It’s getting hot in here

October 4th, 2006 | Australian Politics, Media

Climate change has been a big issue for a long time, or a non-issue according to some governments and journalists.

This post comes from a comment at Crikey, saying peer-reviewed scientific journals are the most relevant way of determining the accuracy of…well, whatever it is they’re studying, precisely because their peers review it, and it doesn’t get published if the data is wrong. That said, there are a multiplicity of peer-reviewed papers showing “evidence that global warming is happening, that it is caused largely by humanity, and that it means we are in for a rough time”.
More importantly, “look at the number of peer-reviewed papers in reputable journals that show evidence that climate change is not happening, or that it’s not due to human influence. You’ll be able to count the number of the second kind on a snake’s right hand”.

You can read the comment in full at the bottom of this post.

Australia and the USA have, for a long time, been fairly strongly set against the Kyoto Protocol - one of their main reasons is that they claim being ‘green’ is not good for business. Al Gore recently came out with his docu-movie “An Inconvient Truth”, which I haven’t seen yet, but is getting good reviews and commendations from scientists as well.

Rupert Murdoch has backed the anti-climate change stance for a long time in his media outlets. In the last few weeks, however, two of his big papers in the UK have editorialised for environmental reform. If Murdoch has changed his mind, and all his media voices follow suit, that represents a big change for governments (and yes, one person does have that much power).

Comment from Crikey (it’s at the bottom of the page linked to).

Russell Dovey writes: It’s a shame that most people have to rely on scientifically illiterate journalists for their information about climate change. It is only because the media instinctively gives the supporters of both sides of any issue equal coverage that there is still a “global warming debate”. I say to all those interested in the truth of the matter: Look at the number of peer-reviewed papers published in reputable scientific journals that show evidence that global warming is happening, that it is caused largely by humanity, and that it means we are in for a rough time. Peer-reviewed papers are the gold standard for scientific research; they are the beating heart of the scientific body. Anyone can pick out dodgy statistics, think they’re a rebel, and write a book about it; any galah with a keyboard can spin plausible-sounding conspiracy theories about a global cabal of greenie scientists attacking the economy; but getting a paper published in a peer-reviewed journal is only possible if you work very hard to exclude any bias in gathering your data. Your experiments are checked independently by a number of other scientists in your field, so any errors will stop your work from being published. Now, look at the number of peer-reviewed papers in reputable journals that show evidence that climate change is not happening, or that it’s not due to human influence. You’ll be able to count the number of the second kind on a snake’s right hand.

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