Good Advice: How Not to Be "Swift-boated"

Climate Progress has summarized the advice of Juan Cole, a University of Michigan history professor to climate scientists on how to avoid being "swift-boated" by those who do not believe climate change is real. To share a platform with people who promote falsehoods is to give un-truth credibility.

Cole's advice includes:
1. Summarize your research in a blog, so the data are accessible to a wider audience.
2. Falsehoods in the media are not the fault of the scientists because:

a.  Very, very wealthy and powerful interests are lobbying the big media companies behind the scenes to push climate change skepticism... 

b.  Powerful politicians linked to those wealthy interests are shilling for them, and elected politicians clearly backed by economic elites are given respect in the US corporate media. Big Oil executives e.g. have an excellent rollodex..... 

c.  Media thrives on controversy, which produces ratings and advertising revenue 

d.  Journalists for the most part have to do as they are told..... 

e.  Journalists for the most part do not know how to find academic experts..... 

f.  Many journalists are generalists.....

3. "Going public also makes it likely that you will be personally smeared and horrible lies purveyed about you in public (they don’t play fair– they make up quotes and falsely attribute them to you; it isn’t a debate, it is a hatchet job) ..... But if an issue is important to you and the fate of your children and grandchildren, surely having an impact is well worth any price you pay."


Comment:  You will need to go to the article to see what the author said to complete each point.  I do know some journalists who are well-trained in science, but they seem to be fewer and fewer of them employed by the media; e. g., CNN got rid of Miles O'Brien, their journalist who specialized in space and technology.


I remember a particular "hatchet job" done by a scientist years ago to "prove" his point that reputable scientists in oceanography agreed with his position.  He took sentences from the start of a paragraph and the end of paragraphs from peer-reviewed journals to completely twist the meaning of the work to his own ends.  One of the scientists whose work was misused took him to task in a public forum.  In that case it worked, but it was done in a meeting of scientists and politicians.  It doesn't always work out that way.


We do have a responsibility to future generations.  In addition, we have the responsibility to be honest stewards of this earth that was given into our care.