Spinning the globe and balancing the story

[Henk Elegeert]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Vir Sanghvi, Hindustan Times
New Delhi, May 21, 2010


Spinning the globe and balancing the
story<http://www.hindustantimes.com/Spinning-the-globe-and-balancing-the-story/Article1-546480.aspx>

Do you understand the science behind the ‘global warming’ theory?  No, I
don’t either. But over the last decade, nearly everybody of consequence in
the Indian media has become convinced that a) the planet is in terrible
danger because of the consequences of human behaviour and b) that we must
therefore moderate this behaviour before doomsday suddenly arrives.

In the West, there have always been prominent climate change deniers and
though they are demonized by the environmentalists, they manage to get heard
and to inject a note of skepticism into the debate. The late Michael
Crichton, for instance, did more, with his fiction, to damage the case of
the climate change lobby than any other individual.

Because I do not understand the science, I take the line that the
environmentalist lobby must surely be right: there are Nobel prizes, hit
documentaries, international conferences and government policy that back
their views.

But equally, because, in common with the vast majority of Indian journos, I
believe things without fully understanding them, I can never make up my mind
when a dispute errupts. Did the IPCC really pull a fast one over the issue
of glacier melt-down? Was Shyam Saran’s position on India’s policy towards
climate change accurate? Has Jairam Ramesh started toeing the US line?

I don’t know.

And nor do most journos. So two factors influence how the mainstream media
cover climate change issues. The first, sadly, is how we look at the
personalities involved. Do we think that RK Pachauri deserved all the
recognition he received? Or is it time to take him down a peg or two? What
about Shyam Saran? He seems like a straight guy. That must mean that Jairam
is up to some tricks. And so on.

None of this is remotely scientific – or even fair. But it is exactly how
much of the coverage is determined.

There is a second factor. Almost everybody accepts that we, in the middle
class, are incredibly privileged. Much of India rots in poverty while we get
ahead.

The guilt this engenders  has many consequences. In the past, young people
would drift to the left. Later, many saw the green movement which identified
some of the same villains (corrupt politicians, large capitalist
corporations etc.) as the old left as a logical way of balancing out their
guilt.

This is not to say that all environmental activism stems out of guilt or
even to argue that guilt is a bad thing. (Given how much of India lives, we
should be guilty). But our uneasiness at our privileged position leads us,
at some level, to accept that a) we are damaging the earth, b) that we must
make sacrifices to atone for our behaviour and c) that because government
and industry will do nothing on their own, it is up to us as citizens to
agitate or turn activists.

It is for this reason that climate change skepticism has never found a ready
market in India. In our hearts, we want to believe!

But now, the second influence is weakening. The global warming lobby had it
easy when the world did actually seem to be getting warmer. In 1998 for
instance, freak weather led to hot summers all over the world. It seemed
reasonable to argue that the world was getting hotter, that the polar
ice-caps would melt, that we would all die as a result etc.

We had been told that computer models projected rising temperatures as
atmospheric  carbon dioxide grew. But, in fact, it seems to have got colder
over the last two years. This winter has been one of the coldest on record
in parts of the West and even in North India, many of us shivered through
January.

The environmentalists say that this does not matter. Their theory is not
that the world is getting hotter but that there will be freakier
unpredictable weather from now on. It is climate change not global warming
that we should be worried about.

Well, may be. But given that so few of us understand the science and that
environmental activism often seems to be guided more by good intentions than
the simple facts, our intuitive faith in the climate change theory has been
shaken.

If you look closely at the way the media handle climate change issues these
days, you will notice a subtle shift. RK Pachauri is not necessarily a hero
any longer. The whole Copenhagen exercise was regarded with a level of
detachment. Climate change negotiations are covered more as cynical
exercises in realpolitik than as talks aimed at saving the world.

I make no value judgements about any of this —- simply observations. As a
journo (though admittedly not one who writes about climate change) who does
not understand the science, I can hardly blame others for doing the same
thing.

Nor do I have a strong position on the issue (though I suspect that
intuitively I may be a borderline skeptic) given how little I know. My
intention is neither to praise the climate change lobby nor to damn it. I
seek only to explain how the media handle the issue — and to try and
understand the  recent changes in our attitude to the subject. If, as a
reader or a viewer, you have believed that journos were to be trusted on
this issue, then I would urge a level of caution.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/546480.aspx
© Copyright 2009 Hindustan Times

"

De belangrijkste vraag: Do *you* understand the science behind the ‘global
warming’ theory? En, is dat een basis ?

Henk Elegeert

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