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'''Climate change ]''' or '''global warming alarmism''' is a critical description of a ] that stresses the potentially catastrophic effects of ] to the point where the scale of the problem appears to exclude the possibility of real action or agency by the reader or viewer.<ref name="Ereaut2006">{{Cite journal |url=http://www.ippr.org/members/download.asp?f=/ecomm/files/warm_words.pdf&a=skip |last1=Ereaut |first1=Gill |last2=Segrit |first2=Nat |title=Warm Words: How are we Telling the Climate Story and can we Tell it Better? |year=2006 |publisher=Institute for Public Policy Research |location=London}}</ref><ref name="Dilling & Moser">{{Cite book|last1=Lisa Dilling|first1=|last2=Susanne C. Moser|first2=|title=Creating a climate for change: communicating climate change and facilitating social change|year=2007|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge, UK|isbn=0-521-86923-4|pages=1–27|chapter=Introduction}}</ref> |
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Public perception of the realities and risks associated with climate change have been described as forming a continuum in which people with "alarmist" views form one extreme along the continuum, and those commonly characterized as "], "]" or "naysayers" at the other extreme.<ref name="Leiserowitz2005">{{Cite journal|last=Leiserowitz |first=Anthony A. |year=2005 |title=American Risk Perceptions: Is Climate Change Dangerous? |journal=Risk Analysis |volume=25 |issue=6 |pages=1433–1442 |doi=10.1111/j.1540-6261.2005.00690.x |pmid=16506973}}</ref> |
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==Alarmism as a pejorative== |
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The term ''alarmist'' is commonly used as a ] by critics of mainstream climate science to describe those that endorse it. ] ] ] wrote that labeling someone as an "alarmist" is "a particularly infantile smear considering what is at stake." He continued that using this "inflammatory terminology has a distinctly ] flavor."<ref name=Emanuel>, by ], ], July 19, 2010</ref> |
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The term is also used to describe, usually in a ] way, an alleged consensus of scientists and media said to have propagated a ] scare in the 1970s.{{Citation needed|date=September 2010}} The purported episode of alarmism related to global cooling has been compared with the perceived alarmism tied to global warming.<ref name="Kapitsa, Andrei 2008">Kapitsa, Andrei, and Vladimir Bashkirtsev, "Challenging the basis of Kyoto Protocol", '']'', 10 July 2008, "Who remembers today, they query, that in the 1970s, when global temperatures began to dip, many warned that we faced a new ice age? An editorial in The Time magazine on June 24, 1974, quoted concerned scientists as voicing alarm over the atmosphere 'growing gradually cooler for the past three decades', 'the unexpected persistence and thickness of pack ice in the waters around Iceland,' and other harbingers of an ice age that could prove 'catastrophic.' Man was blamed for global cooling as he is blamed today for global warming".</ref><ref name="Don 2007, p. 1">'']'', "Don't believe doomsayers that insist the world's end is nigh", 16 March 2007, p. 1. "The widespread alarm over global warming is only the latest scare about the environment to come our way since the 1960s. Let's go through some of them. Almost exactly 30 years ago the world was in another panic about climate change. However, it wasn't the thought of global warming that concerned us. It was the fear of its opposite, global cooling. The doom-sayers were wrong in the past and it's entirely possible they're wrong this time as well."</ref><ref name="Schmidt, David 2002">Schmidt, David, "It's curtains for global warming", '']'', 28 June 2002, p. 16B. "If there is one thing more remarkable than the level of alarm inspired by global warming, it is the thin empirical foundations upon which the forecast rests. Throughout the 1970s, the scientific consensus held that the world was entering a period of global cooling, with results equally catastrophic to those now predicted for global warming."</ref><ref name="Francis Wilson 2009, p. 32">], "The rise of the extreme killers", '']'', 19 April 2009, p. 32. "Throughout history there have been false alarms: "shadow of the bomb", "nuclear winter", "ice age cometh" and so on. So it's no surprise that today many people are sceptical about climate change. The difference is that we have hard evidence that increasing temperatures will lead to a significant risk of dangerous repercussions."</ref><ref name="The 2000">'']'', "The sky was supposed to fall: The '70s saw the rise of environmental Chicken Littles of every shape as a technique for motivating public action", 5 April 2000, p. B1. "One of the strange tendencies of modern life, however, has been the institutionalization of scaremongering, the willingness of the mass media and government to lend plausibility to wild surmises about the future. The crucial decade for this odd development was the 1970s. Schneider's book excited a frenzy of glacier hysteria. The most-quoted ice-age alarmist of the 1970s became, in a neat public-relations pivot, one of the most quoted global-warming alarmists of the 1990s."</ref>{{Syn|date=September 2010}} |
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==Alarmism as an extreme position== |
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Alarmism is described as the use of a linguistic repertoire which communicates climate change using inflated language, an urgent tone and imagery of doom. In a report produced for the ] Gill Ereaut and Nat Segnit reported that alarmist language is frequently employed by newspapers, popular magazine and in campaign literature put out by government and environment groups.<ref name="Ereaut2006"/> It is considered {{by whom|date=February 2011}} difficult for the public to see climate change as urgent unless it is posed to them as a catastrophe, but using alarmist language is an unreliable tool for communicating the issue to the public. Instead of motivating people to action, these techniques often evoke "denial, paralysis apathy"<ref name="Dilling & Moser"/> and do not motivate people to become engaged with the issue of climate change.<ref>{{cite doi | 10.1177/1075547008329201}}</ref> In the United Kingdom, alarmist messages are often subject to "subtle critique" in the ] press, while the ] media often "embrace" the message, but undermine it using a "climate skeptic" frame<ref name="Ereaut2006"/> ] support a foundation which, ] has said, counters "climate change alarmism", among other things "that threaten to destroy America as we know it.".<ref name="Zernike">{{cite journal|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/us/politics/20koch.htm |title=Secretive Republican Donors Are Planning Ahead |journal=] |date=October 19, 2010 |first=Kate |last=Zernike |authorlink=Kate Zernike}}</ref> In the context of ]s — the potential for climate change to ]—it has been reported that "alarmist hyperbole" is frequently employed by ]s and ]s.<ref name="Hartmann2010">{{Cite journal|last=Hartmann |first=Betsy |year=2010 |title=Rethinking climate refugees and climate conflict: Rhetoric, reality and the politics of policy discourse |journal=Journal of International Development |volume=22 |issue=2 |pages=233–246 |issn=09541748 |doi=10.1002/jid.1676}}</ref> |
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Looking at 2003 ] popular ] data in 2005, Anthony A. Leiserowitz identified an "interpretive community with high-risk perceptions of climate change" and called them ''alarmists''. The data found that they made up about 11% of the US population, while those he called ''naysayers'', an "interpretive community that perceived climate change as a very low or nonexistent danger", made up about 7% of the population. The remainder of the public lay between these two extremes, including some who confused climate change and ]. Thus individuals differed significantly when questioned about perceived risk.<ref name="Leiserowitz2005"/> |
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==Media coverage== |
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{{Main|Media coverage of climate change}} |
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Minority views—both alarmist and denialist—were reported to get disproportionate attention in the popular press. One of the consequences of this is a portrayal of risks well beyond the claims actually being made by scientists.<ref name="Boykoff2009">{{Cite journal|last=Boykoff |first=Maxwell T. |year=2009 |title=We Speak for the Trees: Media Reporting on the Environment |journal=Annual Review of Environment and Resources |volume=34 |issue=1 |pages=431–457 |doi=10.1146/annurev.environ.051308.084254}}</ref> Others have noted the tendency for journalists to overemphasize the most extreme outcomes from a range of possibilities reported in scientific articles. A study that tracked press reports about a climate change article in the journal ] found that "results and conclusions of the study were widely misrepresented, especially in the news media, to make the consequences seem more catastrophic and the timescale shorter."<ref>{{cite doi|10.1179/030801805X42036}}</ref> |
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==Views of scientists== |
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The ] based on all available data and scientific ] is "that today’s climate is far out of equilibrium with current ]". This means that large-scale changes in the Earth's climate are ], and will not reverse even if no more ]es are emitted into the atmosphere. ] that it is necessary to maintain levels of atmospheric {{CO2}} at or below 350ppm to avoid "deleterious" effects and "to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted". The ] was approximately 390 ppm {{As of|2010|lc=on}},<ref name="Carbon Trends">{{cite web | url=http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/ | title=Trends in Carbon Dioxide | author=Tans, Pieter | publisher=]/] | accessdate=2009-12-11}}</ref> rising by 1.9 ppm/yr. This has already led to measurable effects over the last century including ], the ], ] and ] due to ] and sea temperature rises. Global ] and the risk of irreversible changes to the Earth's climate are difficult to quantify but are cited as causes for grave concern by mainstream climate science.<ref name="columbia.edu">{{cite journal |author=Hansen JE, Sato M, Kharecha PA, Beerling D, Berner R, Masson-Delmotte V, Pagani M, Raymo M, Royer DL, Zachos JC |title=Target Atmospheric CO<sub>2</sub>: Where Should Humanity Aim? |journal=Open Atmos. Sci. J. |volume=2 |pages=217–31 |year=2008 |doi=10.2174/1874282300802010217 |arxiv=0804.1126 |bibcode=2008OASJ....2..217H}}</ref> Furthermore, even after years of ] negotiations aimed at slowing greenhouse gas emissions, humans emitted record levels in 2010,<ref name="greenhouse_gas_record_levels">{{Cite web |
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|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/04/greenhouse-gases-rise-record-levels |
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|title=Greenhouse gases rise by record amount |
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|date=2011-11-04 |
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|publisher=] |
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|archiveurl=http://www.webcitation.org/62wyNq5r6 |
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|archivedate=2011-11-04 |
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}}</ref> thus exceeding even the IPCC's worst case ]. |
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Scientists who agree with this consensus view on global warming often have been critical of those who exaggerate or distort the risks posed by global warming. ] has criticized such exaggeration, stating that he "disapprove of the 'ends justify the means' philosophy" that would exaggerate dangers in order to spur public action.<ref>"Don’t Bet All Environmental Changes Will Be Beneficial," by Stephen H. Schneider, ''in'' . Also see ] for a fuller discussion of his views on this topic.</ref> Mike Hulme, professor at the ] and former director of the ], describes such exaggerations as "self-defeating," in that they engender feelings of hopelessness rather than motivating positive action.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6655449.stm|title=Climate messages are 'off target'|last=Ghosh|first=Pallab|work=]|accessdate=21 June 2010 | date=15 May 2007}}</ref> ] has objected to "alarmists think that climate change is something extremely dangerous, extremely bad and that overselling a little bit, if it serves a good purpose, is not that bad."<ref>{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4923504.stm|title=A load of hot air?|last=Cox|first=Simon|coauthors=Richard Vadon|work=]|accessdate=21 June 2010 | date=20 April 2006}}</ref> |
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] ] ], who believes that the effects of ] will be milder than the current consensus estimate,<ref name=NYTprofile>{{Cite news| url=http://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/18/science/scientist-work-richard-s-lindzen-skeptic-asks-it-getting-hotter-it-just-computer.html?pagewanted=1 | work=The New York Times | title=SCIENTIST AT WORK: Richard S. Lindzen;A Skeptic Asks, Is It Getting Hotter, Or Is It Just the Computer Model? | first=William K. | last=Stevens | date=June 18, 1996 | accessdate=May 22, 2010}}</ref> has written: |
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{{blockquote|Unfortunately, a significant part of the scientific community appears committed to the maintenance of the notion that alarm ''may'' be warranted. Alarm is felt to be essential to the maintenance of funding. The argument is no longer over whether the ] are correct (they are not), but rather ''whether their results are at all possible''.<ref name=LindAlarm>Richard S. Lindzen, 2005, ''in'' Global Warming: Looking Beyond Kyoto, Ernesto Zedillo, editor, 2007, ] Press. ISBN 9780815797142</ref>}} |
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] researcher ] stated that ] is a "gross alarmist" regarding his documentary '']'': "He's one of these guys that preaches the end of the world type of things. I think he's doing a great disservice and he doesn't know what he's talking about."<ref>{{cite news| url=http://www.usatoday.com/weather/research/2007-04-09-gray-gore_N.htm | work=USA Today | title=Top hurricane forecaster calls Al Gore a "gross alarmist" | date=9 April 2007}}</ref> |
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In a 2009 interview with '']'' about signing the 2003 ] (AGU) statement, climatologist ] said: "As far as the AGU, I thought that was a fine statement because it did not put forth a magnitude of the warming. We just said that human effects have a warming influence, and that's certainly true. There was nothing about disaster or catastrophe. In fact, I was very upset about the latest AGU statement . It was about alarmist as you can get." <ref name=fortune2009>{{Cite news| url=http://money.cnn.com/2009/05/14/magazines/fortune/globalwarming.fortune/?postversion=2009051412 | title=What if global-warming fears are overblown? | first=Jon | last=Birger | date=May 14, 2009 | publisher=Fortune Magazine}}</ref> |
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==See also== |
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==References== |
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{{Reflist|2}} |
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{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2010}} |
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Climate Change Alarmism}} |
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