The Los Angeles Times’ decision to no longer print letters from those who deny the reality of climate change is rightly seen as a major step in restoring some semblance of order in public discussions and debates (“On letters from climate-change deniers“).
Paul Thornton, the newspaper’s letters editor, wrote:
As for letters on climate change, we do get plenty from those who deny global warming. And to say they “deny” it might be an understatement: Many say climate change is a hoax, a scheme by liberals to curtail personal freedom.
Before going into some detail about why these letters don’t make it into our pages, I’ll concede that, aside from my easily passing the Advanced Placement biology exam in high school, my science credentials are lacking. I’m no expert when it comes to our planet’s complex climate processes or any scientific field. Consequently, when deciding which letters should run among hundreds on such weighty matters as climate change, I must rely on the experts — in other words, those scientists with advanced degrees who undertake tedious research and rigorous peer review.
And those scientists have provided ample evidence that human activity is indeed linked to climate change. Just last month, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — a body made up of the world’s top climate scientists — said it was 95% certain that we fossil-fuel-burning humans are driving global warming. The debate right now isn’t whether this evidence exists (clearly, it does) but what this evidence means for us.
And what they’ve decided it means is that public discussion is not aided by those who simply refuse to recognize the weight of scientific evidence.
A subsequent report on CNET describing the new L.A. Times policy noted a broader move by Popular Science magazine (“LA Times cuts off climate-change deniers“).
Last month, another mainstream source of science news, the magazine Popular Science, took an even more direct approach to removing the deniers from the climate-change discussion. On September 24, PopSci announced that it is shutting off comments on its Web site .
Suzanne LaBarre, PopSci’s online content director, wrote, “Everything, from evolution to the origins of climate change, is mistakenly up for grabs again. Scientific certainty is just another thing for two people to ‘debate’ on television. And because comments sections tend to be a grotesque reflection of the media culture surrounding them, the cynical work of undermining bedrock scientific doctrine is now being done beneath our own stories, within a Web site devoted to championing science.”
In May, Mother Jones reported that researchers at George Mason University found that “when it comes to online commenting, throwing bombs gets more attention than being nice, and makes readers double down on their preexisting beliefs.” The magazine mentioned climate-change articles as the main platform for these comment bombs.
A column by two leaders of the Safe Climate Campaign published in USA Today took another approach by likening climate change deniers to the minions of Big Tobacco (“Climate deniers meet Joe Camel“).
Half a century ago, the tobacco industry tried to preserve its market by misleading Americans about the scientific validity of research demonstrating that smoking causes cancer. To weaken efforts to fight global warming, the “climate change denial machine,” in the words of the Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society, has been using that same strategy. For more than 20 years it has sought to cast doubt on the science that demonstrates that the climate is changing and pollution is to blame.
Why is anyone still paying attention?
The denial lobby is using pseudo-science and cherry-picked data to present the fringe view that global warming is nothing more than what Sen. James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, famously called “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.”
These issues are familiar to anyone with a site that allows comments, since we know nasty comments can easily derail an otherwise constructive discussion thread.
I sometimes step in to edit or remove comments, but it’s a mine field. At least one friend is now boycotting this site after I cut one of his comments.
Another CNET column is worth reading in this context (“When Internet trolls attack: A view from the receiving end“).
In any case, I’m glad to see these policy changes, and will be interested to see what other changes we’ll be seeing going forward.
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Anyone recall how long it took to shut down the bleating of the Flat World Society believers?
Yes, Hugh, but they just keep coming back for more. Like a game of whack-a-mole, for every one you dispatch, another Bob McDermott raises his head!
Seems fitting to share this a commentary on comment sections I found on TechCrunch.com: http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/13/shouts-and-murmurations/
Here’s a an excerpt: “…so the first thing we should do is acknowledge the almost universally poor quality of Internet-based discussion. Very little worthwhile commentary or argument is produced even on the rare occasions when things are kept civil. Certain communities produce reliably good discussions, but we can chalk that up to their being communities.”
Too many people have worried about being judged intolerant and so have simply abandoned good sense when challenged by idiotic trolls who demand ‘equal time.’ The media has been the worst in this regard.
There is no virtue in tolerating malevolent ‘campaigns’ – be they launched by corporations or fools. Big props to the LA Times!
I appreciate the community of commenters on your blog, Ian, and appreciate the role you play in keeping the tone civil.
While the fact that humans pollute the environment is not subject to reasonable debate, the extent that we do it and costs involved in curtailing our activities needs to be vigorously discussed by scientists and non-scientists alike. If you close off those in complete denial, you still have to figure out who you are going to let in from the “it’s not that bad” side of things. There are a lot of people not ready to give up their hydrocarbon lifestyles or their jobs if they are in a related industry. When this is a large part of a population, it is not as simple as just framing them out of the debate.
I’m all for suppressing view points that disagree with mine.
I think the climate change deniers are being funded by the coal and oil industry exactly in order to disrupt any balanced discussion over what regulations should be put in place, what incentives should be instituted, like carbon taxes or even carbon trading. The corporations have used Fox News, talk radio and the Tea Party to push “the debate” so far to the Right and into irrationality that liberals are willing to accept ANY concessions, just grateful they can find a “moderate” Republican to deal with.
I appreciate online sites woking to maintain civility and rationality. When I attend a meeting, we generally are pretty informal about how we conduct the business. But we always have “roberts Rules of Order” in reserve. The purpose of Roberts Rules is not to suppress debate and deliberation, but to keep it overly, thereby FACILITATING that debate.
If I throw a party and someone starts being rude to the other guests, I will take him aside and ask him to behave. If he gets too out-of-hand, I will ask him to leave. In a real life party, he is likely to get punched out by another guest if he refuses to go. The guests on Ian’s blog (and other online discussions, cannot physically throw someone out of the “yard,” so it falls on the host to act.
Without mentioning names, there are repeat visitors on this blog whose goal is to disrupt calm discussion. I think it is a weakness of some liberals to allow such efforts to sabotage the discussion under the false guise of “freedom of speech.” I appreciate Ian’s efforts on our behalf.
BTW, one of the most obnoxious trolls uses his own name, so requiring names is no barrier to rudeness. For some perverse minds, it may incentivize obnoxious behavior if the troll likes getting attention.
How droll of anonymous Kolea to label an unnamed commenter who uses his real name when commenting on this site a . . . troll. It seems to me that anonymous commenters are like some politicians who call themselves Democrats. They hide behind the big D while proposing legislation that gives Democrats the hives.
There is more than one kind of climate change ‘denier.’ There are the crackpots like Inhofe, but if you take the time to look around (and make yourself trusted), you will find that there are plenty of top-notch scientists who are skeptics.
I agree it’s a real problem keeping the idiots out of the discussions, although I do not agree that all, or even most of the idiots are of the denier persuasion. Just spend a while in the comment section at Real Climate and you will discover a lot of seriously deranged people on the climate change acceptance side.