"CHERRY picking" is the act of pointing at individual cases or data that seem to confirm a particular position, while ignoring a significant portion of related cases or data that may contradict that position.
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This is a technique often used by those who question climate change, or the fact that it's caused in large part by mankind's activities.
Our own Prime Minister is, sadly, a prime culprit.
OTHER RECENT ECO NEWS COLUMNS:
He states, for instance, that Australia only contributes 1.3 per cent of the world's greenhouse gas output.
Sounds good, until you realise that with only 0.3 per cent of the world's population, we're emitting about four times what we should.
Another fact he's fond of coming out with is that our per capita greenhouse gas emissions are dropping.
In actual fact, our emissions are increasing, but with our population increasing at a greater rate, "per capita" emissions make us look good.
In spite of that, our per capita emissions are still much higher than comparable countries.
The recent bushfires are another example.
A friend of my wife, a climate sceptic, stated with conviction that the "1928 fires" burnt more than last fire season's fires.
A quick Google search revealed that the "Black Friday" bushfires in 1938 (not 1928) burned two million hectares, while in our last fire season, 18.6 million hectares were burned.
So even if people claim to have unassailable facts, it pays to check them - something my wife's friend, an otherwise quite intelligent lady, failed to do.
Another friend claimed the reason last season's fires were so bad were "they were all started deliberately by arsonists".
Yet another said it was "because no backburning had been done".
Both true in isolated cases, but easily disproved just by listening to the news.
And they still don't explain why last season's fires were bigger, hotter and less controllable than previously.
When I pointed out that these claims were easily disproved, he asked me where to get reliable news.
I suggested the ABC as a good start.
"I don't listen to them," he said, "they're so biased."
The ABC is consistently voted the most trusted news source in Australia. So how can you counter that sort of attitude?
Did you know? "There are none so blind as those who will not see."
A phrase of biblical origins, but very pertinent today.
