Always with the stunt-headlining. Oi vey.
So, this morning the Grauniad ran a piece based on some academic research about how climate action is more popular than most people think, with everyone underestimating other people‘s “support” for climate action. The scare quotes are there because, you know, if people gave that much of a damn, they’d vote for strong policies more. But instead they let other issues (understandably!) sway them. The whole spiral of silence thing, btw, originated with a straight up Nazi who did some field work in the United States before World War 2.
This evening, the BBC obligingly gave a good example of all this by telling one of their prominent hacks that continuing to host a podcast about heat pumps was… controversial (given the private-company-calling-itself-the-political-party Reform and the Conservatives gunning for net zero). It will be trebles all round at the various lobbying firms hired by the gas industry to slow the competing technologies and maintain the “gas as necessary and indeed climate-friendly component of the energy transition” narrative they have sweated over for many years now.
Beyond the outrageous lies and bias of the BBC on the “obvious” stuff (as per Ponder Hub), the deeper function is to de-agenda-ise, to create… how shall we put this – a “spiral of silence”, perhaps?
It’s not unique to the BBC of course – a website I have written for quite a lot runs in horror from anything a millimetre from an (imagined? certainly narrow and fiercely policed) ‘consensus’ position.
It seems, when it comes to the Arrived Ecological Debacle that
we can’t talk about it, because we’re living by a code of silence…..
And you can’t talk about it (no, you can’t talk)
And isn’t that a kind of madness
To be living by a code of silence
When you’ve really got a lot to say?
Which, in case you missed it, is where Billy comes in/came in, almost 40 years ago.
marchudson.net 
It is absolutely infuriating – I hate this talk of “avoiding bias” and this two sides business because it makes even established truth look like the evidence isn’t fully in (which it overwhelmingly is in the case of climate science). Owen Jones put it brilliantly when he said when one side tells you its raining and the other side tells you its dry it is the job of the journalist to look out the window and not just report their statements. Also as you say, it adds to this feeling amongst the majority that if you feel strongly about these things you are some kind of crank. Its particularly annoying when the BBC do these kinds of things because by many they are seen as the “adults in the room” and given a lot more credence than many news outlets. Also, thanks for the mention!
re: living by a code of silence
FWIW, I’ve read very persuasive treatments that the root driver of this general phenomenon is in our species evolutionary history which explains why it’s difficult for most of us to regularly and openly disagree with people we see as belonging to any of the families/groups/tribes we unconsciously or consciously believe we’re in. Real costs can be incurred individually to do so, which are often significant, which often override our concerns and outweigh our motivation to speak up for the common good, and even for regularly assessing whether our tribe’s views have got it right on most anything. (As well you know. Something you’ve kind of specialized in, ofc. ha.) As per the research out there assembled by specialists like David R. Samson, below, the psychological costs are real and hard-wired into our brains/bodies because for hundreds of thousands of years, our survival depended mostly on getting along inside our clan, tribe.
An evolutionary anthropologist and biologist, David R. Samson has written an in-depth treatment of this issue.
excerpt: ‘Samson is the author of Our Tribal Future: How to Channel our Foundational Human Instincts into a Force for Good, which won the 2023 Balsillie Prize for Public Policy. ‘
Our drive to belong is instinctual, but is now something ‘we have to figure out’, says David R. Samson
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/our-tribal-future-david-r-samson-1.7237823
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Also, Dan Kahan’s research and work in the field called cultural cognition, which Samson cites, is another useful source for exploring just how much and why we find it difficult to disagree with those close to us or even with the beliefs of far flung tribes we believe we’re members of. Kahan for example has pretty much definitively shown that on climate denial for example, the most educated among us will often find it the most difficult to change our views and accept the scientific evidence, because we are mores skilled at assembling arguments to support our tribe’s position.
excerpt: ‘According to cultural cognition theory, we are all biased, even when it comes to facts. The tendency of people to conform their beliefs about facts to values that define their cultural identities explains how exposure to sound climate science can cause people with opposing values to become even more polarized on the issue.’
https://climateaccess.org/blog/cultural-cognition-interview-dan-kahan/
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Samson is convinced that as a starting point, we need to figure how to generate a tribe whose identity foundationally is built on, and openly promotes the cultural belief or practice of being open to evidence and willing to change our minds. Thinks it might be a way to get past the evolutionary mismatch of evolutionary successful tribal drive of having deep instinctual connection/identification to our families/clans, and smaller tribes beliefs/welfare, that’s still got hold of us in mass scale societies with existential issues like climate, where it’s become a curse. And is exploited to keep us locked in the status quo.
Reading his book just now and mulling over the feasibility of his suggestions on how to proceed. Seems a daunting agenda.
Sam