I feel that this actually has more to do with the media moguls lining their pockets with gold than actually advancing any "debate" on the matter and this is why:
- My understanding is that all of the climate scientists in the world are in agreement, Climate change is a very real and difficult issue.
- There is apparently debate as to what is the main underlying cause of climate change (which I have to admit I'm a tad uncertain about myself) as in are the actions (or in-actions) of humans directly affecting climate change?
- Surely reducing Australia's (comparatively) minuscule emissions won't have that much of an effect on the global scale.
So really you have 2 or 3 issues here, is Climate change real (most scientists say yes), if it is real are humans responsible (in my opinion, probably to very likely) and if we are responsible then why should we bother making changes when we're such a small country compared to the likes of China and USA ... and after all that I still think the answer is Yes, yes we should try and reduce our own impact on the world.
So why do I think that the media is simply trying to line their pockets with gold rather than just "reporting the issue", well quite simply I feel they give far too much weight to the critics of climate change which then (I believe) paints an image that the scientific community is still undecided on the issue and thus not moving discussion past the whole "is this a real issue or not".
This is entirely disrespectful to the vast majority of the scientific community and is akin to the media reporting on 1 person's belief that the sky is in-fact red and not blue and thus claiming that there is now uncertainty about the real colour of the sky or that the world is in-fact flat and being carried on the back of a giant turtle floating through space...
I think that its time enough for the media to act responsibly and report on this matter with the correct scientific information.
