How climate change gets lost in translation | Climate Spectator

While there is little to gain from responding directly to the arguments of climate deniers, given the reliance on cherry-picking of quotes and data (or to be more accurate, a willingness to deliberately misrepresent scientific evidence), it is worth pursuing the broader motivations behind climate science denial as well as the psychological factors that influence people’s responses to complex global issues such as climate change.

Climate scientist Michael E. Mann and the hockey stick graph - Science - Macleans.ca

[Mann]: Skepticism is an essential thing in science. Scientists are expected to support their results with solid reasoning, and solid data, and their findings have to be subject to replication by other scientists. It’s all part of the give and take, and sometimes it’s rough-and-tumble. Scientists can be brutal, but as long as it’s an honest debate, that’s what moves science forward. Unfortunately, in the areas of science that have become politicized, there are those that exploit that culture of open debate by engaging in bad faith attacks. There are usually telltale signs, like going after the researcher rather than the results. Many of those looking to discredit mainstream scientific findings or individual studies like ours are not participating in the normal scientific process. They’re not going to meetings, giving lectures, or taking questions from an audience. They’re not publishing in peer-reviewed journals. They’re issuing attacks in op-eds in newspapers, or on websites with no degree of critical quality control.

Nick Smith resigns all portfolios, citing two ACC letters | New Zealand

March 21 (BusinessDesk) – The government has lost one of its lynchpin Ministers, Nick Smith, who has resigned over two inappropriate letters written to a personal friend and ACC claimant while he was Minister in charge of the no-fault accident scheme in the last term of Parliament. As Minister

for Climate Change and the Environment, he was the driving force in the Cabinet on domestic climate change and environmental policy, including water allocation and the new regime for the Exclusive Economic Zone.