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Disaster! Denialism makes it to Brazil. (Skepticism spreads :-) )

Desmogblog mark yet another day in the Diary of  How the Skeptics Won. They thought they had Brazil sewn up, but now realize with dismay that skeptics are getting heard (funny how the truth spreads). Brazil with the 6th biggest economy in the world and 200 million people is “influential”.

Chris Mooney, of DeSmog, shows us his prowess in predictions. Did he see this wave of skepticism coming? Shock me, No!

Last year, I wrote about how journalists in developing nations were doing a better job of covering climate change, largely because denial hadn’t really taken root in many of these countries. In particular, I singled out Brazil for praise: According to a study by James Painter of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University and his colleagues, Brazil’s major papers contained the least climate skepticism in all of the 6 major nations surveyed (U.S., UK, China, France, India, Brazil).

So it is with much dismay that I report to you that, in conjunction with the Rio+20 conference, climate denial is making a strong showing in Brazil.

Memo to Chris: See what happens when you rely on the mainstream media? (They are not the ones leading the trends.)

Chris has only just now noticed a geographer called Ricardo Augusto Felicio (who has been a smash hit on the big Brazilian talk show in May. Mooney describes it as the ” nearly half-hour denial fest that has gone pretty viral”.)  Ricardo, I’m happy to say, appeared on this blog more than two years ago. He helped to translate the Skeptics Handbook into Portuguese: Manual dos Céticos. (Thank you Ricardo!)

As always, like with the Australian Greens, when you can’t convince others that you are right, the answer is to shut down the debate:

… there is a clear issue of journalistic ethics that needs to be raised. Here in the U.S., I and many others have explained not only why one shouldn’t give science denialist claims such dramatic airings in the media…

 🙂

Click to download a copy in Portuguese.

H/t Marc Morano

Athelstan points to Ecotretas for people wanting more skeptical articles in Portuguese.

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