Environmental Science and Skeptical Challenges
Environmental Science and Skeptical Challenges
In the last few years most people have accepted that Global Warming is the most important issue that we face (see poll). However, scientists have been telling us this for a decade or more. In part, our skepticism may be the result of the perception that "tree-huggers" care more about nature than jobs/people, and that their doomsday warnings in the past have been overblown (see below for examples such as The Population Bomb). But much of the doubt has been deliberately created by arguing that even scientists don't agree, so why should we worry? How is it possible that a small number of people in industry, politics and public relations fooled so many of us for so long? By investigating this issue, you can learn how to protect yourself from propaganda ("tune your crap detector" Tom Wolfe) and learn to make more effective arguments yourself:
Examples of those who argue Global Warming is real:
Gore talk at TED conference (video)
The Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth is Fighting Back - and How we Can Still Save Humanity (2006) is a book by James Lovelock.
Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning by George Monbiot
review
http://www.heatisonline.org/main.cfm author of The Heat is On and Boiling Point Ross Gelbspan see http://www.heatisonline.org/disinformation.cfm on skeptic scams
DEBATE:
Dyson vs Alun http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge220.html#discoverjaron http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dysonf07/dysonf07_index.html
Paul Loeb argues that the corporations have merely recycled their tactics that worked so successfully for the tobacco companies for so long: create the impression that the science is in doubt:
Loeb art'l http://www.paulloeb.org/articles/Exxon.html has link to 68 pp report on cig co tactics in GW http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/global_warming/exxon_report.pdf
General works on corporate PR:
Trust Us, We're Experts: How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles with Your Future by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber http://www.prwatch.org/books/experts.html
excerpts: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Public_Relations/Trust_Us_We're_Experts.html
Toxic Sludge is Good for You John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton Common Courage Press, 1995 excerpts: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Public_Relations/ToxicSludge.html video: http://www.mediaed.org/videos/CommercialismPoliticsAndMedia/ToxicSludge/ youtube preview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaMh8KGfkTM "biosolids" sneaked into dictionary? history/ war
Creating the Corporate Soul: The Rise of Public Relations and Corporate Imagery in American Big Business (Hardcover) by Roland Marchand http://www.amazon.com/Creating-Corporate-Soul-Relations-American/dp/0520087194
long excerpt from Ch 1 http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/m/marchand-corporate.html
| Course Themes |
| Ecological and Social Utopias |
| Literature, Art, and the Environment |
| Environmental Science and Skeptical Challenges |
| Activism and Entrepreneurship |
