gracchusdixit

In the wake of the dreadful tornado that devastated the town of Moore, Okllahoma just days ago, the Associated Press, perhaps the most respected journalistic organization in the country, published a story with the following headline: “More Tornadoes from Global Warming?  Nobody Knows.”

This headline exemplifies a strange and dispiriting lunacy that seems unique to our country among the world’s supposedly advanced societies: a persistent unwillingness, or refusal, to acknowledge the reality of climate change.  While the Associated Press article dealt narrowly with the effect of global warming on tornadoes, it implied, far more broadly, that the reality of climate change and its consequences are somehow in doubt.  If the AP had said, “Nobody knows for sure,” that would be one thing.  Nothing in science (or life, for that matter) is ever “sure.”  But to say, “Nobody knows,” is to deny that we do, in fact, know a great deal.

Scientists have been studying climate change for more than a hundred years, and for the last quarter century the scientific community has been measuring it with unprecedented thoroughness and rigor.  The IPCC—the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which includes more than a 1,000 scientists from dozens of countries and is backed by every major national academy of science, including our own—has issued four “assessments” since 1990 with a fifth to be issued next year.  One can reasonably quibble with some specific findings or question particular studies, but the overall results cannot be disputed by any responsible observer.  Global temperatures are rising—fast—and human activity is a principal cause.  One of the main consequences of rising temperatures, progressively more violent weather, was predicted long ago for reasons that anyone who has had a high school physics course would readily understand.  And yet, supposedly respectable journalists continue to say, “Nobody knows.”

There are at least three reasons for this tragic denial of reality.

One is the corrupting effect of lobbying by the immensely rich oil industry.  Throw enough money at them, and some of our political leaders are prepared to affirm, or deny, anything, no matter how ridiculous.

Another is the bitter polarization of our two major political parties, particularly the Republican Party, which reflexively opposes anything proposed by a Democratic President, no matter how damaging their opposition may be to the country as a whole.

A third, often overlooked, reason is the culture of journalism itself.

The mantra of the profession is “objectivity,” which is a noble idea in theory but in practice too often masks laziness, ignorance or timidity.  Journalists are taught to “report the facts,” but they are seldom taught, let alone encouraged by their bosses, to think for themselves, to evaluate evidence and sources, and to draw logical conclusions about what is, and isn’t, factual.  As long as some loud voice out there has enough money or muscle to peddle “another point of view,” journalists feel obligated to give that voice a hearing.

For most journalists, there is no such thing as “is.”  There is only “according to,” a noisy arena of conflicting opinions in which every opinion must be treated “objectively,” in which facts do not exist in any meaningful sense.

The problem, of course, is that facts do exist, and one of those facts is climate change.  Until journalists realize that “objectivity” and “reality” often conflict, we will never hear the facts, and we will never act.  If they don’t come to that realization very soon, it will be too late.