We live in an exciting and dramatic time. Television has never been more accessible, and we have never had as much access to drama in our daily lives as now. We seem hungry for Reality TV shows like Masterchef and various dating and renovations programs, and we're reliant on Midday Doctors like Dr Phil for our more personal troubles. It is no surprise then, that we are now reliant on TV news as a major source of 'information'. What is troubling however, is our acceptance of news information as 'factual', without doing any of our homework.
To put it into perspective, we return to our friend, the imagination.
Imagine you're back in high school, and the world is offering a variety of distractions (WWII, Elvis, the Beatles, hippies, tamagochis, pokemon, iphones...), but you're forced to sit down and learn boring facts. We pick up all kinds of factoids and snippets about these distractions very easily, while homework remains something to chew through, and understanding of how facts come about can be easily dismissed in favour of fact sheets (wiki) to pass our tests.
Now imagine (it shouldn't be a stretch), that you are a busy working adult, with a life of other distractions (children, royal weddings, work stress, pain in your back, dinner parties, iphones), and you need some quick facts about life that are pertinent to you. Well, it's too much to ask for you to go back to compulsory homework days, so you take a soundbite about life, maybe though the news, or wiki, or a combination of both through your iphone screen.
This reduction of facts into just that - facts, leaves a lot of room for manipulation. While both sides (and there are definitely sides on the Carbon debate) do it, one side does it with more shamelessness and pride than the other, now brandishing a new banner of 'science'.
A lot of climate change deniers will now say "if you look through the internet..." as the beginnings of an argument. The roots of this can actually be blamed on the tactical standpoints of climate change supporters in the early days. By relying heavily on facts, scientists, information websites to make a point (you have 255 characters, a link to more information saves space), the climate change supporters have actually built the groundwork for a populace that will readily accept 'facts' and anyone with a 'Dr' in their name (or Lord as the case may be), and any website masquerading itself as 'independent' (not synonymous with nonpartisan) and 'informative'.
The inability to make a prolonged argument countering a well-positioned slogan means that the supporter has to speak through reduction, playing a game that deniers are already much better at. And the deniers have caught on. Their better arguments now have a veil of truthfulness and 'fairness' about it. There are now many sites on the internet that propose partisan (and often erroneous) information as facts, while openly denouncing the scientific community (upon which their credibility as scientists lie) as actors in a global conspiracy. By 'looking through the internet' what one is impressed with is how much controversy there is.
There isn't that much, though there is some, and it is always healthy to keep an open mind about things. What isn't healthy however, is using the words of the opposition to attack them without any sort of backing, in the same way 'facts' can be used without any background or explanation.
A lot of this has a basis in the population misunderstanding of science, and again with the reduction of science into 255 character soundbites. I'm not going to call myself a professional, because I'm not, and it distances me from those I might be reaching with this blog. I'm just a rational, thinking human being like yourself (as people on both sides of the debate say about themselves), and I've read up a bit about facts and how they are not all equal. There is a lot more on this at http://badscience.net if you're interested.
See, I've just done it too, instead of explaining my point further, I foist you off somewhere else to do your homework. And that is a key weakness in the field of sound arguments. Things are always more complicated than a 30-minute dose of Reality TV or a 5 minute factoid on the News, or even a 1 hour lecture. It takes years to arrive at results in science, and many minds working on it at that. Yet we constantly expect a single, clear answer to even the most complicated of problems.
In the Carbon Tax debate, we've taken what is a reasonable amount of hesitation (a new tax on a climate issue that is not fully understood) and turned it into a full-blown conspiracy theory, and one that is becoming publicly accepted. Perhaps lowered trust in global governance is to blame, or the demand that democracy overrule science and professional opinion (because democracy isn't about voting in the most responsibly leader anymore, it's about how many people can be swayed by advertising). Whatever it is, we've taken a reasonable debate and ran amuck, so much so that literal ignorance is taken as 'gospel' truth, and cherry-picking is the order of the day.
Dr Art Raiche recently spoke at the Anti-CarbonTax Rally and quoted phrases from his 'hero' Freeman Dyson. His hero would probably have been aghast at the way Raiche attacked his idealogical opponents, and branded those who do not aspire to his beliefs should know better ("as any internet search will tell you..." he went on to say that they didn't understand science, so if they read things to the contrary then they didn't get it). This seems to echo and mishmash of previous arguments of climate change supporters, and the formula works, until it's broken down.
Firstly, Freeman Dyson supports the ideal of global, anthropogenic climate change (and has supported the use of 'climate change' and 'anthropogenic climate change' as synonymous phrases). What he does not support is the idea that controversial findings should be shut down or not studied (they are in fact being studied, but more on that in a bit), and he is opposed to the idea that people must be labelled or defamed. He also believes that government spending should focus more on immediate problems like poverty, starvation, disease and so forth.
Strangely, his views are not echoed truthfully by his 'follower' Dr Raiche. In the rally speech, Raiche cherry-picked phrases Dyson provided that supported his views, and did not mention what his 'hero' in fact said about global climate change (just about how controversy should not be disallowed). The speech gave the sentiment that Dyson agrees that climate chance science is wrong (false), and that Dyson agrees with the fact that climate change supporters are ignorant of science and are trying to shut out the truth (false).
Freeman Dyson is not a climate change denier, nor does he think anyone is ignorant for believing in climate change, nor does he think deniers have the 'truth'. He thinks it's not that simple, that the issue is complicated, though the evidence suggests it is happening, he thinks we have other problems we should deal with first (from actual quotes in interviews).
Raiche also draws attention to the point that people who were at the rally shouted 'yes' when asked if they were climate change believers, justifying the rally as a movement that unites both sides of the climate debate, and should give everyone a cuddly warm feeling that has nothing to do with global warming. Well, upon closer examination, we notice the keyword missing - anthropogenic. And it might be interesting to do an anonymous survey of these people instead of a 'hands-up to support my point'.
It is no longer fashionable to be a full climate denier (you look stupid, and people argue quite rightly that you're ignorant of mounting evidence), but in order to keep up the facade that life doesn't have to change in the changing climate, we have to find something else wrong with the idea of paying for pollution. And the golden goose turned out to be the little tag that Dr Raiche omitted so very subtly. To argue that climate change isn't happening at all is to fly in the face of vast scientific ridicule, but to argue why it is happening is a very lucrative venture.
For a Carbon Tax to make sense it needs to be a tax on something the payers are doing (lets not go into the fact it is corporations that pay, and take it on faith that consumers will be very much worse off), so if the cause of climate change is in fact not man-made, then it stands to reason that this tax makes no sense. There is no need for a person who is anti-CarbonTax to be an ignorant climate denier, now you can have your cake and eat it too.
Raiche manipulated a question so that its meaning and its result is perverted, but this stilted answer is still accepted by people at the rally as proof that they are informed, self-thinking individuals (even if we don't go into the correlation between that answer and the conclusion). We are eager to believe in authority figures, and it is for this reason that the anti-Tax debate has been fuelled by attacks on scientists while relying on people with 'Dr' in their names to make their points.
As an authority figure himself (his speech comes with a list of previous credentials), Dr Raiche is eager to use his 'hero' Dyson in distorted ways to support his ideas, but is just as quick to dismiss the work of other scientists and economists by making a joke early on that he is not a 'scientist in the field or an economist, so probably shouldn't have the right to speak on the topic'. He's quite right in fact, he doesn't have the authority to speak on behalf of truth if he doesn't know the studies and the topic he's talking about. Otherwise, it's what we in Australia call 'bullshit'. Yet he happily goes on to assure his crowd that those in support of the tax are ignorant, deluded, lazy (don't do their homework) and don't understand science (stupid).
In a half hour soundbite, he was able to make everyone feel better about not doing their homework by assuring them that they are on the side of the ones who have. A bit like how reality TV show how 'fail' other people can be, and assure us we're not idiots/talentless/lazy/stressed/ugly/fat (because there are people who are worse than us, even if that's a distorted untruth).
So why are the anti-Tax people so desperate to hold onto any authority figure (scientists, people with Dr in their names), so much so that they are willing to cherry-pick their 'heros' and doublespeak in strange and wonderful ways? Is it because it's easier? Surely not, it takes effort to jump on a bandwagon and go to a rally and get grass in your knickers, and it takes time (and a lot of eye-strain) to trawl through the vast amount of partisan information available. Is it because they are gullible? No, some of these people would be logical, reasonable people in their everyday lives.
There is never a single, simple solution, and that's a trap that's always waiting for us to jump in. There can be attempts at answers, and this is one of them: people are people, and want what is immediately best in their and their family's interests.
Everyone knows that extra tax will mean extra cost. There is no way around it (it's why Gillard is bringing in compensation for worst hit families). Opponents complain about rising costs, then about wealth distribution (as if the two weren't linked), but the bottom line is that there will be a cost hike, it won't be as direct or as much as the GST, and the poorest will be given a bit of extra money to compensate for the extra cost. It's actually a fairly simple thing, but once slogans have been attached, it becomes a monster that suddenly costs money in cumulative percentages.
The confusion is vast even just on this single issue of the tax. And people are most eager to prepare for 'worst case scenarios' because lets face it, we all need a bit of drama in our lives. Playing victim is especially popular right now, and in a 'climate of revolution', people are hitching themselves to bandwagons in support of ideals that are a far throw from the original, simple debate.
Liberty is suddenly an issue. Where the introduction of a tax on the pollution that major companies are spewing out is a curb on public freedom. Only months ago, we were crying foul of government corruption and being in company pockets in regards to the lacklustre chemical control body NICNAS, now we're practically weeping for the corporations that will pay this tax directly (because it will raise our costs of living by a fraction of the GST). The liberty of big companies to choke our air (CO2 is harmful at just 5% of whatever patch of air you're breathing) is on the table, and we the people are saying 'yes go ahead'.
And as you move further from the logical fears (and sometimes reasonable arguments) like job losses (fictitious models of job loss that also ignore the fictitious possibility of job gains), cost of living including energy, cost of food due to fuel costs (though petrol is exempt, which is somehow a bad thing for the little people too), and government debt (from introducing a new tax?), the path gets a lot narrower and weirder.
People we'd deride earlier as cooky are now on the forefront of the anti-CarbonTax battle. Chemtrail proponents are now arguing that the government is deluding us about a world-wide conspiracy in wealth distribution through Carbon Taxation. The idea is so overwhelming that it might need some breaking down (the same sites that promote non-man-made climate change science will often have these kind of leaps of logic too).
It is proposed that governments are using 'technology' (it is unclear what kind) to influence weather patterns and solve/cause/aggravate/exaggerate climate change, in order to set up a New World Order (yes, the capitals exist) for global governance and wealth distribution through taxation.
It is a bit mind-boggling to suggest that because governments across the world are taking up the idea, there is a global 'conspiracy' to set up a Carbon Tax-governed global welfare state. That's like saying voting is a 'conspiracy' to set up democratic governments across the world. There is a clear-cut goal in the Carbon Tax policy, and it takes a bit of over-exaggeration and imagination to add rather than truth-find it into a conspiracy. The Carbon Tax policy is to tax corporations (hopefully) for the most directly linked substance in global climate change that is present in fossil fuel use. In other words, making them pay for the shit they pump out when they burn fossil fuel.
Chemtrails being involved is just so far into the crazy scale that I honestly don't group them automatically with the average Jane or Joe going to an anti-tax rally. I'm mentioning it because it's getting harder to talk to a hardcore anti-CarbonTax rally-goer without Chemtrails being mentioned as evidence of the groundless and conspiratorial nature of the Carbon Tax.
Chemtrails don't exist, have never existed, and still don't exist. There are lots of chemicals being poured into our skies, not the least of which is the jet fuel from air traffic (ignoring all the ground based sources from factories and mines), there can be genuine concern about all of that pollution, but Chemtrail proponents seem to worry only about what they can 'observe'. The criss-crossing lines of white fluff in the sky has been demonstrated to be a natural phenomenon caused by air-traffic, with increasing air-traffic, more and more people are reporting these sightings of 'strange skies'. And with rising pollution levels, more and more people are getting respiratory illnesses.
Any reasonable person could see the glaringly obvious correlation that does not include Chemtrails. Ignoring any sort of scientific study that has to be done, a logical person might be expected to conclude that pollution cause respiratory illness in a population to increase, while more air-traffic causes more white fluff. It takes a leap of logic to then conclude the two must somehow be linked, and that the white fluff is the cause of respiratory illness, and extra air-traffic must be linked to the government 'doing stuff'. By ignoring the facts - Chemtrails don't exist, polluted air causes disease - it is easy to join the dots into: Chemtrails are sprays of chemicals from jets that cause diseases, and the government is making chemical sprays more frequently (hence more disease and more Chemtrails).
Now add climate change. Taking into account that some key facts were being ignored (cherry-picking). And we get this: Chemtrails are sprays of chemicals to change the climate so that we the taxpayer have to pay more money. This ignores even more facts than before: There are no chemtrails, there are no magical climate-fix chemicals (there are some that encourage rainfall, and China has been using it heavily to combat drought and the encroaching desert on Beijing), the climate is changing (probably more because of all the other invisible, non-imaginary chemicals we're spewing into the air), corporations are paying.
The only thing that rings true about the Chemtrail Carbon Tax issue is the fact that we will have to pay more money. How much we will be paying is debated heavily, and I'm not an economist. So now we return finally to who to trust, since that is at the basis of every argument, every conspiracy theory, every rally and every 'Lord' M lecture.
I prefer not to trust people who are chronic liars. This puts Lord Monckton out of the picture, as he is a chronic liar (you can make up your mind about him yourself, I'm sure if you are an ardent supporter then no matter what I say won't sway you). I prefer not to trust politicians, especially those who don't have a policy for me to compare against (sloganists). I prefer not to trust surveys (they are easily skewed, self-selecting, and rely on the knowledge of the common man, I wouldn't conduct a survey to decide if I needed surgery). I prefer not to trust single-partisan think tanks (when you gather a group of people and make them agree on something, you're forcing singular opinions).
Who do I trust then? Well, simplest answer is: no one. I don't trust any single person, even myself for the most comprehensive answer. What I do trust is a lot of people from the field I am currently interested in, and even then, only their peer-reviewd studies and not their every opinion. It is ludicrous to believe a journalist, blogger or a politician can understand what has taken years of study by hundreds if not thousands of scientists to conclude, then be able to turn that knowledge into bite-sized chunks for the audience.
Yet we fall for it time and again. We watch reality TV and believe the problems and errors that encounter the lives of those 'common folk', yet we know that 30-minute highlights are not enough to cover a week of emotion, boredom, decisions, stress, and learning. We trust the judges to make the right decision consistently without questioning their motives, role or background on shows like Masterchef. We trust politicians like Tony A to deliver us 'factoids' about how bad the Carbon Tax will be. We trust scientists who tell us climate change isn't man-made or isn't real, without questioning what they are saying, their affiliations, or even what kind of 'doctor' or 'scientist' they are.
Carbon Tax, Chemtrails and Reality TV. We live in a world of real issues, of real challenges and change, but we're all too eager to comfort ourselves with the knowledge that we're right, we don't need to change, we belong to the informed/intelligent/logical/knowledgable/fair/good crowd and 'they' belong to the tyrannical/ignorant/idiotic/bigoted/bad. Let us wallow in self-pity and false victimisation of our liberty and livelihoods while continuing to trust corporate advertising and TV personalities to stroke our egos and assure us our fears are real, but the solution is easy.
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