The Media's Fallacy

A recent study shows that America is lagging far behind other countries in our understanding of climate change and the priority we place on working to solve it. Even countries with lots more on their plates -- like Iraq -- recognize the vital importance of this issue.

Scary stuff.

Why is this? One answer has to do with the American news media. They are convinced that every story has two sides. Fine. Multiple viewpoints are important to a free media. However, what happens when the two sides do not hold equal legitimacy but are given equal airtime?

As TreeHugger reports, this practice "gives disproportionate publicity to disreputable studies (if coverage were to accurately reflect the current state of science, there'd be hundreds of stories about studies confirming climate change for every one doubting it) and gives the public the impression there's far more debate over whether climate change is occurring or not. A recent study found that many Americans believed there was still a 'lively debate' amongst the scientific community over both whether climate change is caused by humans, and whether the theory of evolution is valid. In reality, of course, there is no such debate over either."

In other words, we are fighting for the environment in the midst of a population that is truly and deeply confused about the nature of the problem. In addition to our own actions, we must remember to help educate those around us.

Check out TreeHugger's article for more information on these studies and conclusions.