from) the Channel 4 documentary, "The Great Global Warming Swindle". The movie uses a number of filmmaking and narrative techniques to construct a powerful argument that scientists are lying, and climate change is not a problem we should be worrying about. Image Credit: Martin Durkin, "The Great Global Warming Swindle" 2006.
	The movie has been thoroughly debunked. For example, this youtube video from Peter Sinclair covers some of the main issues with the claims made in the movie, and counters them with interview clips from climate scientists. Image Credit: Peter Sinclair's Climate Denial Crock of the Week
	It showed outdated science and misleading graphs. This more detailed presentation by Chris Merchant at Edinburgh University has a more detailed analysis of how climate science is distorted in the movie. Image Credit: Chris Merchant, Commentary on the Great Global Warming Swindle. A better quality MP4 version is here.

Suggested Readings

Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming.

Note: Detailed resources in support of the book can be found online at merchantsofdoubt.com

A well researched account of the history of how powerful industry lobbyists developed a strategy to convince people that the science is still too uncertain to take action on key public health and environmental protection issues. Oreskes and Conway demonstrate how the same small group of scientists who were paid by the tobacco industry to lie about the link between smoking and cancer were subsequently employed by the oil companies to lie about the science of climate change.