vorlich's Journal: Whatever the merits of the argument either way...

one thing is certain. This is the year of an over-heated media interest in Global Warming. In many ways media overheating is similar to the cycles of the sun and this planet. Global warming is the latest black magic that the media can write about without objectively addressing the scientific evidence either way. They don't need to because, just like all those shampoo commercials the science part is just plain old magic that requires no peer review or rigorous experimental duplication and falsifiability. The basis of this comes from the classic questions of journalism that can be applied to all situations and to all people, namely: How bad is it? Will it get any worse? What are you going to do about it? Whatever the answers are to these questions, they will produce all the great copy you ever needed and the various special interest groups will throw "evidence" at each other until the cows come home. None of this is a proper examination of the facts or the science, in the main it is nothing more than the self serving point scoring found in the old fashioned grammar school debating society where scientific objectivity takes second place to the gladitorial combat of the debating chamber, the eloquence of the speakers and the choice of the mob. The media, however is not some autonomous bogeyman concocting these features out of thin air, the media is an industry employing a large number of people who are just ordinary individuals susceptible to the vagaries and fashion that are the wont of their friends, family and neighbours. They reflect in general the values and prejudices of their audiences and, though it should not come as a surprise to anyone, they use these as the basis of their copy because they are fairly representative of their own demographic. Slashdot readers, editors and moderators are part of a particular demographic - mythically 18 year virginal boygeeks but probably more realistically somewhat older men with families who work in the industry. People like Bill O'Reilly watch Bill O'Reilly. People like Rosie O'Donnell watch Rosie O'Donnell. Just over 100 years ago the argument was about evolution, missing links, the origin of the universe and a similar level of topical heat was generated. This fairly regular re-telling of the GW tale which takes places here on slashdot in a now familiar cycle is part of the self same Topical Media Interest - because - and I hope this doesn't come as a surprise - slashdot is a media outlet. In rather typical debating chamber cliche it goes without saying, but I will, slashdot is very much the model of the grammar school debating society and in many cases the topic is an opinion and the point scoring highly amusing and the sense of common community (whether we agree with each other or not) is something that I consider adds value to my "media experience" - there are only so many re-runs of Stargate that I can watch. But a certain staleness is creeping into this topic and, maybe we could let it stew a bit, or shift over to a lengthy and heated debate on Global Dimming which should be next year's big thing and of course we should all be able to say "Oh yeah, we were discussing that on slashdot last year - it's so Second Life". Alternatively we could all agree to blame it on President George W.Bush for the moment and that way I can stay on message with the friendly emails Michael Moore regularly sends me - but of course sadly, not in a personal context. -- Disclaimer: Oh and any post,including this Sig, may contain satire,sarcasm be sardonic or even witty + bolded nouns.