I couldn't bring myself to link directly to Mr. CB's 'news' article... at least not until I've had my say. The links above go to George Monbiot's response.
Climate change denialism is as meaningful and serious a scam as any you'll find. It's an advertisement for a whole lifestyle; a mission to replicate the materialism of 20th Century America. Why? Because the most powerful, wealthy nation of equals has been brought to its knees, one naive customer at a time. This isn't the first ideological battle that goes below the belt and it won't be the last. Remembering hardly a thing before WWII, we have a tendency to think that only governments can release propaganda, but this is an old business with many patrons.
I've had quite enough. My social animal instinct is working strongly when I read the well-published lies of dangerous people; they must go. One can sympathize with the many idealists throughout history who have turned to violence. But we are not merely animals, and history shows that it rarely does good to attack our enemies directly (especially public ones). So how should we respond to liars in the media? Is there a way to hold them accountable? Is there a way to encourage and reward good behavior?
Many of us have seen little 'flag' links on all sorts of web content. Readers can flag posts as inappropriate or spam, the result being that a small group of civic-minded persons can save the majority from reading tripe. On a site like Craigslist, this quietly and rightly protects others from potential con artists and others who break the social contract. It's not perfect, but it brings scammers to the bottom of the pyramid rather than the top.
News sites are hardly likely to let readers flag dishonest articles. Our only choice seems to be to complain loudly and risk legitimizing the liar's position. Can't we find a way to flag their content?
Yes... we... could. Here's an idea: when you're insulted by someone's web page, click an ad - then don't buy anything. You may have just paid out a few cents to the liar, but you also made it seem like their readers are less valuable on average. If you let the advertiser know why you didn't buy anything (and will be less likely to in the future), it's an even more significant attack on the liar's revenue. The next time you write an irate email/letter, tell publishers why you clicked the ads. Let advertisers know why you didn't buy.
As with the printing press, new technologies have momentarily brought new players to the table for a new struggle of ideas. When this war was fought with speeches and physical books, containment was the key strategy in PR for incumbent powers (i.e. monopolize the pulpit and ban the wrong texts). It didn't work because ordinary people never lost the incentive to take a risk for valuable information. Too many well written ideas delivered on their promise to improve lives and illuminate the universe. Today as the cost of information distribution approaches zero, the weapon of choice has become volume rather than quality - a strategy that is far more dangerous, yet not without it's weaknesses.
The cost of publishing is not zero - and it never actually will be. Your click has a cost, however low. Click an ad. Ctrl+Click it a few dozen times. However crazy they think you are, the marketing department will remember where you clicked from.
At this point if you'd like to see the lie that started this whole rant, be my guest:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/7856474/Amazongate-the-missing-evidence.html
It was published by this guy:
PS. This image of the author is served from the Telegraph's site. If they don't like paying for you to see it here, they can block hot-linking. But to the same effect (since I promise not to bother wasting more time on this) they can equally easily remove, rename or replace the file with something less off-putting than CB's disingenuous face.
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