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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
— June – July 2013
T
HERE’S a story I came across recently about Noam Chomsky and
his dentist. Chomsky’s dentist asked him after a routine visit if he
was grinding his teeth at night. Chomsky didn’t think so, and his
wife confirmed it wasn’t happening. However, they then discovered
that most mornings the MIT professor did in fact grind his teeth – as he
read the New York Times. The story – perhaps apocryphal – serves to illus-
trate Chomsky’s disenchantment with the mainstream media’s coverage of
US foreign policy decisions. If the New York Times is bad, then presumably
Chomsky would quickly require dentures if he were a regular viewer of Fox
News, such is its distortion of reality.
Chomsky has always argued that the media’s
primary purpose is to ‘manufacture consent’ and
lately he has turned his attention to the media’s
role in shaping the public view of Climate Change,
the biggest threat facing humanity. He asks the
obvious question: how is it at a time when per
cent of top scientists agree that Climate Change
is caused by humans burning fossil fuels that an
increasing number of Americans believe that it
has nothing to do with human activity? Sadly,
this is no longer an American phenomenon.
In Europe and globally, people have retreated
into denial as the economic crisis has worsened.
The desperation of the unemployed has been
exploited by the oil and gas corporations who
promise jobs and money only if we tap our
offshore-oil resources and our shale gas through
fracking. Our own Minister Rabbitte has been
softening up the people through a series of
interviews and newspapers articles, informing
them that fracking isn’t so bad if it’s “done right”.
Climate-change considerations are always an
afterthought with this government – as we saw
when they abandoned the CO targets in their
new climate change legislation. What’s worse,
they know they can get away with it. There are fewer and fewer watchdogs
on this issue. Our national broadcaster, quite shamefully, no longer has an
environment correspondent. Yes, we’ve reached ppm of CO in our
atmosphere, it’s acknowledged by climate scientists that, if anything, the
seriousness of the climate crisis has been understated, and yet RTÉ, our
‘public service broadcaster’ does not have a specialised correspondent to
inform the public. It’s enough to make you grind your teeth.
Which brings us back to Noam Chomsky. You might think that Chomsky,
having dismissed the mainstream media, would embrace the freedom and
opportunities offered by social media and new technology. But it’s not so.
His approach is, in fact, quite traditional. He has described social media as
“superficial, shallow, evanescent”, and in so doing has incurred the wrath
of the more hip left-wing academics, who point to the importance of social
media in the Arab Spring, the Occupy movement and amongst the gay and
Hispanic communities in the USA. The latest street violence in Turkey, where
prime minister Erdogan has publicly condemned Twitter, would seem to
validate the views of those who see social media as politically empowering
and a vehicle of radical change. But it would be wrong, I believe, to dismiss
Chomsky’s concerns. If, indeed, social networks are so powerful, if they
bypass the normal channels of misinformation, then why are people so
misinformed on the question of climate change? Could it be that the climate-
change deniers, often encouraged and financed by major oil companies,
have taken to the new medium with gusto. It’s certainly easier to deliver a
hate-filled climate-change denial in characters than it is to explain the
complexities of climate science.
And if climate change is not an issue for the electorate, it will not be an
issue for the mainstream parties who react, it seems, to the latest trends.
In the United States, to get on the Republican ticket a candidate must be
a climate-change sceptic. The Democrats, on the other hand, talk a good
game but do nothing about it when in power. They, too, are in thrall to the
powerful vested interests which advocate the fetterless exploitation of oil
and resources.
The rise of social media and the greater use of smartphones are unlikely
to change these facts. The twitterati and facebookers will, for the most part,
continue to be more concerned with celebrity gossip and other trivia than
they are about climate change. And poor old Chomsky and the rest of us
will continue to champ.
John Gormley is a Contributing Editor of Village
Climate change:
Chomsky champs
opinion – the state of play
john gormley
New media help deniers,
Republicans, jaded
Democrats, the apathetic
and Ireland’s do-nothing
coalition
It’s easier
to deliver a
hate-lled
climate-
change
denial
in 140
characters
than to
explain the
complexities
of climate
science
“
Noam only looks out, never in
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