no cartoon for this one
It is time to make something clear about the preceding entry. I see two failures in particular with the New York Times article discussed therein:
1) The article fails to connect the warming of the Arctic to human activities. By itself, that would not be particularly remarkable, although I do expect an article to provide some sort of explanatory context. By failing to provide reasons for why the Arctic is warming, I believe the article is not complete, even though the main focus of the article is the increased business opportunities provided by the warming. Because Arctic warming is essential to the focus of the article, the reason for the warming should have been at least mentioned.
Unfortunately, the widespread failure of American media to explore the causes of global warming indicates that this particular article's failure in that respect was not a coincidence. I challenge anyone to find an article about a consequence of global warming that mentions the consensus among experts that carbon emissions cause global warming. There are articles about the scientific consensus itself, but in articles related to global warming in which the context would be useful, for example an article about the possibility of converting tar sands to oil, that fact is always omitted.
2)The article, like much economic theory, neglects to think holistically about the economic effects. The article is a series of discription of the economic boons to individual entities. For example, if the artic ice cap melts, then Norway's Statoil has increased opportunity to extract the natural gas under the existing sheets. But the article doesn't mention that in order for the ice cap to melt, climate patterns will have to have changed to a degree that makes a disruption of the gulf stream likely, which would massively disrupt the Norwegian economy.
This sort of economic thinking has been around for thirty years or so, but is not in the mainstream of economic thought because it requires the sort of collectivist thinking that the corporations that employ economists find distasteful. Nonetheless, it is a theory that many in the fields of social science find more appropriate than the centuries-old models used by traditional economists. As such, or at least in an effort to be unbalanced and to represent as many viewpoints as possible, the New York Times should have included this "whole-world thinking" in the article.
But in "the Big Melt," as in many other of their stories, the New York Times primarily used Government sources or sources from large corporations. They stuck to the official story and squelched independant thinking about the topic, and as such should be considered propoganda more than news.
1) The article fails to connect the warming of the Arctic to human activities. By itself, that would not be particularly remarkable, although I do expect an article to provide some sort of explanatory context. By failing to provide reasons for why the Arctic is warming, I believe the article is not complete, even though the main focus of the article is the increased business opportunities provided by the warming. Because Arctic warming is essential to the focus of the article, the reason for the warming should have been at least mentioned.
Unfortunately, the widespread failure of American media to explore the causes of global warming indicates that this particular article's failure in that respect was not a coincidence. I challenge anyone to find an article about a consequence of global warming that mentions the consensus among experts that carbon emissions cause global warming. There are articles about the scientific consensus itself, but in articles related to global warming in which the context would be useful, for example an article about the possibility of converting tar sands to oil, that fact is always omitted.
2)The article, like much economic theory, neglects to think holistically about the economic effects. The article is a series of discription of the economic boons to individual entities. For example, if the artic ice cap melts, then Norway's Statoil has increased opportunity to extract the natural gas under the existing sheets. But the article doesn't mention that in order for the ice cap to melt, climate patterns will have to have changed to a degree that makes a disruption of the gulf stream likely, which would massively disrupt the Norwegian economy.
This sort of economic thinking has been around for thirty years or so, but is not in the mainstream of economic thought because it requires the sort of collectivist thinking that the corporations that employ economists find distasteful. Nonetheless, it is a theory that many in the fields of social science find more appropriate than the centuries-old models used by traditional economists. As such, or at least in an effort to be unbalanced and to represent as many viewpoints as possible, the New York Times should have included this "whole-world thinking" in the article.
But in "the Big Melt," as in many other of their stories, the New York Times primarily used Government sources or sources from large corporations. They stuck to the official story and squelched independant thinking about the topic, and as such should be considered propoganda more than news.