For close on six or seven years I have been guilty of committing a serious social gaffe by admitting to Anthropogenic Global Warming scepticism in polite circles. Now, I am neither a climate nor, indeed, any form of scientist but as part of my job and training I can read and assimilate complex documents. Surely the whole point of science is to research, test and describe aspects of our existence and the world we live in so we lesser mortals can understand otherwise we wouldn’t have advanced as a species much beyond the wheel and the use of fire. So having followed the debate for many years by reading the material that both sides have published I feel that I am justified in expressing an opinion that the sceptic argument has fewer holes.

The debate has interested me on several counts but one of the most interesting aspects is that the debate has been carried out primarily on the Internet and has passed the mainstream media by as they have focused on the offerings of the IPCC and certain select scientific establishments who happen to have pro-AGW stances.

Part of the reason seems to be that main-stream media is much too dependent on being told what the news is rather than going out to find and verify it. Much of the column inches in today’s newspapers are filled with regurgitated press releases which were first written by journalists in the employ of the organisation that wanted to disseminate the message in the first place.

These press releases are then re-written for inclusion in whatever publication wants to run the story but because time pressure and money constraints are ferocious the salient points the press release contains are kept intact and are often not checked. As papers do not check everything they tend to publish from known and trusted sources. 

Thus anyone who is a trusted source and who can “spin” the story (especially by discrediting any opposing view) can manage, to a degree, what the mass media will print.

The Internet provides a way to publish and reach an audience without recourse to the mass media and have given the climate sceptic folks a way to disseminate their views. It has all been rather interesting especially now when the debate seems to have swung in the sceptics favour.  An example of how Internet debate has influenced major world decisions may be?