On Line Opinion: Once more, warming heats up.
One of the topics that consistently exercises the Australian blogosphere is global warming. What’s at issue, of course, is whether or not human, industrial activity is contributing to an increase in global temperatures, and possible environmental catastrophe.
There is an orthodox scientific view on this, as expressed in documents like the IPCC Report, the Stern Report, the Garnaut Report etc. It’s fair to say that most left-leaning bloggers and many centrists accept this view. But there are prominent blogospheric voices - including very popular bloggers like Tim Blair, Andrew Bolt and Jennifer Marohasy - who hold to a minority opinion that not all is as it seems in climate science.
Variously, they argue that climate change is not happening (or it isn’t as severe as we’re told it is), and/or that it is happening but it has nothing to do with human activity, and/or that the scientific orthodoxy is really just groupthink/counter-enlightenment propaganda/institutional capture by leftist scientists/scientific careerism.
The debates in this area can, of course, be quite heated. Each side has been ranging its favoured experts and arguments in tetchy exchanges for years. What’s fascinating is that it amounts to precisely the kind of thing that has come up in recent discussions here - an intra-elite debate, for which there is only so much space in a gatekept MSM, being carried on and maintained on a range of prominent and not-so-prominent blogs, which has ongoing implications in terms of its possible influence on public debate and policy. I’m not concerned here to take a position on global warming - I’m more interested in how it’s playing out on A-list blogs and prominent independent news spaces.
The trigger for these musings is the latest episode in the warming wars - this morning’s piece in On Line Opinion by OLO’s founder and editor-in-chief (and our colleague in the large research project we’re involved in) Graham Young. Graham’s a climate change sceptic, and he takes a number of his antagonists on in this piece over what he sees as their bullying tactics in public debate. It’s not just that Graham thinks that a number of public figures are trying to shut debate down; he thinks that they’re also misusing their positions in public institutions.
First cab off the rank is Robyn Williams, long-time host of ABC Radio’s Science Show. Graham claims that Williams has misrepresented his opponents (including eminent scientists), skewed other people’s arguments, and overstated his own qualifications. In short, Graham believes that no one who holds different views to Williams gets a fair shake in ABC science broadcasts, and that he’s no longer doing his job. On Williams, he concludes:
He has smeared a respected academic using doctored quotes and shoddy research, and he puffs his curriculum vitae with imagined qualifications. It’s about time that ABC science broadcasting was opened up. After more than 30 years monopolising the field, it’s time Williams did something else… I’ll be writing to the ABC. Time to get this ball rolling.
But Graham also takes a pretty significant swipe at Professor John Quiggin, a Federation Fellow in economics at the University of Queensland, prominent proponent of arguments for anthropogenic global warming, and a well-known Australian blogger of long standing.
Quiggin freely and frequently abuses any who challenge his orthodoxy using smear. He is a frequent editor of Wikipedia on the issue where along with the notorious William Connelly, he ensures that global warming sceptics are presented in the worst light… Quiggin frequently dismisses global warming sceptics as being aligned with the tobacco industry and astrology.
Ouch! Anyway, these guys work across town from each other in Brisbane, but here they are having a discussion in a way that now potentially has national and international resonances.
Graham’s using On Line Opinion - the independent platform he’s painstakingly built up over many years - to question the expertise and behaviour of two people who are situated in pretty powerful institutions when it comes to the direction of public debate.
Regarding Williams, he’s bypassing an influential gatekeeper, who has some control over the interface between scientific debate, public debate and public policy. Regarding Quiggin, he’s questioning the conduct of someone who has ready access to public policy discussions (especially with a Labor government in power). This may not reach a mass audience, but OLO’s readership of “PJ’s” might be persuaded that there’s something in this, and recalibrate their own attention to debates in this area accordingly. (Of course, comments threads on OLO will give some indication as to whether this has worked.)
Once again, I’m not taking a position on global warming, or on the claims Graham makes about the character of his adversaries Prof. Quiggin has seemed to me to be a lovely bloke on the occasions I’ve met him, and equally Graham is a valued friend and colleague.
Instead, I’m using this to try to understand the way in which a particular issue gives us an insight into the new shape of public debate, including changing relations between niche, online, independent media and the MSM, a diminishing deference to professional and institutional authority even on specialist topics, and the way in which debate ranges across a range of platforms (including Wikipedia!!)
Further to recent discussions, and on a tangent from Axel’s post yesterday, I’m also wondering what we can assume about the operations of the public sphere in these debates. Does it matter if blogs and independent media get a big or mass audience (or even whether they reach them by means of “two-step” effects) if they’re able to short-circuit wider discussion by appealing directly to policy-makers? Or, in this case, strategically targeting for criticism those who might have that kind of access by virtue of their institutional roles. In this sense, are some bloggers better off appealing to insiders, and only seeking an audience among the wonks and PJs?
Anyway, I suspect this debate has a while to run…
“understand the way in which a particular issue gives us an insight into the new shape of public debate,…”
I think your statement of the reason for your research is not very well thought out and not supported by this page of writing and observation at all. (I doubt a CRC grant application would accept it as it is!)
I would like to see some of your observations on this “public debate”, not just what Robin said, or what Graham said - after all, isn’t the public your focus?
As an aside, I put to you the theory that the debate is actually stagnant, or non-existent. The climate change deniers aren’t evolving their attacks, like science evolves its theories: it can’t because it’s not a rational position. Their arguments are simply about distortions/selections of facts, out of context explanations and self reassurance. These tricks are constant, even if the focus of their attacks changes.
I envy your position of doing research in such an interesting field. However, to avoid the appearance of slackness or simply pursuing your own blogging hobbies, you need more rigor in the questions you wish to answer. This will then mean less need for rather amateur qualifiers like “Once again, I’m not taking a position…” - a sure indicator of more work required!
Best of luck,
Karlis.