Tom Toles
The Madhouse Effect
Visualizing the Denying of Climate ChangeThe cartoons in the book encapsulate several key points.One example is the “Galileo” cartoon on page xviii. It lampoons climate change-denying cranks who present themselves as modern-day Galileos.Another is the “abyss” cartoon on page 11 that mocks the “false balance” approach that’s too often taken by the media. The cartoon illustrates the presentation of the fringe viewpoints of a fossil fuel industry-funded climate change denier as if having standing with the overwhelming consensus of the world’s scientists.Some other favorite highlights are the “climate change tipping point” cartoon of page 28, the climate threat “temperature scale” of page 30, the “pause” cartoon of page 55, which ridicules the shopworn climate change denier myth that global warming “has stopped,” and the “geoengineering” cartoon on page 116 which expresses a cautionary view with regard to massive untested planetary climate change techno-fixes.Definitely a strong favorite highlight for both of us is the Trump cartoon of page 148. This is a warning that we “will all pay” the cost of “the wall” that now-President Donald Trump is building to separate him from the reality of human-caused climate change.Visualizing the Denying of Climate ChangeThe cartoons in the book encapsulate several key points.One example is the “Galileo” cartoon on page xviii. It lampoons climate change-denying cranks who present themselves as modern-day Galileos.Another is the “abyss” cartoon on page 11 that mocks the “false balance” approach that’s too often taken by the media. The cartoon illustrates the presentation of the fringe viewpoints of a fossil fuel industry-funded climate change denier as if having standing with the overwhelming consensus of the world’s scientists.Some other favorite highlights are the “climate change tipping point” cartoon of page 28, the climate threat “temperature scale” of page 30, the “pause” cartoon of page 55, which ridicules the shopworn climate change denier myth that global warming “has stopped,” and the “geoengineering” cartoon on page 116 which expresses a cautionary view with regard to massive untested planetary climate change techno-fixes.Definitely a strong favorite highlight for both of us is the Trump cartoon of page 148. This is a warning that we “will all pay” the cost of “the wall” that now-President Donald Trump is building to separate him from the reality of human-caused climate change.
Climate Reality
Editor: Judi Pajo
The Madhouse Effect
climate|climate|change|science|politics|donald|trump|republican|party|civilization
Available here →March 30, 2017
20170330-toles-tom-on-madhouse-effect-climate-change-denial-3-1
The wide angle
The rest of this thread
Tom Toles
Tom Toles is the Editorial Cartoonist for The Washington Post. Besides The Madhouse Effect, featured in his Rorotoko interivew, Tom Toles is the author of six collections of editorial cartoons, the children’s book My School Is Worse Than Yours, the syndicated comic strip Curious Avenue, and the syndicated comic panel Randolph Itch, 2am. He has been awarded over a dozen national cartooning awards, including the Pulitzer Prize.
Pull this thread
pulls againstpulls alongside
The media's false balance gives fossil-fuel-funded climate deniers a standing the science never gave them.
Against RB · Innovation generates uncertainty that past data cannot turn into measurable risk, and the banks were making exactly that conversion. On: Amateurs and outsiders produce knowledge that credentialed specialists cannot
Against IH · Belzoni's achievements in Egypt have been ignored because he was a foreign circus strongman rather than a scholar. On: Amateurs and outsiders produce knowledge that credentialed specialists cannot
Alongside CC · Veblen was an academic insider par excellence, and his heterodox economics came from that position rather than from marginality. On: Amateurs and outsiders produce knowledge that credentialed specialists cannot
Alongside PE · There is no such thing as raw global climate data. On: Amateurs and outsiders produce knowledge that credentialed specialists cannot
Alongside RF · Pseudo-history is a product of modern mass society, built from the obsolete and discredited scholarship of earlier eras. On: Amateurs and outsiders produce knowledge that credentialed specialists cannot
Alongside JS · The productive unit for writing about popular music is the moment and the place, not the life. On: Amateurs and outsiders produce knowledge that credentialed specialists cannot
Know something the rest of us don't?
Most threads on Rorotoko begin with our invitation. Any thread can begin with a proposal: you write it with the same prompts every thread answers, and we review it.
Propose a thread →