How the news media is damning us all to climate purgatory.

As a reasonably well-educated and literate lay person (corporate lawyer specializing in large real estate projects) I feel compelled to observe that I, on a regular basis, depend on the news media for information as to what matters I should be concerned with (economic trends, new technologies, health risks such as seasonal flu outbreaks, new medical treatments, new scientific developments, etc.).

This information heavily influences my opinions, decision-making and voting preferences. In all of these areas, I depend very heavily on reporters to evaluate, summarize and communicate accurate information — and not to simply serve as stenographers for nitwits. Thus, while I can’t look to financial reporters to provide investment advice, I do expect them to be familiar enough with their area of supposed expertise to call out or cull out information (propaganda?) that is obviously false, misleading or incomplete in light of objective evidence.

I am dumbfounded that climate science is somehow seen as some special sort of bizzaro world where what I see as the normal expectation of news consumers (factual vetting, providing context and assessing implications based on discussions with real authorities) is thrown out the window in favor of he-said/she-said. In what universe do we expect particle physicists to be personally responsible for communicating the scientific implications of their research directly to the public, and then blame the physicists if the public doesn’t “get it”? Ditto for genetic researchers, astronomers, biologists, etc.

I came late to the party regarding AGW – until 2008, the issue was on my radar as a “century away” theoretical problem — it seemed like for every “this will be a big problem” article there was a “no problemo” article. I was accordingly floored in 2008 when I had to do due diligence research for a proposed investment in renewable energy to start reading primary materials and discovering that my media derived “understanding” was grossly in error. (And yes, in an effort to evaluate “the other side of the argument”, I did wind up visiting most of the prominent internet skeptic sites and looked at materials from Singer, Lindzen, Spencer, etc. – I concluded they were virtually useless in providing accurate information.)

I conclude that the views expressed by the moderators, Dr. Curry and others as to the lack of responsibility of journalists in this arena is directly contrary to the (apparently misplaced) assumptions and expectations that lay folk such as I bring to the table – that journalists will provide factual vetting, context and implications based on information in their respective field viewed as most authoritative. If this is the case, and if the former view is correct, media are just “filling space” with random noise and are effectively useless (or worse) in helping ordinary people assess risks, make decisions and make sense of the world.

The Press and Climate: An Anti-Testimonial
~

Smartest man in the whole world... NOT!

~

EXXOM SCANDAL EXXPOSED! So where's the news media?

~
The exposure of the EXXOM-backed, tobacco-like, anti-science disinformation & denial conspiracy is finally getting some overdue coverage on the blogosphere.

Ask yourself why SciGuy or the Houston Chron is not reporting this potentially globally hot scandal that directly involves EXXOM, the, if not a, biggest employer & contributor & sponsor in So. Texas?

Could it be allegiance to, if not fear of, one of the biggest authoritarian carbon polluters this side of the Ganges, if not Yellow, River?

Or simply an uber-conservative sense, if not a history textbook full, of revisionist history & creationist ideology?

Or just news media business-as-usual that caters to fundamentally anti-science, anti-democratic sentiments in the libertarian bible belt?

Smacks of a major scandal, if not complicit coverup, to the rest of Colbert Nation.

Climate Science Watch: Dealing in Doubt: New Greenpeace report reviews 20 years of the climate change denial machine

The Cost of Energy: Greenpeace exposes those “dealing in doubt”

Hot Topics New Zealand: Dealing in doubt: 20 years of attacks on climate science

Post Carbon Institute: A Confederacy of (Climate) Dunces

The new report succinctly explains how fossil fuel interests used the tobacco industry’s playbook and an extensive arsenal of lobbyists and “experts” for hire in order to manufacture disinformation designed to confuse the public and stifle action to address climate change.

ExxonMobil deservedly gets special attention for its role as the ringleader of the “campaign of denial.” As Greenpeace has documented meticulously over the years with its ExxonSecrets website, ExxonMobil is known to have invested over $23 million since 1998 to bankroll an entire movement of climate confusionists, including over 35 anti-science and right wing nonprofits, to divert attention away from the critical threat of climate disruption caused largely by the burning of fossil fuels.

The report ... calls out by name a number of key climate skeptics and deniers who have worked with industry front groups to confuse the public, including S. Fred Singer, John Christy, Richard Lindzen, David Legates, Sallie Baliunas, Willie Soon, Tim Ball, Pat Michaels and many other figures familiar to DeSmog Blog readers.

A number of the key “think tanks” at the forefront of the attacks on climate science — including the Heartland Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, American Enterprise Institute, George C. Marshall Institute, Heritage Foundation and Cato Institute — are also examined for their climate denial work on behalf of oil and coal interests.

Greenpeace explains how the network of denial was created in the early 1990s to dissuade politicians from taking action to prevent climate change. Chief among these early groups were the Global Climate Coalition, the Climate Council and the Information Council on the Environment (ICE).

The report also provides a brief history of the attacks launched against each of the IPCC’s scientific assessment reports dating back to 1990, noting the key players involved in each successive attack leading up to the present day attempts to tarnish the IPCC’s reputation and to falsely suggest that a debate still exists among climate scientists.

Personal attacks endured by climate scientists, especially key contributors to the IPCC reports, are also discussed in some detail, including the virulent attacks by the climate denial industry against reputed scientists like Michael Mann, Ben Santer, and Kevin Trenberth.

Greenpeace also calls out Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) and other members of Congress who are beholden to polluting industries through campaign contributions, and who regularly aid and abet the climate denial industry by promoting the false and misleading claims of deniers and skeptics on Capitol Hill.

Finally, “Dealing in Doubt” notes the escalation of the denial campaign during the administration of George W. Bush, when key White House and regulatory agency positions were filled with polluter lobbyists.

The placement of Philip Cooney, a lawyer and lobbyist who spent 15 years at the American Petroleum Institute before he was picked as chief of staff in the Bush White House Council on Environmental Quality, serves as a key example. Days after the New York Times broke the story that Cooney had made extensive edits on government scientific reports on global warming, Cooney resigned to go work for ExxonMobil.

“Dealing in Doubt” is recommended reading for anyone looking for a brief primer on the history of the denial industry’s relentless campaign against science and reason.

DeSmogBlog: Greenpeace Releases 20-Year History of Climate Denial Industry
~

Confronting Deniers & Denialists

~
Denialism: what is it and how should scientists respond?

Black is white and white is black

HIV does not cause AIDS. The world was created in 4004 BCE. Smoking does not cause cancer. And if climate change is happening, it is nothing to do with man-made CO2 emissions. Few, if any, of the readers of this journal will believe any of these statements. Yet each can be found easily in the mass media. The consequences of policies based on views such as these can be fatal.

All of these examples have one feature in common. There is an overwhelming consensus on the evidence among scientists yet there are also vocal commentators who reject this consensus, convincing many of the public, and often the media too, that the consensus is not based on ‘sound science’ or denying that there is a consensus by exhibiting individual dissenting voices as the ultimate authorities on the topic in question. Their goal is to convince that there are sufficient grounds to reject the case for taking action to tackle threats to health. This phenomenon has led some to draw a historical parallel with the holocaust, another area where the evidence is overwhelming but where a few commentators have continued to sow doubt. All are seen as part of a larger phenomenon of denialism.

Defining and recognizing denialism

Denialism is a process that employs some or all of five characteristic elements in a concerted way.

The first is the identification of conspiracies. When the overwhelming body of scientific opinion believes that something is true, it is argued that this is not because those scientists have independently studied the evidence and reached the same conclusion. It is because they have engaged in a complex and secretive conspiracy. The peer review process is seen as a tool by which the conspirators suppress dissent, rather than as a means of weeding out papers and grant applications unsupported by evidence or lacking logical thought.

There is also a variant of conspiracy theory, inversionism, in which some of one’s own characteristics and motivations are attributed to others. For example, tobacco companies describe academic research into the health effects of smoking as the product of an ‘anti-smoking industry’.

The second is the use of fake experts. These are individuals who purport to be experts in a particular area but whose views are entirely inconsistent with established knowledge.

In 1998, the American Petroleum Institute developed a Global Climate Science Communications Plan, involving the recruitment of ‘scientists who share the industry’s views of climate science [who can] help convince journalists, politicians and the public that the risk of global warming is too uncertain to justify controls on greenhouse gases’.

A related phenomenon is the marginalization of real experts, in some cases through an alliance between industry and government, as when ExxonMobil successfully opposed the reappointment by the US government of the chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The use of fake experts is often complemented by denigration of established experts and researchers, with accusations and innuendo that seek to discredit their work and cast doubt on their motivations.

The third characteristic is selectivity, drawing on isolated papers that challenge the dominant consensus or highlighting the flaws in the weakest papers among those that support it as a means of discrediting the entire field.

Denialists are usually not deterred by the extreme isolation of their theories, but rather see it as the indication of their intellectual courage against the dominant orthodoxy and the accompanying political correctness, often comparing themselves to Galileo.

The fourth is the creation of impossible expectations of what research can deliver. For example, those denying the reality of climate change point to the absence of accurate temperature records from before the invention of the thermometer.

The fifth is the use of misrepresentation and logical fallacies. For example, pro-smoking groups have often used the fact that Hitler supported some antismoking campaigns to represent those advocating tobacco control as Nazis (even coining the term nico-nazis).

Logical fallacies include the use of red herrings, or deliberate attempts to change the argument and straw men, where the opposing argument is misrepresented to make it easier to refute.

Other fallacies used by denialists are false analogy, exemplified by the argument against evolution that, as the universe and a watch are both extremely complex, the universe must have been created by the equivalent of a watchmaker and the excluded middle fallacy (either passive smoking causes a wide range of specified diseases or causes none at all, so doubt about an association with one disease, such as breast cancer, is regarded as sufficient to reject an association with any disease).

Responding to denialism

Denialists are driven by a range of motivations. For some it is greed, lured by the corporate largesse of the oil and tobacco industries. For others it is ideology or faith, causing them to reject anything incompatible with their fundamental beliefs. Fnally there is eccentricity and idiosyncrasy, sometimes encouraged by the celebrity status conferred on the maverick by the media.

Whatever the motivation, it is important to recognize denialism when confronted with it. The normal academic response to an opposing argument is to engage with it, testing the strengths and weaknesses of the differing views, in the expectations that the truth will emerge through a process of debate. However, this requires that both parties obey certain ground rules, such as a willingness to look at the evidence as a whole, to reject deliberate distortions and to accept principles of logic. A meaningful discourse is impossible when one party rejects these rules. Yet it would be wrong to prevent the denialists having a voice.

Instead, we argue, it is necessary to shift the debate from the subject under consideration, instead exposing to public scrutiny the tactics they employ and identifying them publicly for what they are. An understanding of the five tactics listed above provides a useful framework for doing so.

2009 Coldest Winter Ever?

~
Dave in SETX,

re: "Coldest. Winter. Ever."

We've always been big fans of NOAA & its National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) & National Weather Service (NWS) & all the honest, dedicated scientists who work diligently to inform concerned citizens about the weather & climate change, Dave.

As far as the "coldest winter ever", as you say, Dave, you may want to check with your Texas State Climatologist instead of cherry-picking unnamed, unlinked sources again (puleez tell us it's not Scooter Libby).

The coldest winter ever came in 1977-1978, he said, which averaged 6.3 degrees below normal. Nielsen-Gammon said the 13-county southeast Texas climate region has averaged between 5 and 6 degrees below normal since Dec. 1. Second-coldest ever

Or try Dr. n-g @ his TAMU office.

February 2010 was a month of record breaking events for the state of Texas, and National Weather Service meteorologists believe this winter has been the coldest winter Texas has seen in 25 years. Current Texas Monthly Summary: February 2010

And while you're there, Dave, be sure to checkout the Societal Impacts of Climate on Texas.

NOAA: U.S. Winter and February Cooler Than Average

And you & your greenhouse furnaces & propane tanks can expect lots more extreme hot & cold weather events, floods & fires, & higher storm surges from stronger hurricanes as you continue to release carbon emissions into the atmosphere & hydrosphere which continue to heat up & destabilize SETX climate, if not the entire planet.

U.S. Climate Change Science Program: Weather and Climate Extremes in a Changing Climate

But fret not, Dave, as another notable local recently wrote in a SETX newspaper:

"Summer's coming. Some preliminary outlooks show July, August and September being a bit warmer than normal."

Talkin' the Walk

~
re: "Scientists and engineers are caught in a no-win situation... What can we do to turn this into a win-win situation?" @SciGuy

Hunter Cutting @ Talkin' the Walk has a great piece on reframing the debate on climate science.

And the savvy crew over at Joe Romm's Climate Progress offer some thoughtful comments, as usual.
~

Not another goddamn Global Warming Denial thread!?!

~
Recent visits to Eric Berger's SciGuy blog @ the Houston Chronicle confirm what the climate science-minded have always suspected -- it's yet another MSM outlet infiltrated, if not yet overrun, by marauding denialosaurs that feed at EXXOM-funded anti-science websites like Steve McIntyre's Climate Fraudit & Tony Watts' UpHisB*tt.

In low-lying, hurricane-prone, parochial Houston, Anti-Science Deniers do what they do best -- desecrate the science when not busy manufacturing scientific scandals:

This is the real story exposed of "Climategate". It has been the most egregious and unfounded attack on the integrity of a profession we have ever seen.

It turns out that almost all of the mistakes are fabrications. ... The stories were all written by Jonathan Leake, science and environment editor of The Sunday Times. Leake has close links with deniers and in fact based these stories directly on wild and unsubstantiated claims by sceptic bloggers, as uncovered by Tim Holmes.

Leake’s stories have been reproduced in the other Murdoch broadsheets, The Australian and the Wall Street Journal and of course have been amplified on Fox News, and are themselves now being referred to as Leakegate.

Yet these alleged mistakes – non-existent or trivial – with no implications whatever for the robustness of climate science have been deployed in a sophisticated campaign to blacken the reputations of the scientists responsible for alerting us to the perils of global warming.

Just when we should be urging immediate and deep cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions, the public is being lulled into disbelief, scepticism and apathy by a sustained and politically driven assault on the credibility of climate science. For this we will all pay dearly.

Clive Hamilton, The Drum Unleashed
~

CAPTIONS ON

~
Leave CAPTIONS ON for EXXOM anti-science deniers & FAUX NEWS "de liars":

It's so Cold, there can't be Global Warming
~

The House of Saud dictates FOX NEWS?

~
Well, we can all certainly give this a 50/50, rather, a 57+2/41.

FOX NEWS in bed with Saudi Arabia? Watts up with that?

[Saudi Prince] al-Waleed has formed multiple connections with Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., the owner of Fox News. In September 2005, he acquired 5.46% of voting shares in News Corp., and just a few months later, when Fox ran coverage of riots in Paris under the banner "Muslim riots," he allegedly phoned Murdoch and had him change the heading to "civil riots." Murdoch’s News Corp. cements ties with Saudi prince

So, that Saudi billionaire Prince tells Aussie billionaire Murdoch how to report the FOX NEWS. But surely, both these foreign-borns have America's best interests before their own Swiss bank accounts?

Now the partnership is growing even closer, with News Corp. acquiring a 10% stake in al-Waleed's media conglomerate, Rotana, along with an option for another 10%.

And that oil-billionaire Saudi Prince is now the biggest shareholder in FOX NEWS?

Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal owns a 7 percent stake in News Corp — the parent company of Fox News — making him the largest shareholder outside the family of News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch. Conservative Activists Rebel Against Fox News: Saudi Ownership Is ‘Really Dangerous For America’

Call us red-blooded American, but what were the nationalities of the 9/11 terrorist hijackers?

[Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal] owns a very significant percentage of the News Corp and has let the world know that he can get things taken off Fox News when he finds them objectionable and has in the past. And I really believe this is really dangerous for America.

Perhaps, we should all crank up the odds of a congressional investigation into FOX NEWS foreign ownership to a unanimous 100% of red-blooded American Senators, unless, of course, you're not interested in facts or truth.
~

Clear & Present Danger to Public Welfare

~
If you haven't yet heard, the Texas State Climatologist, Dr. John Nielson-Gammon, is making his case over at The Wonk Room:

Texas State Climatologist Disputes State’s Denier Petition: Greenhouse Gases ‘Clearly Present A Danger To The Public Welfare’.

and at Joe Romm's Climate Progress:

Texas state climatologist disputes state’s anti-science petition: Greenhouse gases “clearly present a danger to the public welfare.”

Now those are some headlines we can all live by.

NIELSEN-GAMMON: Do I think that the EPA based its assessment on sound science? I think, by basing its assessments on the IPCC, USGCRP, and NAS reports, it was basing its assessments on the best available science. I have the expertise to independently evaluate the quality of these reports, and on the whole they constitute in my opinion the most comprehensive, balanced assessments of climate change science presently available.

WONK ROOM: Do you know of any particular reason to doubt that the planet is warming, that greenhouse gases are involved, and that sea levels are rising?

NIELSEN-GAMMON: No.

WONK ROOM: I’m also interested if there are any specific risks relevant to Texas.

NIELSEN-GAMMON: Potential Texas vulnerabilities include sea level rises, droughts, floods, estuarine ecosystems, and agricultural productivity. The possible adverse economic impact of future greenhouse gas emission control strategies on Texas industries also represents a risk associated with global warming.

Full text of email interview with Dr. Nielsen-Gammon

And please take note that the Texas State Climatologist is not the only South Texan to support the conclusions of the IPCC & the findings of the EPA.

Dr. Andrew Dessler, a climatologist at Texas A&M University and author of The Science and Politics of Global Climate Change, tells the Wonk Room in an email interview that the entire Department of Atmospheric Sciences agrees with the IPCC:

"I, along with all of the other faculty in the department, agree with the main conclusions of the IPCC."

Dr. Kenneth P. Bowman, the head of the Texas A&M University Department of Atmospheric Sciences, writes:

"I believe that EPA finding is based on good science, as do all of my colleagues in the Atmospheric Science Department here at Texas A&M."

UPDATES: Texas State Climatologist Disputes State’s Denier Petition: Greenhouse Gases ‘Clearly Present A Danger To The Public Welfare’

Dr. Nielson-Gammon also plays over at his Atmo.Sphere blog & sometimes, when a pleasant mood overwhelms him, the Houston Chron's SciGuy.

All you science savvy, biodiversity loving, intelligent citizens of planet Earth, bring friends, lots of 'em.
~

Hurray! Deniers cheer NASA GISS Scientist.

~
Dr. Andrew A. Lacis of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies sets the record (and the deniers) straight:

First, let me state clearly that I view the IPCC AR4 Report as a very successful and useful scientific summary of our current understanding of global climate and global climate change.... My contribution to this document was that of reviewer.

Notorious AGW Denier Tony Watts & his fellow UpHisB*tters intentionally or stupidly -- your call -- mistook what Dr. Lacis had actually wrote in his IPCC review comments, and then had the deceitful hearts to actually post:

Hansen colleague rejected IPCC AR4 ES as having “no scientific merit”, but what does IPCC do?

Chapter 9 is possibly the most important one in the whole IPCC report – it’s the one where they decide that global warming is manmade. This is the one where the headlines are made. Remember, this guy is mainstream, not a sceptic, and you may need to remind yourself of that fact several times as you read through his comment on the executive summary of the chapter.

So Dr. Andrew Lacis politely pointed out their blatant misinterpretation & misuse, if not their malicious dishonesty.

I have no doubt that my comments would again be misinterpreted, misused and otherwise taken out of context. Clearly, most of the present brouhaha on this topic has been artificially generated with no real scientific rationale for doing so.

And their amusing nonsense, if not their utter ignorance of basic climate science.

There is a great deal of irony in this basically nonsensical stuff, some of which I find rather amusing. The global warming denier blogs, where this issue first came up, seem to think that I was being critical of the I.P.C.C. report in the same way as seen from their perspective, and, as a result, I have received e-mails from the denier crowd hailing my remarks and commending me for “speaking up” on this important topic.

If only WattsUpHisButters could read.

Little do they realize that the basic thrust of my criticism of the I.P.C.C. draft was really to register a clear complaint that I.P.C.C. was being too wishy-washy and was not presenting its case for anthropogenic impact being the principal driver of global warming as clearly and forcefully as they could, and should.

The irony & deceit of it all. But we do have to agree with deniers who cheer Dr. Andrew Lacis & that it's too bad he wasn't asked to write the Executive Summary of the IPCC Report.

Had I been asked to write this chapter (which I wasn’t), I would describe “understanding and attributing of climate change” as simply a problem in physics, which it actually is. I would have started the Executive Summary with: Human-induced warming of the climate system is established fact.

NASA Scientist Adds to Views on Climate Panel
~

What did Prof. Jones really say?

~
Did Phil Jones really say global warming ended in 1995?

Duh, no. All you have to do is read the BBC interview. But we shan't expect too much from Daily Mail journalists or WattsUpHisButt, esp. when it comes to reading & comprehending the actual science.

BBC: How confident are you that warming has taken place and that humans are mainly responsible?

Phil Jones: I'm 100% confident that the climate has warmed. As to the second question, I would go along with IPCC Chapter 9 - there's evidence that most of the warming since the 1950s is due to human activity.

And what in tarnation does IPCC Chapter 9 say about understanding & attributing global warming & climate change, you might ask?

Human-induced warming of the climate system is widespread. Anthropogenic warming of the climate system can be detected in temperature observations taken at the surface, in the troposphere and in the oceans. Multi-signal detection and attribution analyses, which quantify the contributions of different natural and anthropogenic forcings to observed changes, show that greenhouse gas forcing alone during the past half century would likely have resulted in greater than the observed warming if there had not been an offsetting cooling effect from aerosol and other forcings.

In fact, the science shows that, without human-caused greenhouse gases, reduced solar activity & other natural causes would likely have cooled the planet. How cool is that?

It is extremely unlikely that the global pattern of warming during the past half century can be explained without external forcing, and very unlikely that it is due to known natural external causes alone. The warming occurred in both the ocean and the atmosphere and took place at a time when natural external forcing factors would likely have produced cooling.

Walter Cronkite, roll over.

~
The disinformation & denial about climate science promoted by so-called science journalists these days is unconscionable for a free society.

Walter Cronkite, roll over.

"Like so many of our problems today," he says, "it all starts with education. We need to teach [children] how to read a newspaper, how to listen to radio, how to watch television, how to understand a film, so that they become properly skeptical. If a public understands the limitations of television, the limitations of print, deadline pressures, all the rest of the things that go into the making of a newspaper or broadcast, then that public will be far less likely to fall into a demagogue's trap when the demagogue attacks the press for its unfairness." And That's the Way It Is

Of course, Walter probably never counted on anti-science demagogues, within his lifetime, if not shortly thereafter, gaining control over so many news outlets in English-speaking America, Britain, & Australia, if not Texas. But that's ExxonMobil money, for ya.
~

Another Daily Mangle or just another ExxonMobil mouthpiece?

~
We don't blame those around here who can't help themselves because they don't know any better. However, we do hold to account the dishonest journalists & editors & news organizations -- including their colleagues who don't respond with corrections & apologies -- who blatantly, if not intentionally, publish disinformation (propaganda in some circles) to confuse the American public about what the climate science & leading climate scientists say.

Unfortunately, these kinds of distortions are all too common in the press nowadays and so we must all be prepared to respond to those journalists and editors who confuse the public with such inaccuracies.

The title itself is a distortion of what Jones actually said in an interview with the BBC.

The article [in the Daily Mail] also incorrectly equates instrumental surface temperature data that Jones and CRU have assembled to estimate the modern surface temperature trends with paleoclimate data used to estimate temperatures in past centuries, falsely asserting that the former “has been used to produce the ‘hockey stick graph’”.

Finally, the article intentionally distorts comments that Jones made about the so-called “Medieval Warm Period”.

Time for science journalists at the Chron to man up before it's seen as just another Daily Mangle, if not just another ExxonMobil mouthpiece.

re: The post-Copenhagen view of U.S. climate policy in Europe
~

Journalists lede in climate science denial.

~
It's high time for self-respecting journalists with integrity to separate their wheat from their chaff, along with the spin from the fact.

Currently, a few errors –and supposed errors– in the last IPCC report (“AR4″) are making the media rounds – together with a lot of distortion and professional spin by parties interested in discrediting climate science. Time for us to sort the wheat from the chaff: which of these putative errors are real, and which not? And what does it all mean, for the IPCC in particular, and for climate science more broadly?

For far too long, dishonest journalists have played leding roles in climate science denial campaigns.

All of these various “gates” – Climategate, Amazongate, Seagate, Africagate, etc., do not represent scandals of the IPCC or of climate science. Rather, they are the embarrassing battle-cries of a media scandal, in which a few journalists have misled the public with grossly overblown or entirely fabricated pseudogates, and many others have naively and willingly followed along without seeing through the scam. It is not up to us as climate scientists to clear up this mess – it is up to the media world itself to put this right again, e.g. by publishing proper analysis pieces like the one of Tim Holmes and by issuing formal corrections of their mistaken reporting. We will follow with great interest whether the media world has the professional and moral integrity to correct its own errors.

So while dishonest journalists blatantly ignore the facts & maliciously report the climate science denial instead, the rest merely ignore their colleagues-in-propaganda.

While it is wholly unsurprising that the denial lobby should be attempting to push baseless and misleading stories to the press, what is surprising is the press’s willingness to swallow them. In this case, two experts in the relevant field told a Times journalist explicitly that, in spite of a minor referencing error, the IPCC had got its facts right. That journalist simply ignored them. Instead, he deliberately put out the opposite line – one fed to him by a prominent climate change denier – as fact. The implications are deeply disturbing, not only for our prospects of tackling climate change, but for basic standards of honesty and integrity in journalism. “AmazonGate”: how the denial lobby and a dishonest journalist created a fake scandal

So what's a dedicated, honest science journalist at a major news organization, who's responsible to inform his fellow citizens of the science, prepared to do to restore the basic standards of honesty and integrity in journalism, if not the science?

If there still an honest journalist amongst you?

re: The post-Copenhagen view of U.S. climate policy in Europe
~

Is Houston the epicenter of anti-science?

~
Food for thought.

Back later with our take after some fun on Not on the origin of species, but the origin of life over at our favorite Houston science blog, SciGuy.

Won't you join Eric Berger (the SciGuy moderator) & the rest of us? Pewfuls of anti-science guaranteed.
~

Dissection of IPCC’s 2035 Himalayan Mistake.

~
The truth, no matter how scientifically complex, will set an anti-science denier free.

Anatomy of IPCC’s Mistake on Himalayan Glaciers and Year 2035

A careful look shows a complex set of conflations and misquotations begun by some science journalists more than a decade ago, transmitted and compounded by members of the IPCC Working Group II writing team, and hopelessly muddled by hasty, confused press coverage.

It seems that none of the journalists who have cited Pearce’s account of the controversy have read the original sources in question. If papers like The New York Times and the Sunday Times had adequately source-checked, they would have realized that the story was more complicated than Pearce’s account suggests.

Despite what has been regularly reported in the media, IPCC’s formal policies do not prevent it from quoting non-peer-reviewed literature in certain cases. As the IPCC has acknowledged, the sequence of steps required to do this was not followed for the paragraph in question.

The IPCC’s Himalayan glaciers mistake in the end can encourage stricter editing, closer scrutiny, and more transparency in the review process. In that case, the mistake will have served a valuable function.

Increased attention to primary scientific literature may help avoid future errors and also serve as a reminder that the IPCC process often tends towards conservative statements. It’s also important to remember that the science is constantly being updated. Consider, for example, the recent finding that the IPCC models may have systematically overestimated the ability of the biosphere to grow in response to increased carbon. If this research proves right, the IPCC’s long-term temperature projections for the world may be a full degree Centigrade too low, and controversies now commanding headlines will recede into history.

Bottomline, the melting of Himalayan glaciers is accelerating, and the planet is getting hotter each decade.

SciGuy re: Himalayan Glaciers and Year 2035
~

Michael Mann Exonerated

~
Perhaps, it's only news when honest, credible scientists are attacked. No doubt, it's old or no news at all when science reporters & science editors are caught in public with their cookies in hand.

Think we'll ever see a London Times or Houston Chronicle headline like Michael Mann Exonerated?

Penn State has issued a phase one ruling on the inquiry into Michael Mann's conduct. They found there was no substance to the first three allegations, and said that while they could find no evidence to substantiate the fourth, they would convene a phase two inquiry on it, for which a committee of faculty has been appointed. It is important to get the word on this out before the denialists grab the report and start distorting it.

Science Journalism in abscentia.

~
Where are all the major newspapers covering all the recent shenanigans about all the errant science reporting by major newspapers? That surely would be a service to the public & science community, wouldn't you think? To show that they aren't ashamed to follow a higher standard of science journalism and report the mistakes of their own & other science reporters & editors.

There have been new developments in Leakegate, the scandal swirling about reporter Jonathan Leake, who deliberately concealed facts that contradicted the story he wanted to spin. Deltoid can reveal that Leake was up to the same tricks in his story that claims that the IPCC "wrongly linked global warming to natural disasters". Bryan Walker has the detailed dissection, but the short version is that Leake took one part of the discussion of one paper in the IPCC WG2 report and pretended that this was all it said, entirely ignoring the WG1 report and the discussion of other papers in the WG2 report. Leakegate scandal grows

The Sunday Times article [by Jonathan Leake, Science and Environment Editor] is simply untrue. It is lazy, sloppy journalism at best, deliberate misinformation at worst. It has been taken up trumphantly by the denialist world and reported widely and uncritically by other newspapers. I hope the paper is ashamed of what it has achieved, but I fear it will be rejoicing at the attention it has gained. UK Sunday Times’ sloppy journalism attacks IPCC

Assessment of observed changes and responses in natural and managed systems
~