public opinion
Laughing in the Face of Disaster
image via Flickr - alancleaver 2000
After all, it was only the court jester who could laugh at the king. That kind of insight is invaluable.
Humor provides perspective, an ability to seeing ourselves and our views outside of our normal, critical awareness. Humor can also be a way to work through resistance (internal or external) or barriers of opposing view points and to communicate with an emotional depth otherwise too risky for seriousness.
HopenSource by Grist
Now for a little environmental optimism. I’ve stumbled across Grist‘s clever side project, HopenSource a few times and would highly recommend swinging by next time you’ve got the chance. It’s a joint blog and twitter account (including its very own hashtag to allow everyone to join in the conversation) dedicated to the discussion of the good news in the environmental arena.
That’s right, you didn’t read that wrong. I said good news. In a field almost completely dedicated to approaching issues from an “Oh Lord, what have we done?” angle, I find the optimism to be refreshing. I’ve said it many times, one of the most basic obstacles to environmental progress is the ease with which everyday people get bogged down in the despair and general permeation of bad news, particularly in the media. This idea that because we’ve gone so far at this point, in terms of habitat destruction, climate change, toxic distribution, etc., there’s really nothing we can do on an individual level that would make a dent, and therefore no point in trying.
In fact, this perspective couldn’t be farther from the truth. › Continue reading
The Climate Change Argument
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nattu/ / CC BY 2.0
Last week I quite literally found myself in the middle of one of my favorite arguments, climate change.
Let me set the stage for you. We were at a public talk on astronomy; the lecture was going well, proving to be both informative and engaging, when the speaker threw out a passing comment questioning the legitimacy of climate change. At first the audience was a bit surprised at the seemingly off topic tangent, then one after another a number started questioning the logic behind the speaker’s claim. The conversation got pretty intense, and I have to admit, I was thrilled to listen to all the arguments defending the existence of climate change.
The speaker’s point seemed to be, at first, that while climate change was undeniably occurring it had yet to be fully proven that humanity was the cause. This assumption is something that is, frustratingly, encouraged by the media’s portrayal of climate change. In an attempt to create suspense and the dramatic conflict often needed to retain audience attention, journalists will present both sides of an argument as equally valid, even if – as in the case of climate change – one has far more scientific data supporting its claims. › Continue reading
