Global Warming Dives the Online Conversation

Last week, an article questioning the theory of global warming dominated the conversation on blogs. For the week of October 12-16, 50% of the links to news-related stories from blogs were to one BBC report about global warming, according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. That equaled the fourth-largest total for any story this year, and represented the most attention to a subject since the political unrest in Iran made up 63% of the links the week of June 15-19. The October 9 BBC story, headlined "What Happened to Global Warming?" noted that global temperatures had not increased over the last 11 years and quoted several scientists who claimed that man-made climate change is not occurring. The blogosphere was dominated by those who cited the story as evidence to support their skepticism about global warming and criticized those warning of the dangers of rising temperatures.