What I would like to see is President Trump call for a 2 hour national televised debate between the “warmers” and the “deniers” . Each side chooses their 3 best minds to debate. There would be 2 moderators. Each side would choose whoever they thought would be fair. Moderators would take turns asking questions. The 3 debaters from both sides would be seated in their own enclosed, sound proof glass room on the stage. They would, of course, be able to hear the moderators and the other side’s arguments. The reason for the glass rooms would to cut their microphones off the instant their allotted time was up.
Of course, both sides would declare themselves to be the winners. Afterwards both sides would claim the other lied, cheated and deceived during their argument, but at least the citizens of the USA (and the world) would get to see the best arguments from both sides and the people could decide for themselves.
Do you think both sides of this argument would agree to debate?
Really, one just needs to read the total myths the deniers go for to realize that what we have here is that the deniers are being like Immanuel Velikovsky and his followers were, when they had the loopy idea that the planets almost collided with each other in the past and that was the reason for all the things seen in the bible like the flood and plagues of Egypt.
Also, for just that reason unless the deniers are massively favored by any moderators and allowed to constantly lie and obfuscate there won’t be an actual debate. Just the pro-science side expressing the facts while the moderator shuts down the denier every time they try to talk, since all the denier has is lies; and we all know how that’ll be spun.
This is a horrible idea.
Should we do this about vaccines too? What about the moon landing? How about whether Hillary should go to jail for Benghazi?
This debate on climate change has occurred over the last 40-50 years in peer reviewed journals by scientists on both sides of the issue. If Americans wanted to read about it, nobody is stopping them.
Climate change deniers are fond of claiming that climate scientists don’t agree on the details of climate change. To represent the full debate, we can have:
3 deniers
10 scientists who think there will be a 1 degree rise
20 scientists who think there will be a 2 degree rise
30 scientists who think there will be a 3 degree rise
etc.
Debates are the perfect format to spread disinformation.
Look at the VP debate this year. The “winner” actually was up to his ears in falsehoods. But he looked good telling them. Ugh.
You’d have to find some way of real time fact checking that would set of sirens and flashing red lights when someone said something untrue so the viewers would know immediately that someone was just flat out lying.
I strongly suspect one certain side would refuse to participate under such rules since they would basically be unable to state anything interesting for their case.
The biggest problem we have now with “news” is the stupid idea that there are two sides to everything that deserve equal coverage. No. You can and should completely ignore people who aren’t interested in actual facts.
It would be a really bad idea for several reasons. The very act of setting up such an event automatically establishes a false equivalence between the “sides”, because after all, if one is setting up such a debate, then obviously there’s something worth debating, right? Well, no, if the subject is AGW, then as already said, facts aren’t debatable.
The other problem is the implicit assumption that since the facts clearly support one side, that side will naturally prevail. Unfortunately, the answer here is “not necessarily”. You just can’t condense many decades of scientific research into a one-hour shouting match. The person who ends up “winning” is the one with the most convincing swagger, the best zingers, and the best ability to undermine the facts with cleverly spun deceptive half-truths. That’s not how science works and it’s not how the exposition of a complex subject needs to be carried out.
It’s been done, and that’s pretty much how it generally turns out. There was one such debate some years ago. I don’t remember many of the details but it involved the climate scientist Gavin Schmidt on one side, and Richard Lindzen on the other (I think there were other participants but this will illustrate the point). The interesting thing here being that Lindzen is also a climate scientists of sorts, but with the peculiar twist that before he retired he was a legitimate atmospheric physicist at MIT (his old day job) and in his spare time his hobby was assuming a sort of Mr. Hyde persona and going around being a climate contrarian. I don’t remember whether the debate was specifically about AGW or whether it might have been more about the so-called “climategate” non-event that was being so overhyped at the time. What I do remember was Gavin hitting all the valid scientific points flawlessly, Lindzen doing the usual fraudulent spin, and the audience at the end voting that Lindzen had “won”.
On the bright side, ISTM that we’re seeing less outright denialism in the wild, which is mostly now restricted to those who are truly scientifically clueless.
ETA:
Yes, well, that’s a succinct way of putting it! My longer form was before I saw your post!
Please don’t give Conservatives any ideas like this. Next thing you know they’ll take your idea and run with it. Start having hearings, I mean debates, about “theories” like “evolution” or “gravity”.
Trump only got about 37% of the voting age population to vote for him.
I still believe a debate or some kind of forum is needed to discuss global climate change.
How would you move the needle from the current figure of a measly 33% of the US population who think global climate change is of serious concern? Or do you think enough is being done now?
Again, your number is missing a lot of what Gallup actually reported. But still, yes, there is more that needs to be done.
In the short range we need to contribute to organizations like the National Center of Science Education that support educators against the forces of ignorance that are bound to be emboldened with the ignorant in chief.
And also the Climate Science Defense Fund that helps climate science now against denialist Republicans from states that want to get more material to fool more people by creating or cherry picking lines from personal emails.
And most importantly, organize more and get more well to do people to fund better sources of information and for them to support more politicians that do get it.
I’m also of the idea that having a debate wouldn’t do much. Any actual science would go above the heads of many people, and rather than trusting actual experts, they’d prefer to lean towards whatever makes them feel most comfortable. After this past election, we’d establish more theatrics than a serviceable, walk-away understanding of truth…and even if we could, it’s still a matter of convincing politicians in states with something to lose.
Giving both sides a platform like this would only help deniers, IMO. If someone wants a better understanding, they can acquire it right now.
Putting any “controversial” issue in science up for debate (climate change, creationism, GMO safety, vaccination, water fluoridation etc.) gratifies those who seek publicity for pseudoscientific views and rewards deceptive debate tactics like Gish galloping.
Participating in such debates is a temptation best avoided by rational folks.
