The major stumbling block to educating the public about climate change

is misinformation. No great surprise there, but this study shows what scientists have to deal with, not just concerning climate but with general misconceptions about the natural world.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/n31866651q820822/fulltext.pdf

Nice find, that was a brilliant article - anyone could read and understand it. Unfortunately the ones who need to read it most won't.

His summary at the end is succinct and pulls no punches:

Unfortunately, the world needs to take firm action about the threat of manmade
climate change within the next decade. Figure 1 summarizes recent research
showing that global emissions of greenhouse gases must peak and decline within
the next decade if global warming is to be limited to a level that avoids severe
climate disruption. Realistically, there may be no chance to educate the general
public in depth about the science so quickly. Meanwhile, a well-funded and effective
professional disinformation campaign has been successful in sowing confusion, and
many people mistakenly think climate change science is unreliable or is controversial
within the expert community. Thus, the more urgent task for us scientists may
well be to give the public guidelines for recognizing and rejecting junk science and
disinformation. If students today, who will be adults tomorrow, can understand and
apply these guidelines, they may not need a detailed knowledge of climate change
science. To that end, I offer the following six principles.

1. The essential findings of mainstream climate change science are firm. The
world is warming. There are many kinds of evidence: air temperatures, ocean
temperatures, melting ice, rising sea levels, and much more. Human activities are
the main cause. The warming is not natural. It is not due to the sun, for example.
We know this because we can measure the effect of man-made carbon dioxide
and it is much stronger than that of changes in the sun, which we also measure.


2. The greenhouse effect is well understood. It is as real as gravity. The foundations
of the science are more than 150 years old. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
traps heat. We know carbon dioxide is increasing because we measure it. We
know the increase is due to human activities like burning fossil fuels because we
can analyze the chemical evidence for that.

3. Our climate predictions are coming true. Many observed climate changes, like
rising sea level, are occurring at the high end of the predicted range. Some
observed changes, like melting sea ice, are happening faster than the anticipated
worst case. Unless mankind takes strong steps to halt and reverse the rapid global
increase of fossil fuel use and the other activities that cause climate change, and
does so in a very few years, severe climate change is inevitable. Urgent action is
needed if global warming is to be limited to moderate levels.

4. The standard skeptical arguments have been refuted many times over. The refutations
are on many web sites and in many books. For example, the mechanisms
causing natural climate change like ice ages are irrelevant to the current warming.
We know why ice ages come and go. That is due to changes in the Earth’s
orbit around the sun, changes that take thousands of years. The warming that is
occurring now, over just a few decades, cannot possibly be caused by such slowacting
processes. But it can be caused by man-made changes in the greenhouse
effect.

5. Science has its own high standards. It does not work by unqualified people
making claims on television or the Internet. It works by expert scientists doing research
and publishing it in carefully reviewed research journals. Other scientists
examine the research and repeat it and extend it. Valid results are confirmed,
and wrong ones are exposed and abandoned. Science is self-correcting. People
who are not experts, who are not trained and experienced in this field, who do
not do research and publish it following standard scientific practice, are not doing
science. When they claim that they are the real experts, they are just plain wrong.

6. The leading scientific organizations of the world, like national academies of
science and professional scientific societies, have carefully examined the results
of climate science and endorsed these results. It is silly to imagine that thousands
of climate scientists worldwide are engaged in a massive conspiracy to fool
everybody. It is also silly to think that a few minor errors in the extensive IPCC
reports can invalidate the reports. The first thing that the world needs to do to
confront the challenge of climate change wisely is to learn about what science has
discovered and accept it. The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report at www.ipcc.ch
is a good place to start.

It is amazing how often these myths are repeated. It seems to be a meme of false information that gets spread around the blogosphere and it is never backed up. Then usually perfectly rational people hear it often enough and they believe it.

If somebody wants a good place to start reading about the climate change issue- I would suggest this paper. It isn't even that long but it outlines the political situation.

And a video I posted earlier in the year called 'The American denial of global warming makes for interesting viewing

Tee hee hee

Way to go!

The economy of the 21st century will be based on an educated workforce. This will entail a familiarity with science and technology and the ability to recognize that peer-reviewed scientific work is a conspiracy. Employers will be looking for people to compete against foreign workers by having the skills to look online and find a Web site that tells them that entire fields of science are a hoax.

The United States is still, even in this era of budget cuts, able to turn out millions of adults ready and willing to cite obscure e-mails to prove that all scientists want is to control their lives. Adults able to seek out and find television and radio programming that gives them CLEAR, CONSISTENT misinformation that they can use to elect politicians who will turn that misinformation into policy.

And parenting is key. If you are one of the fortunate millions who have had these opportunities to arm yourself with a delusional worldview, be sure to PASS THAT ON to your children. This will equip them for a productive life in the global dust bin. This is how the U.S. will position itself for leadership in a world that is changing, in more ways than one. --Tom Toles

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/tomtoles/2010/11/way_to_go_the_economy.html