For years Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe has specialized in columns that seem designed to incite a torrent of letters to the editor, and this pattern is nowhere more striking than in his periodic columns denying global warming. Perhaps such letters provide ‘evidence’ that Mr. Jacoby is contributing to public debate and therefore merits a platform for his ever-predictable screeds. What is less obvious is why the Globe feels compelled to print his attacks on science.
Today’s column is a striking illustration of Jacoby’s method. He begins by searching for his opponent here settling on Bill Clinton’s recent climate change. Our former President remarked, “we look like a joke, right? You can’t win the nomination of one of the major parties in the country if you admit that the scientists are right?” Jacoby then pulls out his favorite tactic of contacting one of the vanishingly small minority of scientists who reject the ever-increasing torrent of peer-reviewed scientific research outlining the details and mechanics of global warming. Jacoby concludes with a circular argument, asserting, “We’ll know that the science is settled when the battles have come to an end,” The problem here is that there is no real battle, only a manufactured reality, which Jacoby is taking part in creating, so that American Republicans can pass around emails glorifying denial to each other. It’s a remarkable strategy: so long as deniers continue to deny climate change they can claim that the science is not settled. With this approach deniers can assert that the science is not settled indefinitely. Manufacture a false version of reality, and then use that manufactured reality to reject reailty.
Writing letters to the editor at this point may actually make the problem worse—Jacoby wants, after all, to create the illusion that he is taking part in a real debate. However, the Globe’s stance in continuing to publish these columns raises further questions. Under the First Amendment, Jacoby is free to write what he wishes, but the Constitution does not require the Globe a platform for repeated attacks against science.
Since the Globe is ready to publish columns that deny global warming, it’s worthwhile to wonder what else the Globe would feel fit to print ? Would the Globe publish columns denying that smoking causes cancer? Would the Globe publish columns defending slavery? Why then, do they see fit to take part in stopping any effective response to global warming until it is too late to do anything except suffer the consequences?
dont-get-cute says
No kidding, but they figured out a long time ago that the key is just not to be embarrassed, ever.
jconway says
I am one of the few people to ever be found guilty of defending the Globe, in many ways it is an inferior paper to where it once was and is essentially a provincially tinged carbon copy of the New York Times, devoid of what local content that once made it interesting, and devoid of the investigative journalists, foreign reporters, and great columnists it once won awards for. I would hate for this fine city, the Athens of America, to have the Herald as its only broadsheet so I support the Globe there. But its heyday is long gone. Frankly I think HuffPost shows how one can do old school journalism in a new medium and make it interesting, but I digress.
I think Jacoby is a far cry from Broudnoy and the other right of center greats the Globe once had, he lacks the intelligence and the grace. But I do think it is important to remember that the Globe, in its journalistic pieces, always asserts that climate change is fact much in the same way one would with evolution. For it to publish an opinion piece, by a conservative, on its editorial page to me showcases a liberal bias of pigeonholing conservatives into the anti-science and anti-rational column to poke fun at. We can attack it there. But you would be hard pressed to argue that the Globe has an anti-science agenda and even harder pressed to argue that Jacoby’s opinions have an impact on anyone other than the people that already oppose climate change due to idiocy or rational short term economic self-interest. Lastly as a free speech proponent I have a knee jerk opposition to anyone supporting the silencing of an opinion not matter how foolish the utterance.
kirth says
What is accomplished by publishing Jacoby’s idiocy? As historian points out, Jacoby has a right to write whatever he wants, but the Globe is under no obligation to print it. If, as you say, Jacoby’s pieces have no impact on anyone except those who already agree with him (which amounts to no impact on anyone), why waste the trees to disseminate his nonsense? This is not a free-speech issue; I’m sure Jacoby has lots of other venues for his foolishness.
JHM says
Q. “Would the Globe publish columns denying that smoking causes cancer? Would the Globe publish columns defending slavery?
A. Probably not, but the really COOL thing to do would be to (pretend to) wish that they would. Plus lots of solemn defenses of astrology and alchemy and sociology and the like. That way, the erroneousness of these errors will always be kept fresh in our minds.
Happy days.
stomv says
The date was 2008. Since then, tea baggers have rolled common sense back decades, maybe more. I’d bet that the combination of right wing radio jocks, the tea bagger populace and politicians, and dunderheads like Jacoby have actually moved the percent of the general public who believe in anthropogenic climate change backward since 2008.
dcsohl says
Ok, so the Globe is putting up a paywall… so that would be why there’s no link to Jacoby’s column. I found it, though, on Jacoby’s own site, so for those of us wondering about context, here’s Jacoby’s column.
Mark L. Bail says
The only one I read regularly is Paul Krugman, and more for his blog than his columns.
Ivar Glaever, Jacoby notes is a Nobel-Prize winner, resigned from American Physical Society (APS). I’m very familiar with Glaever from his appearances on WAMC’s Vox Pop.
His favorite quote on global warming is that “science is not democracy.” That’s a red herring. Policy is democracy and it is often made for conditions that can’t wait for perfect, mathematical models.
With that said, I think Glaever’s actions warrant an op-ed, even if it’s stupid. If Jacoby says something that is incontrovertibly untrue, then it should be edited. The 1973 stuff is pretty sketchy, for example.
But Newspapers publish idiots who fly in the face of science everyday. Charles Krauthammer. Cal Thomas. David Brooks. Tom Friedman.
merrimackguy says
I don’t get where he learned economics.
Mark L. Bail says
What exactly do you object to? You can find his bio, I’m sure. He knows more than you or I do. Where’d you learn your economics?
As an economist among economists, Krugman is well-respected. That’s according to my conservative economist friend who likes Krugman’s column and blog not at all. Krugman earned his Nobel Prize. That’s unlike Hayek, who is pretty much as big a joke as an economist as Marx was.
As a pundit, Krugman is reliably prescient, and he doesn’t confuse fact with opinion as most do. Even if one were disagree with his opinion, it can be traced back to solid economic principles. There’s no obfuscation. Even his values are clear, e.g. the problem with unemployment is that people suffer.
edgarthearmenian says
This Keynesian cultist would be best ignored.
SomervilleTom says
Edgar, you run this canard up the flagpole every time Mr. Krugman is mentioned.
Please stop.
edgarthearmenian says
Why is the truth a canard?
mizjones says
automatically makes all his work suspect? It is not worth trying to debate such a silly suggestion.
The Dali Lama once met with George W. Bush. I do not respect George W. Bush. Therefore I should not respect the Dali Lama.
lynne says
“The Globe should be embarrassed about publishing Jacoby’s crackpottery on their op-ed page — particularly in a city where science is prized, pursued, and profitable.”
You mean a city which is going to be the first to go underwater, actually, right?
I mean, good god, Back Bay…
Christopher says
…would just be reclaiming what rightfully belongs to it!:)
jconway says
He us ultimately small fish to fry, there are plenty of bigger bones to pick from an entire channel devoted to this kind (and other kinds) of lunacy, to the MSM scaling back its defense of straight hard science in defense of ‘objectively’ showcasing ‘both sides’ of the story. The bigger fight will be in the schools and ensuring the next generation knows as I did that we cause the Greenhouse effect. I do agree with climate change deniers in one small regard, they are being silenced and pushed to the side by the scientific community, alongside those that support intelligent design. Considering science is supposed to reject hard dogmas it shouldn’t impose them, it should allow these scientists, who have worked hard and have decent credentials (some of them anyway) back into the fold and debate these issues on the merits. Then they will surely lose and the majority of scientists can be vindicated. Also the scandal where they faked data didn’t help either, it is hard to fight a politicized science when we start politicizing the real science and the scientific community should try and stay above the fray in that regard.
Dr. Stephen J. Gould, an agnostic, left of center scientist and an early hero of mine, was a lifelong skeptic of human caused climate change having studied several mass extinctions and seeing how cyclical they were. That said as a matter of policy he still supported green energy and reducing greenhouse emissions just as a matter of being good environmental stewards. If we make the fight about that it will resonate a lot more, especially if we tie it to job creation. The Apollo program could have easily been justified by Cold War fears of losing space superiority to the Russians, as Eisenhower NASA did justify itself. Under Kennedy it truly and literally soared upon our highest hopes and aspirations, the effort to combat climate change and secure our environment should as well. When scientists sound like the doomsday prophets on the sidewalk they never get listened to, even if they are right. Shift the debate to where we can win, not to battles that we are losing or battles that ultimately distract us from the bigger goal.