by Chris Wiegard

Created on: March 06, 2011

Global warming is a phenomenon which has been highly politicized in recent years.  The politicization process has tended to break down along party lines, especially in the USA. Democratic Party politicians have tended to regard the science as valid, whereas a sizeable sector of the Republican Party has come to view global warming as a hoax.  It is not possible for both sides to be correct.  In evaluating where the truth lies, it is valid to look at two topics. The first of these is the process by which the media in the USA present topics in ways that can favor alarmism over substance. The second of these is the underlying science of climatology- which is sometimes poorly understood by a public with little appetite or understanding for complex science topics.

 The media audience in the USA tends to have a short attention span.  In general, much of this audience appears to have an insatiable hunger for celebrity bad behavior stories. Although the personal life of Charlie Sheen may have a short shelf life, and may be ignored after a few weeks, it is remarkable how this tidbit, for example, has driven far more important news such as the Libyan Revolution out of the public eye. In general, bad news sells better than good news. Global warming fits into this hunger pretty well, because global warming, if scientifically valid, is not good news.  Some of the potential consequences of this atmospheric phenomenon are presented as being rather grave for future generations of humans- with coastal flooding, regional droughts, and ocean acidification that may destroy our planet's coral reefs.  Yet these details oddly enough serve to alienate the media consumer as well. At first, the reader or viewer regards these details of climate change as horrifying. Yet fatigue quickly sets in, a fatigue that transforms itself easily into denial. “I have been hearing that for years” responds the viewer, “and yet it still snows in the winter. It must all be fake!” In addition, fatigued or alienated media consumers tend to judge the science of climatology entirely on a visible face, for example Al Gore.  Gore's documentary film, "An Inconvenient Truth" initially served to popularize the science, but a backlash came to indentify the science with Gore himself.  This is unfair, as Gore is a former politician, not a climatologist. Those who dwell on Al Gore's monthly electric bills in order to portray him as a hypocrite are

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