"Nearly Half of Americans Believe Climate Change Threat Is Exaggerated"

This shows how effective the Corporate (ie Conservative) Media is...

From the Guardian.UK:

By Suzanne Goldenberg

US belief in climate science lowest since polling began 13 years ago, with 31% saying the threat is 'definitely' a reality

Public belief in climate science has seen a precipitous slide in the US, according to new polling that suggests fewer Americans are concerned about the threat posed by global warming.

Nearly half of Americans – 48% – now believe the threat of global warming has been exaggerated, the highest level since polling began 13 years ago, the poll published today by Gallup said.

It directly linked the decline in concern to the controversies about media coverage of stolen emails from the University of East Anglia climate research unit and a mistake about the Himalayan glaciers melting by 2035 in the UN's authoritative report on global warming.

"These news reports may well have caused some Americans to re-evaluate the scientific consensus on global warming," Gallup said.

Half of Americans now believe there is a scientific consensus on climate change. Some 46% believe scientists are unsure about global warming, or that they believe it is not occurring. A UK poll last month showed adults who believe climate change is "definitely" a reality had dropped from 44% to 31% over the past year.

"The last two years have marked a general reversal in the trend of Americans' attitudes about global warming," Gallup said. "It may be that the continuing doubts about global warming put forth by conservatives and others are having an effect."

The poll feeds into fears among some environmentalists that the furore over the hacked emails has given new fuel to opponents of action on climate change, and stopped short the momentum in Congress for passage of a clean energy law.

A troika of Senators trying to draft a compromise climate bill that could get broad support said this week they may not be able to produce a draft until after the Easter recess, further reducing the chances of enacting legislation in 2010.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration faces lawsuits from Virginia, Texas, Alabama and a dozen business lobbies challenging its authority to act on greenhouse gas emissions through the Environmental Protection Agency.

Tim Wirth, a former Colorado senator who led the campaign against acid rain, told a conference call the science squabbles resembled a re-run of efforts to discredit that earlier effort for an environmental clean-up.

He said the scientists who worked on the IPCC report were woefully outmanoeuvred in PR by business groups which have the funds to employ legions of lobbyists and communications experts. "It's not a fair fight," he said. "The IPCC is just a tiny secretariat next to this giant denier machine."

A majority of Americans continues to believe that climate change is real, but they are less convinced of its urgency. Only 32% believe they will be directly affected by the consequences of a warming atmosphere, despite a major report by the Obama administration last year that climate change could bring flooding, heat waves, drought and loss of wildlife to the US.

Scientists, Global Warming and "Skeptics"

Recently I went to a lecture by Ben Brabson.

He is a physicist and climate scientist. He showed some of the latest data and also addressed the recent media problems. This is from the right wing making a big deal out of a couple of what were essentially typos in the IPCC report plus the content of some hacked emails.

I don't take such attacks by the right wing seriously anyway - but apparently some people do. Some media demigods pound away on these things until some people think that they are speaking the truth.

The IPCC thing was mostly in regards to the melting of the glaciers on the Himalayans. The data showed models where the glaciers may be gone by 2350, but in one place, the number 2035 was used. Apparently if one were to read the context, it would be clear that 2350 was the date - but the 2035 number has been used to discredit the entire 3000 page report.

The emails were the sort of thing where scientists were bantering back and forth - and which pieces were taken out to suggest that the scientists were not being forthright with the public. I can imagine climate scientists discussing some of the right-wing nonsense and it not sounding as scientific as what they would present to the public.

Ben Brabson said that he had worked with Phil Jones, the British climate scientist who had written many of the emails in question. Some of Brabsons emails were also part of the hacked ones. Brabson explained about one email in particular that could sound worse than it was.

From the New York Times: Scientists Taking Steps to Defend Work on Climate

“It’s clear that the climate science community was just not prepared for the scale and ferocity of the attacks and they simply have not responded swiftly and appropriately,” said Peter C. Frumhoff, an ecologist and chief scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “We need to acknowledge the errors and help turn attention from what’s happening in the blogosphere to what’s happening in the atmosphere.”

A number of institutions are beginning efforts to improve the quality of their science and to make their work more transparent. The official British climate agency is undertaking a complete review of its temperature data and will make its records and analysis fully public for the first time, allowing outside scrutiny of methods and conclusions. The United Nations panel on climate change will accept external oversight of its research practices, also for the first time...

Ralph J. Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences, the most prestigious scientific body in the United States, said that there was a danger that the distrust of climate science could mushroom into doubts about scientific inquiry more broadly. He said that scientists must do a better job of policing themselves and trying to be heard over the loudest voices on cable news, talk radio and the Internet.

“This is a pursuit that scientists have not had much experience in,” said Dr. Cicerone, a specialist in atmospheric chemistry.

The battle is asymmetric, in the sense that scientists feel compelled to support their findings with careful observation and replicable analysis, while their critics are free to make sweeping statements condemning their work as fraudulent....

“Scientists must continually earn the public’s trust or we risk descending into a new Dark Age where ideology trumps reason,” Dr. Pachauri said in an e-mail message.

But some scientists said that responding to climate change skeptics was a fool’s errand.

“Climate scientists are paid to do climate science,” said Gavin A. Schmidt, a senior climatologist with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies. “Their job is not persuading the public.”

The facts of the matter are that there are already plenty of actual global warming consequences. The models point to more - but it's not just a matter of looking to the models - it's a matter of seeing what is right in front of us. Sure there are people whose interest it is to pretend that there are no problems (people who profit by the status quo - by ignorance) and some will deny what is happening and try to prevent remedial action for as long as possible.

Fox News Trusted :(

According to the Guardian (UK), FOX news IS the most trusted news station is the US, and Glenn Beck is the "second favorite TV personality in the annual Harris Poll, behind only Oprah Winfrey".

This is bad news for our country. FOX has a toxic attitude - I hate to think of people adopting their mode of thought, their promotion of selfish "values"- sexism, racism, entitlement (for the well off).

"Mass media ‘screwing up’ global warming reporting"

From mongabay.com:

Stanford scientist and climate-specialist Stephen Schneider has called out media organizations for the quality of reporting on climate change and other scientific issues.

"Business managers of media organizations,” he said, “you are screwing up your responsibility by firing science and environment reporters who are frankly the only ones competent to do this."

Schneider points to CNN, which in December fired all of its science and technology reporters. "Why didn't they fire their economics team or their sports team?" asks Schneider. "Why don't they send their general assignment reporters out to cover the Superbowl?"

CNN stated that environmental issues would largely be covered by their TV series Planet in Peril, a program that is produced occassionally, with two film-length episodes airing since 2007.

Two of the employees let go by CNN were well-respected science producer, Peter Dykstra, and science reporter Miles O’Brien who spent 16 years at CNN. Schneider believes that coverage lacking scientifically-trained reporters and producers lose credibility and insightfulness.

"Science is not politics. You can't just get two opposing viewpoints and think you've done due diligence. You've got to cover the multiple views and the relative credibility of each view," said Schneider. "But that is not usually the problem of the well-trained reporters, who understand what is credible.”

Schneider’s frustration doesn’t stop at the media. He believes scientists are not living up to their responsibility to actively participate in scientific discussions with the mainstream media.

From Alternet - "The Top Ten Best Environment Stories of 2007"

10. The Property Cops: Homeowner Associations Ban Eco-Friendly Practices by Stan Cox, AlterNet

Homeowner association regulations often make environmental responsibility impossible by outlawing clotheslines, solar panels -- even gardens.

9. Do You Live in One of the World's 15 Greenest Cities? by Grist Magazine

Here's the top 15 cities and few runners up who have made the most impressive strides toward eco-friendliness and sustainability.

8. Why Having More No Longer Makes Us Happy by Bill McKibben, Mother Jones

The formula of human well-being used to be simple: Make money, get happy. So why is the old axiom suddenly turning on us?

7. Fighting the Corporate Theft of Our Water by Tara Lohan, AlterNet

The Bush administration is helping multinationals buy U.S. municipal water systems, putting our most important resource in the hands of corporations with no public accountability.

6. Ice Caps Melting Fast: Say Goodbye to the Big Apple? by Paul Brown, AlterNet

The talk of sea level rise should not be in centuries, it should be decades or perhaps even single years. And coastal regions like New York and Florida are in the front line for devastation.

5. The Great Biofuel Hoax by Eric Holt-Gimenez, Indypendent

Touted by politicians and industry as "green" energy, biofuels come with a high price tag.

4. Top 100 Ways Global Warming Will Change Your Life by Center for American Progress

Say goodbye to French wines, baseball and the Great Barrier Reef. Say hello to massive amounts of mosquitoes, the northwest passage and hurricanes.

3. Ten Ways to Prepare for a Post-Oil Society by James Howard Kunstler, Kunstler.com

The best way to feel hopeful about our looming energy crisis is to get active now and prepare for living arrangements in a post-oil society.

2. You Call Yourself a Progressive -- But You Still Eat Meat? by Kathy Freston, AlterNet

Eating a plant-based diet is an easy, cheap way to end animal cruelty and clean up the environment. Why, then, are so many progressives still clinging to their chicken nuggets?

1. What Al Gore Hasn't Told You About Global Warming by David Morris, AlterNet

George Monbiot's new book Heat picks up where Al Gore left off on global warming, offering real solutions without sugar-coating the large personal sacrifices they will require.
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Go to LINK for links to the articles...

"The Real Life of Bees"

By SUSAN BRACKNEY (Op Ed in the New York Times)

THE walking, talking, sneaker-wearing honeybees in Jerry Seinfeld’s animated film certainly are cute. But if a beekeeper like me had been in the director’s chair, “Bee Movie” would have looked quite a bit different.

In Hollywood’s version, there are more than three times the number of male roles than female ones, but a cartoon of my own hive would have thousands of leading ladies and only a handful of male extras.

The nurses that tend the young and the workers that forage for pollen; the guards that keep predators like skunks away and the undertaker bees that unceremoniously haul out the dead: they’re all female. And whereas the movie’s protagonist is repeatedly told he must choose just one job and stick with it, my honeybees rotate through all of the available duties.

“Bee Movie” makes only passing mention of the queen. But she’s the life of the hive, too busy producing perhaps a million eggs during her two-to-three-year existence even to feed herself (she has attendants for that). Were my Russian queen drawn for the big screen (think Natasha from “Rocky & Bullwinkle”), she would make quick work of the macho pollen jocks in “Bee Movie.”

That’s because non-animated drones don’t collect pollen, or make beeswax, or even have stingers. If Mr. Seinfeld wanted realism (and an R rating), his male bees would be sex workers who do little more than mate with the queen — after which their genitals snap off. Worse: when winter comes, worker bees shove the freeloading males out into the cold. If drones are required in the spring, the queen will simply make more of them.

Apiarists haven’t had much reason to laugh this year, because bees have been ravaged by colony collapse disorder, a mysterious malady that’s caused some beekeepers to lose 90 percent of their hives.

But one of every three or four bites of food we eat is thanks to bees; we truck bees many miles to pollinate about 90 different crops, from apples and oranges to almonds and blueberries, a punishing circuit that overtaxes the few colonies left. Of course, in “Bee Movie,” pollen jocks merely buzz past and barren landscapes bloom instantaneously into Technicolor glory.

But all these apiarian inaccuracies will be easy to forgive if wise-cracking animated honeybees finally get people to care about the rapidly disappearing real thing.

"Screen violence tied to boys' aggression"

Boys aged 2 to 5 who viewed an hour of on-screen violence a day increased their chances of being overly aggressive later in childhood, but the association was not seen in girls, researchers said on Monday.

"This new study provides further evidence of how important and powerful television and media are as young children develop," study author Dr. Dimitri Christakis of Seattle Children's Hospital Research Institute said.

"Of 184 boys (in the study), 25 of them had serious problems with aggression and for each hour on average per day they had watched violent TV, they were three times more likely to be in that group" than those who did not watch violent programming, Christakis said in a telephone interview.

Christakis and fellow researchers, writing in the journal Pediatrics, analyzed the television and video viewing habits of 330 children aged 2 to 5, then assessed their behavior five years later.

Christakis said many parents may be unaware that the shows or video games their young children watch are violent or inappropriate for their age group...

The association between violent programming and overly aggressive behavior was not found among the 146 girls in the study, who tended to watch more educational and nonviolent shows than the boys, Christakis said.

Boys may be more genetically predisposed to aggression, "so the same level of exposure brings out aggression in them where it doesn't in girls. It also could be boys are socialized to respond aggressively," he said.

"The Unchained Goddess"

Posted on alternet.org...

are clips from a movie entitled "The Unchained Goddess" from 1958 by Frank Capra about global warming. It's pretty interesting considering when it was made.

"Class Dismissed"

Interesting documentary by the Media Education Foundation shown on FSTV.

The documentary shows what a job the media has done manipulating opinions about class.

One thing that was striking was how in early television shows - immigrants, such as Norwegian immigrants, were portrayed in a favorable light - nostaligic about their homeland. I don't think you would find the same kind of show today. Most people on television are homogenized. You know little of people who hold onto the heritage of their countries.

Now you are more likely to see the Archie Bunker or Homer Simpson type of working person. You very rarely see working class people shown in a favorable light - as intelligent, thoughtful, etc.

The show also showed clips of how various races, as well as women, have been stereotyped.