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Climate change alarmism is a critical description of a rhetorical style which stresses the potentially catastrophic effects of global warming or global cooling as a technique for motivating public action. 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 "denialists, "skeptics" or "naysayers" at the other extreme. The term "alarmist" is primarily used by those who reject the scientific consensus on climate change as an epithet for those who treat the issue objectively.

Alarmism as a pejorative

The term "alarmist" is commonly used as a pejorative by critics of the scientific consensus on climate change to describe those who endorse the mainstream scientific view. Examples include Al Gore , Stephen Schneider , Mike Hulme and the International Panel on Climate Change

Alarmism as an extreme position

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 Institute for Public Policy Research 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. It is 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" and do not motivate people to become engaged with the issue of climate change. In the United Kingdom, alarmist messages are often subject to "subtle critique" in the left-leaning press, while the right-leaning media often "embrace" the message, but undermine it using a "climate skeptic" frame. In the context of the climate refugees—the potential for climate change to displace people—it has been reported that "alarmist hyperbole" is frequently employed by private military contractors and think tanks.

People who hold alarmist views of climate change represent one end of a continuum in public perceptions of climate change. Anthony A. Leiserowitz found that alarmists made up about 11% of the United States population, while "naysayers", who have a skeptical or cynical view of climate change, make up about 7% of the population. The remainder of the public lay between these two extremes. Their perception of climate change was similar to that of the alarmists, but they differed significantly from them on questions related to perceived risk.

Media coverage

Minority views—both alarmist and denialist—were reported to get disproportionate attention in the popular press, especially in the United Kingdom. One of the consequences of this is a portrayal of risks well beyond the claims actually being made by scientists. 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 Nature 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."

Views of scientists

Scientists who agree with the consensus view on global warming often have been critical of those who exaggerate or distort the risks posed by global warming. Stephen Schneider 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. Mike Hulme, professor at the University of East Anglia and former director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, describes such exaggerations as "self-defeating," in that they engender feelings of hopelessness rather than motivating positive action. Hans von Storch 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."

Scientists also have criticized press sensationalism in reporting on climate change. Myles Allen, director of the Climateprediction.net experiment, criticized press reporting that seized on the extreme end of predictions from the experiment rather than the much more likely outcome of moderate warming.

See also

• Politics of global warming
• Merchants of Doubt
• Normalcy bias

Footnotes

1. While global cooling was never the scientific consensus, Peterson, Connolley and Fleck outline numerous examples of popular media articles that contended that current weather data "may be the harbinger of another ice age."

References

1. Peterson, Thomas; Connolley, William M.; Fleck, John (2008). "The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Scientific Consensus". Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. 89 (9). American Meteorological Society: 1325–1337. doi:10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1.
2. "Science: Another Ice Age? - TIME". Time Magazine. 24 June 1974. Retrieved 8 September 2010.
3. ^ Leiserowitz, Anthony A. (2005). "American Risk Perceptions: Is Climate Change Dangerous?". Risk Analysis. 25 (6): 1433–1442. doi:10.1111/j.1540-6261.2005.00690.x. ISSN 0272-4332. PMID 16506973.
4. "Climategate": A Different Perspective, Kerry Emanuel
5. ^ Ereaut, Gill; Segrit, Nat (2006). Warm Words: How are we Telling the Climate Story and can we Tell it Better?. London: Institute for Public Policy Research.
6. Lisa Dilling; Susanne C. Moser (2007). "Introduction". Creating a climate for change: communicating climate change and facilitating social change. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp. 1–27. ISBN 0-521-86923-4.
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8. Hartmann, Betsy (2010). "Rethinking climate refugees and climate conflict: Rhetoric, reality and the politics of policy discourse". Journal of International Development. 22 (2): 233–246. doi:10.1002/jid.1676. ISSN 0954-1748.
9. Boykoff, Maxwell T. (2009). "We Speak for the Trees: Media Reporting on the Environment". Annual Review of Environment and Resources. 34 (1): 431–457. doi:10.1146/annurev.environ.051308.084254. ISSN 1543-5938.
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11. http://www.americanphysicalsociety.com/publications/apsnews/199608/upload/aug96.pdf
12. Ghosh, Pallab. "Climate messages are 'off target'". BBC Online. Retrieved 21 June 2010.
13. Cox, Simon. "A load of hot air?". BBC Online. Retrieved 21 June 2010. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

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