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posted by cmn32480 on Sunday June 11 2017, @06:36PM   Printer-friendly
from the just-look-at-the-comments-below dept.

NASA chief scientist weighs in

Americans are "under siege" from disinformation designed to confuse the public about the threat of climate change, Nasa's former chief scientist has said.

Speaking to the Guardian, Ellen Stofan, who left the US space agency in December, said that a constant barrage of half-truths had left many Americans oblivious to the potentially dire consequences of continued carbon emissions, despite the science being unequivocal.

"We are under siege by fake information that's being put forward by people who have a profit motive," she said, citing oil and coal companies as culprits. "Fake news is so harmful because once people take on a concept it's very hard to dislodge it."

During the past six months, the US science community has woken up to this threat, according to Stofan, and responded by ratcheting up efforts to communicate with the public at the grassroots level as well as in the mainstream press.

"The harder part is this active disinformation campaign," she said before her appearance at Cheltenham Science Festival this week. "I'm always wondering if these people honestly believe the nonsense they put forward. When they say 'It could be volcanoes' or 'the climate always changes'... to obfuscate and to confuse people, it frankly makes me angry."

Stofan added that while "fake news" is frequently characterised as a problem in the right-leaning media, she saw evidence of an "erosion of people's ability to scrutinise information" across the political spectrum. "All of us have a responsibility," she said. "There's this attitude of 'I read it on the internet therefore it must be true'."

No editorial comment included.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:44PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:44PM (#524002)

    But what is often ignored is there is a *HUGE* amount of similiarly ignorant Conservativism here, and that neither side realizes that they are both being led by financially established players for the gain of the ruling socio-economic class, not their own.

    It is sad to think that after the fighting of the 60s that intellectualism in both the Liberal and Conservative circles has declined to such a level that it better represents the Raiders and Giants fans booing and jeering at each other rather than the conflicts of two dissenting intellectual parties.

  • (Score: 2) by Lagg on Monday June 12 2017, @12:35AM

    by Lagg (105) on Monday June 12 2017, @12:35AM (#524051) Homepage Journal

    This is true. And the ugly politics that lead to Trump and the current situation were created by the most hardcore "liberals" and "democrats". They're the same as each other just with different sets of gross prejudices that they refer to as "values".

    Problem is though, it's easy for me to utterly loathe Obama for what he did to expand surveillance and any number of steps that were then utilized by Trump to continue the slow march to fascism. But he was stealthy about it. Just like Clinton would have been. They have good PR. And their cult base prefers to let passive aggressiveness, exclusion masked as inclusion, elitism masked as open mindedness and intelligence as a virtue define their character.

    Per the above, the people I grew up around and still deal with are generally of the religious disposition. Trump and the republican party encourages faith over thinking on a very active basis. His cult has already been doing that for a long time. They don't like different people because they've only ever experienced Cholos trying to pick fights with them. Because places like this aren't exactly cultural centers of acceptance and progressiveness. The latinos and blacks that are smart either had friends before or used this state like it should be: Flyover fodder. The ones remaining have given up on life as a whole and have nothing left in their life but spite to fill their day.

    I hate identity politics and those utter retards in california and co. that will never in history take responsibility for what they did to us this election. Don't get me wrong. I hate the blatant racism towards acceptable targets. I hate rare skin colors being used as stage props. But I would rather deal with elitist pricks thinking they're smarter than me and looking at me like I'm crazy than people who wear their ignorance and obedience to the Jeebus while Fox News easily manipulates them [foxnews.com] with a centuries old play performed in the format all modern theater is (Kevin Spacey with Gadafi shades for the fucking win).

    --
    http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿