Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.
The thinking error that makes people susceptible to climate change denial
Some deniers won’t even read the article!
What do historians lose with the decline of local news?
History of Barts, Britain’s Oldest Hospital
Video (Starts at 4:23)
Solving a Climate Puzzle, One Tree Ring at a Time
Thanks to this week’s contributors: Ann Burns, Anonymous, Ardelle Holden, Dianne, gail benjafield, Glenn Wright, Judy Thames, Ken McKinlay, Nick McDonald, Sunday Thompson, Teresa, Unknown.
This is a huge loss. A few years ago author Deborah Campbell spoke about this at the Sunshine Coast Writers Festival and I’m sure it’s only become worse in the time since. My husband is a retired journalist who spent much of his career working in local news. We’re fortunate that our local paper is still going strong, for now, but as those who prefer a physical paper disappear, I can see its demise within the next decade or so and that will be a huge loss.
Our local archivist has papers going back into the 1940s, and the local museum has digitized many of the older ones – they’re available online. But the current paper, while digital too, is on a website that might deprecate. What then?
For historians and future genealogists, and for society in general, the death of local news is a huge, huge loss – I fear it’s a case, though, of many not appreciating how much of a loss it is until it’s gone.