Introduction

To what extent are climate change 'skeptics' present in the climate change spaces on the Web? The question is posed in order to gain insight into whether the Web, and the devices that rank information, privilege the skeptics in ways similar to other ‘spheres’ such as the news. Does Google grant the skeptics voice in its returns for a “climate change” query? In the journalistic convention both sides of the story are represented, but in the climate change space provided by Google, the skeptics’ presence is scant.

Method

1. Derive list of climate change skeptics.

  • Locate reliable lists of climate change skeptics, and triangulate, noting which names appear on at least two lists. The list of climate change skeptics is derived from four sources: sourcewatch.com, motherjones.com, wikipedia.org and the sociologists, Aaron McCright and Riley Dunlap.
  • Lists of skeptics also sometimes include skeptical organizations, which may be supporters, sponsors and/or sympathesizers. Build a list of skeptical organizations.

Persons

  • S. Fred Singer
  • Robert Balling
  • Sallie Baliunas
  • Patrick Michaels
  • Richard Lindzen
  • Steven Milloy
  • Timothy Ball
  • Paul Driessen
  • Willie Soon
  • Sherwood B. Idso
  • Frederick Seitz

Organisations

  • American Enterprise Institute
  • American Legislative Exchange Council
  • Center for Science and Public Policy
  • Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow
  • Competitive Enterprise Institute
  • Frontiers of Freedom
  • Marshall Institute
  • Heartland Institute
  • Tech Central Station

2. Determine how far the skeptics are from the top of the Web.

  • Query Web for climate change, i.e., query Google.com for "climate change". The preferences are set to 100 results.
  • The 100 results are copied and pasted into the top box of the Google Scraper, and each skeptic's name is placed in the bottom box, one name per line, e.g. "Steven Milloy".
  • The results that are shown in a tagcloud are selected and put into the Tagcloudgenerator. This generator turns the results into a svg file.
  • The svg file is opened in Illustrator. Now the results can be ordered into the order of rank from the Google results.
  • In the tag cloud is visible how many times a name appears on a a website. The equivalent search in Google is, for example, site:epa.gov "Robert Balling".

3. Cloud the findings using the Tag Cloud Generator

Findings

1. There is distance between the skeptics and the top of the search engine returns. Note that few skeptics appear on the Websites of the top ten results in Google. When they do appear (Patrick Michaels, Steven Milloy) their resonance is not particularly resounding.

2. One may evaluate sources according to the frequency with which each mentions the skeptics. There are skeptic-friendly sites, and less skeptic-friendly sites.

3. From the visualization one is able to see the "skeptic-friendly" sources, realclimate.org and, to a lesser extent, climatescience.gov stand out as skeptic-friendly. Sourcewatch also is prominent, albeit as a progressive watchdog group 'exposing' the skeptics.

4. Remarkably, news sites, generally speaking, do not mention the climate change skeptics by name. Whilst news watchers and listeners may have the impression that 'uncertainty' in the climate change 'debate' continues in a general sense (as opposed to, say, in more specific, scientific sub-discussions), 'uncertainty' appears to be discussed without resort to the well-known, or identified, skeptics.

Visualizations

  • Frederick Seitz:
    FrederickSeitz.png
  • Fred Singer:
    FredSinger.png
  • Patrick Michaels:
    PatrickMichaels.png
  • Paul Driessen:
    PaulDriessen.png
  • Richard Linzen:
    RichardLinzen.png
  • Robert Balling:
    RobertBalling.png
  • Sallie Baliunas:
    SallieBaliunas.png
  • Sherwood Idso:
    SherwoodIdso.png
  • Steven Milloy:
    StevenMilloy.png
  • Timothy Ball:
    TimothyBall.png
  • Willie Soon:
    WillieSoon.png

Implications

The question concerns the extent to which the Web stages climate change as a controversy vis a vis other media spaces, such as news. Further research would be to draw a comparison between the skeptics' resonance on the Web and in the news. Additionally, one may wish to expand the work from impact research (non-coded mentions) to coded research, where positive and negative mentions are of interest.

References

  • Business and Media Institute (2007). "Skeptical Scientists," http://www.businessandmedia.org/specialreports/2007/globalwarming/SkepticalScientists.asp
  • Cooperative research. "Scientist Who Wrote Article Skeptical of Global Warming Recruited by ExxonMobil-Funded Organizations". http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=BaliunasHooksUpWExxonFundedOrgs
  • McCright, Aaron M. and Dunlap, Riley E. (2003). "Defeating Kyoto: The Conservative Movement's Impact on U.S. Climate Change Policy," Social Problems. 50(3): 348-373,http://caliber.ucpress.net/doi/abs/10.1525/sp.2003.50.3.348.
  • Mother Jones (2005). "Put a tiger in your think tank". http://www.motherjones.com/news/featurex/2005/05/exxon_chart.html
  • Sourcewatch (current). "Global Warming Skeptics". http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Climate_change_skeptics
  • Union of Concerned Scientists (2007). "Smoke, Mirrors and Hot Air: How ExxonMobil uses big tobacco's tactics to manufacture uncertainty on climate change."http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/global_warming/exxon_report.pdf
  • Wikipedia (current). "Global Warming Skeptics". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Global_warming_skeptics

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I Attachment Action Size Date Who Comment
FredSinger.jpgjpg FredSinger.jpg manage 58 K 01 Aug 2007 - 09:50 UnknownUser  
FredSinger.pngpng FredSinger.png manage 92 K 06 Jun 2008 - 11:48 Main.Laura  
FrederickSeitz.jpgjpg FrederickSeitz.jpg manage 56 K 01 Aug 2007 - 09:49 UnknownUser  
FrederickSeitz.pngpng FrederickSeitz.png manage 90 K 06 Jun 2008 - 11:47 Main.Laura  
PatrickMichaels.jpgjpg PatrickMichaels.jpg manage 56 K 01 Aug 2007 - 09:51 UnknownUser  
PatrickMichaels.pngpng PatrickMichaels.png manage 86 K 06 Jun 2008 - 11:48 Main.Laura  
PaulDriessen.jpgjpg PaulDriessen.jpg manage 50 K 01 Aug 2007 - 09:52 UnknownUser  
PaulDriessen.pngpng PaulDriessen.png manage 84 K 06 Jun 2008 - 11:49 Main.Laura  
RichardLinzen.jpgjpg RichardLinzen.jpg manage 47 K 01 Aug 2007 - 09:54 UnknownUser  
RichardLinzen.pngpng RichardLinzen.png manage 81 K 06 Jun 2008 - 11:49 Main.Laura  
RobertBalling.jpgjpg RobertBalling.jpg manage 51 K 01 Aug 2007 - 09:55 UnknownUser  
RobertBalling.pngpng RobertBalling.png manage 86 K 06 Jun 2008 - 11:49 Main.Laura  
SallieBaliunas.jpgjpg SallieBaliunas.jpg manage 53 K 01 Aug 2007 - 09:56 UnknownUser  
SallieBaliunas.pngpng SallieBaliunas.png manage 87 K 06 Jun 2008 - 11:53 Main.Laura  
SherwoodIdso.jpgjpg SherwoodIdso.jpg manage 56 K 01 Aug 2007 - 09:58 UnknownUser  
SherwoodIdso.pngpng SherwoodIdso.png manage 88 K 06 Jun 2008 - 11:51 Main.Laura  
StevenMilloy.jpgjpg StevenMilloy.jpg manage 61 K 01 Aug 2007 - 09:59 UnknownUser  
StevenMilloy.pngpng StevenMilloy.png manage 100 K 06 Jun 2008 - 11:50 Main.Laura  
TimothyBall.jpgjpg TimothyBall.jpg manage 45 K 01 Aug 2007 - 10:00 UnknownUser  
TimothyBall.pngpng TimothyBall.png manage 82 K 06 Jun 2008 - 11:52 Main.Laura  
WillieSoon.jpgjpg WillieSoon.jpg manage 49 K 01 Aug 2007 - 10:01 UnknownUser  
WillieSoon.pngpng WillieSoon.png manage 86 K 06 Jun 2008 - 11:52 Main.Laura  
csc_FredSinger_30072007.pdfpdf csc_FredSinger_30072007.pdf manage 820 K 08 Dec 2007 - 17:43 RichardRogers  
csc_FrederickSeitz_30072007.pdfpdf csc_FrederickSeitz_30072007.pdf manage 818 K 08 Dec 2007 - 17:43 RichardRogers  
csc_PatrickMichaels_30072007.pdfpdf csc_PatrickMichaels_30072007.pdf manage 815 K 08 Dec 2007 - 17:45 RichardRogers  
csc_PaulDriessen_30072007.pdfpdf csc_PaulDriessen_30072007.pdf manage 819 K 08 Dec 2007 - 17:45 RichardRogers  
csc_RichardLinzen_30072007.pdfpdf csc_RichardLinzen_30072007.pdf manage 818 K 08 Dec 2007 - 17:46 RichardRogers  
csc_RobertBalling_30072007.pdfpdf csc_RobertBalling_30072007.pdf manage 816 K 08 Dec 2007 - 17:46 RichardRogers  
csc_SallieBaliunas_30072007.pdfpdf csc_SallieBaliunas_30072007.pdf manage 819 K 08 Dec 2007 - 17:47 RichardRogers  
csc_SherwoodIdso_30072007.pdfpdf csc_SherwoodIdso_30072007.pdf manage 817 K 08 Dec 2007 - 17:47 RichardRogers  
csc_StevenMilloy_30072007.pdfpdf csc_StevenMilloy_30072007.pdf manage 804 K 08 Dec 2007 - 17:48 RichardRogers  
csc_TimothyBall_30072007.pdfpdf csc_TimothyBall_30072007.pdf manage 816 K 08 Dec 2007 - 18:05 RichardRogers  
csc_WillieSoon_30072007.pdfpdf csc_WillieSoon_30072007.pdf manage 816 K 08 Dec 2007 - 18:07 RichardRogers  
Topic revision: r16 - 03 Oct 2008, RichardRogers
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