“Doubt is our product”

• Have public media and journalists contributed to confusion and doubt about climate change? What can/should they do to present science and scientific debate accurately on this topic?

The general public relies on media and journalists to get all of their information.  This information can be relayed to the public in a number of ways.  Depending how news is presented, the public forms opinions based on what the media communicates to them.  With topics such as climate change, political variance plays a major role in the scientific debate.  Because politically focused news broadcasters present information based on the political party of which it supports, these contrasting parties create controversy when spreading accurate information to the public.  The science of climate change is not to be debated between divergent parties; the evidence behind the science is what will win the public opinion.  As stated in “Merchants of Doubt,” Oreskes and Conway express,

“While the idea of equal time for opposing opinions makes sense in a two-party political system, it does not work for science, because science is not about opinion.  It is about evidence.”

When it comes to climate change, articulating facts and evidence behind the science is the only appropriate way to present information.  Expending political jargon to relay information is what causes confusion and doubt in the public.  When society receives news regarding facts and statistics, they are more likely to form their own public opinion on the matter.  Public news sources tend to sway information to their benefit; for a topic like climate change, the evidence is all that matters in the scientific debate.