Leading the global warming debate

It’s hard to deny global warming is something that seems so inevitable, and the general consensus, scientific or not, is that it is at least a possibility. Temperature increases as well as other scientific facts are hard to ignore. But how do we know this? It is the role of the mainstream media that fuels our ambitions to ‘know’ about what is happening to our world.

In the last couple of years the level of attention on the subject has been gigantic. Now we have public camps and divisions where people are either skeptics or faithful zealots of global protection and sustainable development.

How can we assess the impacts of the mass media? Do we now fully believe that we the grassroots movements can change the world? Or are the ‘denialists’ right in that it’s difficult, if not impossible, to change the world without the powerful oil cartels and corporatists that dictate the global economy? After all they are the ones that invest in the world and our interests in their products.

For the purpose of this blog, we can look at two major players – the scientific community and the media. The former provide information and data to justify global warming, and the media transfer those findings to the general public.

But these groups are not as homogenous as we might think. There are the privately funded scientists who are paid by corporations to carry out research, while others are publicly funded by the states. Within the media, there is also a funding difference; the corporate funded and independent media. There is another level of difference which is the medium; traditional medium which includes television/film, radio and print; and the new medium primarily focusing on digital technology, the paradigm of which is the internet.

And all of those divisions do beg the question: If there is so much conflict within these groups how do we know who is right? Do they all have their own personal agendas for whichever direction their leaning towards in the subject of global warming? Or are they intentions really truthful?

It’s too easy nowadays with the mass influence of the media to think that well, I see all those famous people and the stuff on the news saying how global warming is a threat, and it’s real and it’s here, then “oh crap” we’re all in trouble. But there’s also the reverse thinking which is that global warming is just another idea popularized by the mainstream media, which I can't deny is a valid point considering all of coverage devoted to the issue.

Maybe the idea now is stop debating whether it's true and start thinking about whether we can do something to prevent. But that's probably where governments are expected to do the hard work, because as individuals it is hard to think that we really would make much of a difference, even if we really do believe in global warming and its dangerous impact on the earth.

"Global warming is an extreme collective action dilemma, with the actions of one person having a negligible effect in the aggregate. Informed persons appear to realize this objective fact. Therefore, informed persons can be highly concerned and reasonably pessimistic about their ability to change climate outcomes."