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Research Reveals Almost All Climate Science Denial Books Linked to Conservative Think Tanks
You might have been intrigued by titles like An Appeal To Reason: A Cool Look At Global Warming, The Climate Caper or the subtle sledgehammer that was Global Warming and Other Bollocks.
But new research into the origins and authors of more than 100 of these climate science denial books finds almost all of them - about four out of five - are largely the products of conservative-leaning think tanks.
The research finds the books avoid traditional academic peer-review and are often written by non-experts. Dr Riley Dunlap, of Oklahoma State University, and Peter Jacques, of the University of Central Florida, have published their research - Climate Change Denial Books and Conservative Think Tanks: Exploring the Connection - in the journal American Behavioural Scientist.
. . .
Getting a book published helps authors to be seen as 'climate experts' even if they don't have the relevant academic expertise. They get interviewed and quoted by mainstream media and name-dropped by conservative politicians and corporate bosses. "Books confer a sense of legitimacy on their authors and provide them an effective tool for combating findings of climate scientists," the researchers say.
The study covers the publication of 108 books between 1982 and 2010. To qualify as a denial book, the authors had to either reject the position that global warming was happening, that it was caused by humans or that the impacts on society and the environment would be negative. When the researchers looked at the qualifications of the 106 authors, co-authors or editors of the books, they found less than 40 per cent had anything close to a relevant academic degree. None of the books were published by a university-affiliated publishing house and almost all were unlikely to have gone through any kind of academic peer-review.
But new research into the origins and authors of more than 100 of these climate science denial books finds almost all of them - about four out of five - are largely the products of conservative-leaning think tanks.
The research finds the books avoid traditional academic peer-review and are often written by non-experts. Dr Riley Dunlap, of Oklahoma State University, and Peter Jacques, of the University of Central Florida, have published their research - Climate Change Denial Books and Conservative Think Tanks: Exploring the Connection - in the journal American Behavioural Scientist.
. . .
Getting a book published helps authors to be seen as 'climate experts' even if they don't have the relevant academic expertise. They get interviewed and quoted by mainstream media and name-dropped by conservative politicians and corporate bosses. "Books confer a sense of legitimacy on their authors and provide them an effective tool for combating findings of climate scientists," the researchers say.
The study covers the publication of 108 books between 1982 and 2010. To qualify as a denial book, the authors had to either reject the position that global warming was happening, that it was caused by humans or that the impacts on society and the environment would be negative. When the researchers looked at the qualifications of the 106 authors, co-authors or editors of the books, they found less than 40 per cent had anything close to a relevant academic degree. None of the books were published by a university-affiliated publishing house and almost all were unlikely to have gone through any kind of academic peer-review.
MORE...
http://thecontributor.com/research-reveals-almost-all-climate-science-denial-books-linked-conservative-think-tanks
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