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Facts and fiction on climate change: ‘how to make up my mind as a consumer?’
On Tuesday, June 24th, the second Triple Value Young Professional Event took place and this time Simon Rozendaal was invited to share his thoughts. Simon has been working as a science journalist for many years and publishes various articles in Elsevier and a blog on climate change. He is averse to the hype around climate change and in his presentation he showed that the public is misled in the information it receives, especially from the media, politicians and lobby groups.
Simon knows how to challenge your conventional assumptions on climate change with just a few examples. Did you know that the worldwide temperature rise has actually stopped in the last ten years? Here’s another one; did you know that a coal-fired power spreads more radio activity than a nuclear power plant? There may well be some questions to these statements, but it was shocking to see that so few people in the audience (including myself) knew this despite their relatively broad knowledge on climate change.
This gives us an idea of how little we, the public, actually know about a subject that has such a dominant position in the daily headlines and public debate. Are we deliberately lied to by opinion leaders? At least Simon Rozendaal is convinced that many facts are deliberately held back in the media. Or are the specialists themselves not even sure about the facts on climate change? There are enough scientists to be found that have reasonable doubts regarding Al Gore’s ‘Inconvenient truth’.
With all this being said, how can I make up my mind as a consumer? We are told that we can make a difference in this world; that real change is in our hands as a consumer and citizen. But the problem is that I don’t know how to make the right decision because I don’t know what or who to believe. Just an example; while WWF asks me to support their programme on CO2 reduction to save the polar bear from extinction, the sceptical environmentalist Bjørn Lomborg says polar bear would stand a better chance of avoiding extinction if people would simply stopped shooting them. The polar bear population has only increased since the 1960s. But that’s not what I’m told by the media.
It is true that consumers are a powerful force in current society and it would be a waste not to use its potential in order to change the world for the better. But consumers can only make the right decisions if they can rely upon correct and useful information. So politicians, media and lobby groups; quit with all the propaganda campaigns that leave out exactly those facts that do not go well with your campaign’s message. What we need is a transparent debate on climate change in which all facts are taken into account. Only this way the real consumer power will be activated and used to its full power.
Comments for this blog
maandag 7 juli 2008 15:51
I agree with the idea that consumers can make decissions based on incorrect or insufficient sources. Reading the examples the author gives in his article made me wonder whether that is the correct information we (both as consumers and proffesionals )are looking for. In my opinion everyone has its own interests in every piece of information we receive. This yields indeed that politicians, media and other groups will filter those facts suitable for their message and campaigns. But isn't this also the case for sceptical environmentalists? What proofs that they are right? How can we initiate a transparent discussion that will activate consumer power?
woensdag 9 juli 2008 11:25
Erik,
It is true that we all have our own way of interpreting the reality and thus our view must surely be biased as well.
So how to come to a transparent and constructive discussion that will activate consumer power?
Wouldn't it be an idea to first come to a consensus on the facts around climate change that we all at least agree on and start the discussion on our differences from there?
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