Climate Change and the Choice of Our Sources of Information

Here’s a popular video that makes an extremely important point: in problem solving – and in life in general – we tend to confirm what we believe, even though disconfirming our beliefs is so much more productive.  This, of course, is reflected in the source of news we select; it explains why Fox News viewers tend to be climate change deniers: they choose a source of information that will re-enforce what they already believe. 

But to be fair, am I any better?  I tend to read things that confirm my belief that climate change is real and that we have an obligation to do something about it, etc. Having said that, there has been an enormous amount  of work — for a variety of purposes – that’s gone into the process of disproving the concept of human-caused climate change, and, according to the vast majority of scientists who have reviewed that work, it has not been successful in discrediting the theory.