Why do Americans believe what the media says about global warming?

Question

Do we seriously believe what the media says about other things? How can informed, intelligent Americans believe what the media says at face value, when they have the INTERNET and can do research for themselves? Honk if you've read State of Fear by Michael Crichton and you have common sense!

Answer 1

Ok well your question proves that you are extremely arrogant.

If you don't believe in global warming, than you are obviously stuck in the last decade man.

I mean, it is totally like everyone is trying to lie to you and everyone is in on this hoax: the media, huge HUGE corporations, all of the worlds major IMPORTANT governments, religious leaders, political leaders and now those political leaders are not just the liberal ones either.

Have you seen the commercial with Newt Grinich and Nancy Pelosi?

Answer 2

Gore investment body closes $683m fund

By Fiona Harvey in London

Published: April 29 2008 19:55 | Last updated: April 29 2008 19:55

The investment vehicle headed by Al Gore has closed a new $683m fund to invest in early-stage environmental companies and has mounted a robust defence of green investing.

The Climate Solutions Fund will be one of the biggest in the growing market for investment funds with an environmental slant.

The fund will be focused on equity investments in small companies in four sectors: renewable energy; energy efficiency technologies; energy from biofuels and biomass; and the carbon trading markets.

This is the second fund from Generation Investment Management, chaired by the former vice-president of the US and managed by David Blood, former head of Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

The first, the Global Equity Strategy Fund, has $2.2bn invested in large companies the company judges have “sustainable“ businesses, from an environmental, social and economic viewpoint. Mr Blood said he expected that fund to be worth $5bn within two years, based on commitments from interested investors.

Mr Blood said raising $683m for the new fund in the midst of “market disruption” showed the resilience of green investing. “The fact we were able to raise $683m was extraordinary, so our experience is that it has not really been a problem [raising funds despite what is] generally a difficult environment,” he told the Financial Times.

“A fear expressed by some is that the first thing to go in a downturn is the nice-to-have sort of investment. Some people put green investments in that category, but we think that is nonsense. This is not nice-to-have – it is fundamental finance...because the transition from a high-carbon to a low-carbon economy is a ginormous step that is going to happen quickly,” he said.

Both Mr Gore and Mr Blood had invested in the new fund to a “pretty sizeable” extent, Mr Blood said.

The average size of investment made by the new fund is likely to be about $30m, in small private or public companies. All of the investors in the new fund were drawn from the company’s existing pool of investors.

None were willing to be named but existing investors in the Global Equity Strategy Fund include the Swiss private bank Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch; the California State Teachers Retirement System; Sweden’s Mistra Foundation; and Australia’s Victoria Super Fund.

Last year, Generation formed a partnership with the Silicon Valley venture capitalists Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers to collaborate on possible investments.

Answer 3

What a great argument you have there! Wow, you would be the debate winner, if there was a debate for deniers only. Oh, there was, the Heartland Institute BS global warming conference last March. Were you there? Did you present? Do you have any intelligent thoughts you'd like to share with society?

Answer 4

haha, I see someone isn't "informed, intelligent."

Michael Crichton (author of Jurassic Park and Timeline) is a fiction writer

Answer 5

I learned about global warming in college 20 years ago from books written by scientists, not by the media.

Answer 6

"informed, intelligent Americans."

That's the problem, you're assuming too much about the majority of Americans.

Now, if you're talking about how many Americans stayed informed about which football team drafted which player, you'd have a lot more people involved in the discussion.

Answer 7

"Four feet are good, two feet are better."

Answer 8

I am an American and i've always known it was and is total BS!

Answer 9

Because we want to keep up with the Jones of the world, since we share it and there are no marked exits off the planet, no wormhole that will whisk us away.

There is media and there is media.  Some of it has credibility. As for researching yourself, having just navigated this very process, it took a lot of patience and sifting through sites to look for links and then going back and sifting through what I'd saved and the specific of what was said.  

I'm informed, relatively intelligent, and I've been on the planet long enough to see quite a bit of change.  I haven't read Crichton's "Fear" book, I got bored with his writing years ago.  I have read "Field Notes From a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change," which I heartily recommend.

Back to the media at large: they're not driving this thing.  The science, the data, the models, the research: 10 years ago you could wag a finger at the media and wonder why they were lacking in coverage.  Now, the coverage is all over the "green" fad, probably because sustainability isn't as "s**y" a word.  But it's essentially good information, and people should take heed of at least some of what the media says, especially if they consider the source first.

Answer 10

The American Media is controlled and filtered.  Americans are told only what the powers that be want them to be told so that they will believe exactly what they want them to believe.  The denieristi are fine examples.  The internet was a good research tool until Al Gore invented it.  Now it has become a dumping ground for every myth, urban legend, misquotation and paranoid delusional fantasy known to man.  You can find somebody who agrees with you, even if you believe you are Commander Skeptic from the Planet Amerika.  Anyone who wants to learn about anything needs to (1) buy a shortwave radio so they can hear unmanaged news (2) turn off the freaking TV and computer and start reading.  (3) maybe take some classes if you aren't totally repelled by the learning experience.

Answer 11

A fiction writer (a good one, by the way) claims actual climate scientists from all over the world are wrong and you believe him? I suggest to look for more reliable sources of science, than fiction books.

We do have the Internet to research ourselves, but since there is no fact-checking on the Internet and most people lack the scientific or mathematic training to distinguish between valid science and pseudo-science, it's not always the best idea for an individual to think they can do a few googles and suddenly become experts at a field as extensive and complex as climate science. One must be very careful about what you accept on the Internet.

The only place to get accurate information about climate science is in peer reviewed scientific journals or from actual scientific organizations actively involved in climate research.  Here's some good links to get started:

NASA Q&A on Global Warming:

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/G...

The 2008 National Academy of Sciences Summary Brochure on Climate Change

http://dels.nas.edu/dels/rpt_briefs/clim...



The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research Global Warming FAQs

http://www.ucar.edu/news/features/climat...



Department of Geology and Geophysics at Yale Global Warming FAQ

http://earth.geology.yale.edu/~sherwood/...



NOAA Global Warming FAQ

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/glob...

The Discovery of Global Warming (great history site)

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/

Here's some peer reviewed scientific journals:

http://www.pnas.org/

http://www.agu.org/journals/gl/

http://www.nature.com/climate/index.html

http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?requ...

Answer 12

Although Crichton certainly does his homework (as a pilot, I was impressed by the effort he put into Airframe to portray aviation accurately), State of Fear is first and foremost a work of fiction.  The best book by far about how scientific issues are portrayed by the media is Voodoo Science:  The Road from Foolishness to Fraud by Robert L. Park.

Answer 13

i totally agree i mean give me a break cow farts are contributing to global warming!!! please!!

BTW i'm not kidding thats what these people are saying!!