Welcome to The KYMN Climate Show, with Bruce Morlan and Alan Anderson, where we discuss climate issues in the news and then dig into the stories behind those stories. Today’s overview – we’ll tell a couple of stories – then we’ll talk about Drawdown – doing what helps and doing what is necessary.
- 1st story – The Guardian changed its style guide?
- 2nd story – record heat in Bagdad and Death Valley
- 3rd story – Confirmation bias – The Amazon is not the “lungs of the planet.”
- 4th story – Paleoclimatology
TheGuardian changed its language
I often attempt to shock my audiences by using the term Anthropogenic Global Warming while activists have been playing with other terms. Climate change being an example.
Why? Because I can easily explain AGW I’ve explained it to a room full of 8th graders – an audience where explaining how statistics and frequencies of events can be used to confirm the predictions is much harder.
“The Guardian has updated its style guide to introduce terms that more accurately describe the environmental crises facing the world. Instead of “climate change”, the preferred terms are “climate emergency, crisis or breakdown” and “global heating” is favoured over “global warming”.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/25/climate-apartheid-united-nations-expert-says-human-rights-may-not-survive-crisis
Although the media bias score for TheGuardian is “Lean Left”, I have followed them long enough to feel I can filter out that bias, and when I fact check their stories they pass. Unlike, say, CFACT stories.
https://www.allsides.com/news-source/guardian
Record heat in Bagdad and Death Valley
Fake news – the Amazon actually is not “the lungs of the world”
The Amazon doesn’t really produce 20% of the world’s oxygen. Of the many important reasons to worry about the thousands of fires raging in the world’s largest rain forest, oxygen supply is not one of them.
The increase in fires burning in Brazil set off a storm of international outrage last week. Celebrities, environmentalists, and political leaders blame Brazil Bolsonaro, for destroying the world’s largest rainforest, the Amazon, which they say is the “lungs of the world.”
Notable scientists? “Social media authorities?” Madonna, Leonardo DiCaprio? Soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo? They are just memers echoing information they don’t understand because it agrees with their confirmation bias.
“Overall, we rate Forbes Right-Center biased based on story selection that tends to favor the right and the political affiliation of its ownership. We also rate them Mostly Factual in reporting, rather than High due to some misleading or false stories related to climate science.”
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/forbes/
How our confirmation bias leaves us vulnerable to misinformation that fits our world view … we react to information we don’t like we experience the backfire effect.
- Another more credible (than Forbes) source. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/08/why-amazon-doesnt-produce-20-percent-worlds-oxygen/
So where does the O2 come from?
- 70-80% from phytoplankton and macro algae (kelps) in the oceans (or 50-85%, depends on the source)
- “SAVE THE PLANKTON, BREATH FREELY” – great slogan, gotta buy a t-shirt for that cause.
