Is climate scepticism a largely Anglo-Saxon phenomenon?

[xchrom]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2011/nov/11/climate-change-scienceofclimatechange

During a trip to Italy earlier this year, I asked a local journalist whether climate sceptical views get much of an airing in the Italian media. My query was greeted with an air of slight bemusement, which was followed by a request for me to explain what I meant by the term "climate scepticism". Their facial reaction alone told me that this was something of an alien concept to them.

It supported a hunch I have long believed to carry some substance: climate scepticism is a predominantly Anglo-Saxon phenomenon. Or, rather, it is a phenomenon that tends to gets amplified to a much greater extent in the various English-language media outlets around the world – particularly, in the US, UK and Australia - than it does in other languages or countries.

Until now, there has been very little beyond the anecdotal to support this theory. But the proposition is now on a firmer footing thanks to a new report published by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, based at the University of Oxford, which firms up some related findings it published last year.

In "Poles Apart: The International Reporting of Climate Scepticism", a team of researchers, led by James Painter, a former BBC World Service journalist with a specialism in analysing how climate change is portrayed in the media, conducted a comparative study of the prevalence of climate sceptic voices in the print media across Brazil, China, France, India, the UK and US.

[Denninmi]

1. Well, let's see. To paraphrase the Church Lady ...

...Who do we know who just loves to spread lies about climate change throughout the English speaking world? Why, could it be the Koch Brothers and Ruppert Murdoch? Well, hmmm, hmmm, hmmm.

[CJCRANE]

2. What do "the US, UK and Australia" have in common....?

Murdoch.

[eppur_se_muova]

7. True -- but also dominated by energy interests more than just about any other countries.

Do the Saudis believe in global warming? :shrug:

[CJCRANE]

8. Exactly, no they don't....

and look who owns shares in News Corporation apart from the Murdochs...

[hatrack]

3. Nah, I'd say it's more of an "old, rich and narcissitic" problem . .

:shrug:

[Edim]

4. No

Scientific scepticism is the essence of science. Science is, according to Feynman, the belief in the ignorance of experts. I agree 100%.

[txlibdem]

5. The Tuvalese and people from Kiribati have no doubts at all.

1.
Capturing a Nation on Film Before it Vanishes
Kristin Underwood
November 21, 2008

Tuvalu, made up of four small coral-reef islands and five atolls off the coast of Australia, will be one of the first to go as sea levels continue to rise.

2.
http://www.climate.gov.ki/Climate_change_effects_in_Kiribati.html

[Odin2005]

6. It's a Libertarian phenomenon.

And thus coincides with the Anglosphere because Libertarianism is popular within it.

The realities of climate change conflicts with the "government is evil" belief and thus is rationalized out of existence.

[diane in sf]

9. The Koch's etc. spend money to discredit climate science because to really fix it would

require a vast overhaul (to something more socialistic and less harmful) of our political and financial structures that are currently so beneficial to the upper 1/10 of 1%. Naomi Klein says this in the article linked to below and I agree with her hypothesis.

http://www.thenation.com/article/164497/capitalism-vs-climate?page=full

[Kolesar]

10. in France...there is also a strong "pro-science", rationalist culture

Lastly, it makes the interesting observation that in France, where, it says, all of the factors above have a possible role, there is also a strong "pro-science", rationalist culture which is "probably an additional prism through which to evaluate the experience of reporting climate change there".