The Post-Normal Times

There is a reason journalism is unraveling. And there is a reason discussions about An Inconvenient Truth can, sometimes,”very quickly turn from the issue to the person, and become a referendum on Al Gore” as Roger Pielke Jr. is quoted saying, in last week’s Broadly misleading New York Times article hit piece, and why Gore has become a “very polarizing figure,” but, in the science community????? I would like to know which “science community” Roger was referring to. As the article also states, Al Gore received “a reception fit for a rock star” at the last AGU conference, which is where most of the climate science community meets, and is always spoken of admiringly among scientists I know. And even though I am not in academia, as a long time science and policy wonk, I know a lot of them.
The reason Al Gore has become a polarizing figure is not for any of the reasons given by Broad, who makes a crude attempt to paint him as an alarmist, but because of the kind of media invented tales found in the article itself, which is among the most irresponsible pieces of journalism I have seen. Lest Broad be unfairly singled out at what is considered “the newspaper of record” let us not forget that this report is “sadly typical of the work the New York Times has done on Gore for the past dozen years” and why, as Bob Somerby asks, “does a dimwit sit in the White House:”

we all have lived in the Land of Bamboozlement since the earlier 1990s. Our politics has run on bogus stories… which are widely believed by bamboozled citizens. Such bogus stories drove the politics of the Clinton years… And in 1999 and 2000, these bogus stories finally changed the world’s history. Two years worth of invented tales about Gore finally sent George Bush to the White House… From The Daily Howler, 3-16-07

This is well documented in the incomparable archives of The Daily Howler, where, in a recent two part series on “Global Dumbing,” Somerby digs up the beginnings of the fabrication of narrative about Al Gore at the NYT during the 1999-2000 campaign, reserving particular scorn for Maureen Dowd, who just a few weeks ago, gave us a reminder in the”Ozone
Man Sequel” – now saying:

Surely the Goracle, an aficionado of futurism, must stew about all the time and money and good will that has been wasted with a Vietnam replay and a scolding social policy designed to expunge the Age of Aquarius.
When he’s finished Web surfing, tweaking his PowerPoint and BlackBerrying, what goes through his head? Does he blame himself? Does he blame the voting machines? Ralph Nader? Robert Shrum? Naomi Wolf? How about Bush Inc. and Clinton Inc.?

Failing of course to admit her own role and that of the media. Somerby also makes a good case, with links, that “Dowd and Coulter have the same message. They just send it to two different groups.” But don’t take my word for it – go read all of it! And make sure to click the link to this Tom Toles cartoon. She isn’t the only one who made a joke out of Gore during the 2000 campaign – there was also Richard Cohen, who now says “his colleagues” did it, and Arianna Huffington, who repeated many of those tall tales but now says she could support Gore because she believes in political redemption. And several others. To which I would add, those who believed enough of them but should have known better, i.e., the environmentalists, who were disappointed that, as vice president, Gore did not live up to the expectations he had created in his first book, Earth in the Balance. But lets not forget the climate created by Republican spun media narratives, and that, as Vice President, he was not the one setting the agenda, and did not have the power of the bully pulpit, as he does now. I swear I was saying this in 1999-2000 to my colleagues- if blogs existed then, I hadn’t yet heard of them. But I heard of Gore when he was a congressman in the late 1970s, and have wanted to see him in the White House ever since. As far as I’m concerned, his mistake was putting Lieberman on the ticket but if I’ll forgive him for that if he will accept a draft, to be the Democratic nominee.
Coming back to the NYT article, Somerby also has 4 posts on that so far, with more on the way (Daily Howler 3/14, 3/15, 3/16, and 3/19). See also: RealClimate/Gavin Schmidt and Michael Mann, Gristmill/David Roberts and Andrew Dessler, Deltoid/Tim Lambert, Environmental Journalism Now/Tom Yulsman,and Rockridge Nation. Most of the experts Broad cites have opinions that have been reviewed and rejected by the scientific community, based on scientific criteria, or are total crackpots, like Benny Peiser. I’m surprised none of the critiques said much about Benny, who sticks to his conclusion even after finally conceding to errors in how he reached it, and who continues to get quoted to cast doubt that there is a scientific consensus – now even in the NYT! And now that the NYT has picked this up, it will undoubtedly take on a life of its own, providing reinforcement for that parallel universe. (Perhaps this is what Baudrillard meant when he proclaimed the death of the real?). Peiser’s so-called study, was even quoted to me by someone sitting across from me at the dinner table last Thanksgiving! In case you need a reminder, Peiser is someone who can’t tell the difference between uncertainty about whether or not humans are changing the climate, and uncertainty about impacts, and policy uncertainty, not to mention several other kinds…. In his “study, any mention of uncertainty in anÿ of the abstracts he reviewed skimmed was used as a basis for his conclusion, that there is no scientific consensus about the first kind “- that humans are changing the climate. Those who cite him aren’t going beyond skimming “news” headlines. I would have expected Broad to, at the very least, ask Peiser to give an example – that hasn’t been discredited.
As for the quote by Kevin Vranes, also quoted in the NYT, he makes a valid point about the possible overselling of certainty but in the wrong context (more fully explained here and commented on by me here). Gore did stick to the science. There will always be differences in nuance, and uncertainty about details, even with general agreement on the basics. Assessments by the IPCC and the NAS are conservative in that they represent what can be agreed upon by scientists, based on a broad process of scientific review. There is a difference between sounding an alarm, and being alarmist. The estimated 20 foot rise in sea level that would occur if the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheet were to melt would be in addition to the IPCC estimate of sea level rise of 23 inches that is expected to occur regardless, as a result of current melting and warming trends.
There is however legitimate argument about whether a presentation of the science alone is sufficient to motivate changes in policy and behavior. A study conducted for the AGU in 1999 found that most of the American public is in fact aware of global warming but is skeptical that there is a solution or that there is anything they can do about it. Articles such as this NYT piece serve only to paralyze and prevent policy debate about options, through obfuscation and by creating confusion. There are many more reasons that people fail to act on climate information – I just received a copy of an excellent new book I will be reviewing shortly, Creating a Climate for Change: Communicating Climate Change and Facilitating Social Change,
edited by Susanne Moser and Lisa Dilling which has an impressive collection of papers, some of which I have been waiting to read since hearing about the 2004 workshop it is based on.
Now I realize that journalists need a hook to tell a story, and that conflict and conflicting opinions provide it ready made. They might look instead to areas of legitimate disagreement, i.e., the unsettled issues that could not be agreed upon within the IPCC, playing by the rules of science. Explaining those would actually provide a public service. Crackpots still make an amusing story as a political conflict – the post in which I spotted Benny Peiser’s admission of error may be the one that has drawn the most traffic on this blog, and it continues to do so… And while newspapers decline, writing about the use of crackpot science to further political agendas has even propelled some bloggers to stardom.