Dickinson to Durban » Summer Reading Responses
Public media the source of doubt on climate change
Public media has greatly contributed the confusion and doubt about climate change. The general public trusts the media. They trust the journalists who write for the New York Times, Time Magazine, and the like to do all the research and then present the information unbiased. Obviously it is nearly impossible to be completely unbiased, but in some sense, journalists are employed to do research so that everyone else does not have to, and their reports shape the opinion of the public. Therefore the public expects these investigators to get expert opinions on the subject, to explore all sides of an opinion, and use scientific evidence to write a piece that either expresses the truth to the best of their knowledge or presents all the facts so that the reader can … Read entire article »
Filed under: Climate Change, Summer Reading Responses
The Media and Manufacturing Doubt?
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? In Merchants of Doubt, considerable writing is done on the role of the media in presenting information or mis-information, really, to the climate change “debate.” The ideas presented by the authors are that 1) all media is politically biased towards one or an other party’s platform and 2) the media tries to devote equal time towards the climate change subject implying to the public that there is still DEBATE about the subject when the authors emphasize that since the 1990s there has been a general scientific consensus that climate change IS occurring and 3) scientific summaries are not written directly by scientists, they are … Read entire article »
Filed under: Summer Reading Responses
Why Violence?
Explain the reasons behind the creation of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK). Do you think adopting violence as a method strengthened or weakened the anti-apartheid movement? When Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the military branch of the ANC, was formed in the 1960’s the anti-apartheid movement was struggling. The organization had spent decades fighting for their rights through peaceful protests but the government only became more oppressive. Eventually, the ANC felt they had no choice but to resort to nonpeaceful demonstrations. In Nelson Mandela’s statement in the 1964 trial he claimed that “We were placed in a position in which we had either to accept a permanent state of inferiority, or to defy the Government.” The ANC also felt that due to the severity of the oppression the people were going to turn … Read entire article »
Filed under: Mosaic Action, Summer Reading Responses
Weather vs. Climate and Human Perception
How can we reconcile the variability of weather with that of climate? How does our humanness restrict our thinking? This question is most intriguing to try to answer, since it deals with the human issues of perception in relation to climate change and our own short life in the scope of this global change. This huge perception “stumbling block” could be argued to be the biggest issue facing immediate action towards policy making in favor of climate change mitigation. The book emphasizes this within the first chapter of the book, providing a human context for our understanding of weather changing from year-to-year and from generation to generation, as people comment on the milder winters occurring. However, the book briefly mentions that human perception can change in relation to how the CURRENT … Read entire article »
Filed under: Summer Reading Responses
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