The Science of First Impressions

These two websites both present counter arguments to the climate change debate, but that is where similarities end. Friends of Science seems to be geared towards a third grade audience, which oddly makes it seem more credible, if I had never heard of this before. The level of sophistication in the "Climate skeptic" website makes it seem as subversive as it is. The website is written with a sense of humor and an underlying knowledge of the climate debate. I think the competition comes from an intellectual debate need to one-up the other voices on this subject. Outright, stated bias often occurs, but the more vitriolic critiques take advantage of honesty in order to bring out prejudice in public opinion, on both sides of the debate.

Honestly the entire argument seems so no the point to me, it seems so completely silly to negate climate change and its effects with the information and access to that information available today. I see the competition within the debate on the causes of climate change as helpful to addressing real and lasting resolutions and changes to be made to human behavior on this planet. The need to be flexible to scientific discovery, while maintaining a high standard for ourselves is important too. In Political Ecology of Food and Agriculture, Prof. Nicholson quoted to us, "We need strong ideals, weakly held" as a manner of remaining an academic who is still receptive to new information from the scientific community. Competition sometimes encourages people resist the flow of new information into action because of the feeling that one team needs to beat the other. If you evaluate these websites by drawing out their arguments, following their sources, and generally ever reading the news, it seems like a pretty easy way to make a decision on how you feel about climate change. Maybe reading the news is difficult for some people because of the ubiquitous internet access to the 24-hour news-cycle these days, or because of the multiple sources with completely polar funding agendas. Oh wait, I forgot, those things make it EASIER to access the news. Ohkay. I guess it must just be apathy after all.