Comments on: Media enable denier spin 2: What if the MSM simply can’t cover humanity’s self-destruction?

By: J4zonian

J4zonian — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 19:27:26 +0000

Meacham said: “I absolutely believe that the media is not ideologically driven, but conflict driven. If we have a bias it’s not that people are socially liberal, fiscally conservative or vice versa. It is that we are engaged in the storytelling business. And if you tell the same story again and again and again – it’s kind of boring.”
The real story doesn’t have much conflict: It is the growing scientific (and technological) understanding that if we don’t sharply restrict greenhouse gas emissions soon, we face catastrophe ”

Wull, gosh, I absolutely believe that being conflict-driven and being ideologically-driven are one and the same. The conservative viewpoint is that the world is a dangerous place, full of conflict, and we must trust the father figures in our lives to protect us from it (God, fathers, warlord businessmen, the leader, rich people (who wouldn’t have been given all that if they didn’t deserve it)) and not the democratic voices of upstart scientists who want to upset the apple cart (and our comfortable society). And since we feel so many selfish impulses and are dominated by the feeling of being all alone in the world we know that the world IS just like that, right?

Wull, maybe not. We literally create ourselves, body and mind, by organizing ourselves around a story that we tell ourselves is our story AND the larger story of the world, and anything that doesn’t fit the story makes us feel nervous, or angry, or disdainful, or maybe makes us dissociate–cut ourselves off from awareness or its details or truth because it is too INTERNALLY conflictual for us tolerate. (Ironic, isnt it?) When we dissociate, we feel unconnected, which not only makes us feel more alone (thus reinforcing our conservativeness) it makes us BORED.

Thus, if liberals want to change the story in the newspaper, they have to deal with conservatives in a personal and non-threatening enough way to convince them it’s safe to let go of their story, their protective dissociation, and their identity as conservatives. That’s a vastly oversimplified version, but it brings me to 2:

Wouldn’t it be nice if we had the education, bravery and imagination to, instead of repeating the same basic dumbed-down story of conflict over and over and over and over… we could move in subsequent days, months and years to telling the fascinating, deeply moving and necessary further details of the story? That story would necessarily be one of drawing meanings from things–which is to say, it would be about seeing and understanding connections instead of isolated bits, which is to say, it would be about grokking things ecologically, which is to say, liberally. Or is that what we’re all doing here, instead of in People magazine?

By: rpauli

rpauli — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 04:38:24 +0000

Poor Andy Revkin. He works for a newspaper promoting high carbon consumption. He really cannot be too strident and keep his job.

The very wealthy of the world are well insulated from feeling and knowing much about climate instability. So they really won’t help

Business aims for quarterly profits, not looking decades out. They’re no help, unless there is a business case (maybe)

Childless adults over 40 will not really see much change and may not care to put much effort into anything.

Only families, planning multigenerationally have any motivation for change. But they have fewer resources and less political power than most.

I really don’t see much hope until more severe climate suffering motivates us.

By: Eli Rabett

Eli Rabett — Tue, 13 May 2008 20:24:02 +0000

The difference between projecting and predicting is that the former assumes some underlying process, such as what future emissions would be, and then projects the future climate. The later, prediction, predicts the emission scenario.

By: Eli Rabett

Eli Rabett — Tue, 13 May 2008 20:20:59 +0000

Adapt, we and our dead children will simply have to adapt, adapt, adapt.

By: Bob B

Bob B — Fri, 02 May 2008 23:22:26 +0000

Joe, you must be at a point of cognitive dissonance by now?
The Oceans are cooling, the Earth hasn’t warmed in 10yrs and you modelers are beginning to hedge their models on glabal coong for the next 10yrs—sounds like a we are at atipping poitn–we’re all gonna die–twits;

http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/ 2008/ 04/ 30/ a-look-at-hadcrut-global-temps-and-pdo-with-hodrick-prescott-filtering-applied/

By: Alex J

Alex J — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 23:59:51 +0000

Image URL was mangled. Trying again:

http://tinyurl.com/2xtncl

By: Alex J

Alex J — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 23:58:16 +0000

Interesting point above on agriculture. It’s not just temperature that needs to be considered when suggesting that broad swaths of Northern territory will benefit from moderate warming. Regional water availability, soil conditions (where there is much soil), and maybe even day length could be significant factors. This is the last I’ve seen for North American wheat (how much of the range will be rock?):

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/ media/ images/ 42380000/ gif/ _42380678_america_wheat_416×350.gif

By: Joe

Joe — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 16:30:34 +0000

I don’t see the sudden death/Lovelock scenario. Could happen, I suppose, but not very likely.

By: Club of Rome

Club of Rome — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 16:24:46 +0000

> nothing but millenia of misery for billions and billions of humans

Wrong. Sudden ugly death for billions. Misery for hundreds of millions.

By: Patrick49

Patrick49 — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 11:43:28 +0000

Paul K wrote “Climate models are based not so much on mathematics as on computer programming code involving data crunching algorithms.”
algorithm -A finite set of unambiguous instructions performed in a prescribed sequence to achieve a goal, especially a mathematical rule or procedure used to compute a desired result.
No mathematics there?

This also appears;
“Also, models do not predict; they project, a big difference”
predict -To state, tell about, or make known in advance, especially on the basis of special knowledge.
project- To calculate, estimate, or predict (something in the future), based on present data or trends.
What’s the big difference or any difference?