Hmmm: When the whole truth isn't as effective as the propaganda, should you just go with the propaganda?

Should We Tell the Whole Truth About Climate Change? | Climate Central

There’s a flipside to keeping the message simple, though. “The Earth will keep warming if we don’t do anything about it,” is true, but it might seem to imply that temperatures will literally be higher each year than they were the year before. That’s false: all sorts of natural climate variations operate to slow the warming down for a while, or speed it up. Temperatures go up over the long term, but over periods of a few years, or even a couple of decades, the warming can flatten. Anyone who imagined it would be otherwise might think that the relatively slow warming of the past decade means the whole theory is debunked.

So where’s the right balance between telling the whole truth and being truthful in an effective way? At this point, a columnist is supposed to offer a tidy prescription. Sadly, I don’t have one. But NPR does: the network just updated its guidelines to reflect a commitment to fairness and truthfulness in reporting. That doesn’t mean telling the whole truth in every last detail. It does mean giving readers and listeners an honest take on critical issues.

For climate change, here’s my take (you already saw it above): The Earth is warming. It’s largely due to us. It’s going to keep warming unless we do something. And there’s a significant chance that the consequences will be disastrous.