Journalism in the greenhouse … or the glass house?
There have since been several reports upholding the U.N.’s basic findings, including a major assessment in May from the National Academy of Sciences. This assessment not only confirmed the relationship between climate change and human activities but warned of growing risks “” sea level rise, drought, disease “” that must swiftly be addressed by firm action to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.
Given the trajectory the scientists say we are on, one must hope that the academy’s report, and Wednesday’s debunking of Climategate, will receive as much circulation as the original, diversionary controversies.
The New York Times had a great editorial today, “A Climate Change Corrective.” Certainly the recent exonerations and NAS study deserve much, much, much more media attention.
It most be pointed out, however, that the NYT overhyped the “manufactured controversy known as Climategate” as much if not more than other media outlets, from the beginning:
- Here’s what we know so far: CRU’s emails were hacked, the 2000s will easily be the hottest decade on record, and the planet keeps warming thanks to us! The NY Times blows the story
- Anti-science idealogues spin the NY Times public editor, Clark Hoyt, on “Climategate”
- N.Y. Times and Elisabeth Rosenthal Face Credibility Siege over Unbalanced Climate Coverage
The NYT has had multiple front-page “teach the (manufactured) controversy” stories (see also In yet another front-page journalistic lapse, the NYT once again equates non-scientists “” Bastardi, Coleman, and Watts (!) “” with climate scientists and Brulle: “The NYT doesn’t need to go to European conferences to find out why public opinion on climate change has shifted”¦. Just look in the mirror”).
Where are the multiple front-page stories on the exonerations and NAS study? For that matter, let’s remember that the NY Times rejected op-ed/letter from 255 National Academy of Sciences members defending climate science integrity.
Still, we take what we can get from the islands of sanity — the Tuvalus — at major outlets like the NYT. Here’s the full editorial:
Perhaps now we can put the manufactured controversy known as Climategate behind us and turn to the task of actually doing something about global warming. On Wednesday, a panel in Britain concluded that scientists whose e-mail had been hacked late last year had not, as critics alleged, distorted scientific evidence to prove that global warming was occurring and that human beings were primarily responsible.
It was the fifth such review of hundreds of e-mail exchanges among some of the world’s most prominent climatologists. Some of the e-mail messages, purloined last November, were mean-spirited, others were dismissive of contrarian views, and others revealed a timid reluctance to share data. Climate skeptics pounced on them as evidence of a conspiracy to manipulate research to support predetermined ideas about global warming.
The panel found no such conspiracy. It complained mildly about one poorly explained temperature chart discussed in the e-mail, but otherwise found no reason to dispute the scientists’ “rigor and honesty.” Two earlier panels convened by Britain’s Royal Society and the House of Commons reached essentially the same verdict. And this month, a second panel at Penn State University exonerated Michael Mann, a prominent climatologist and faculty member, of scientific wrongdoing.
Dr. Mann, who was part of the e-mail exchange, had been accused of misusing data to prove that the rise in temperatures over the last century was directly linked to steadily rising levels of carbon dioxide. His findings, confirmed many times by others, are central to the argument that fossil fuels must be taxed or regulated.
Another (no less overblown) climate change controversy may also be receding from view. This one involves an incorrect assertion in the United Nations’ 3,000-page report on climate change in 2007 that the Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035. The U.N. acknowledged the error and promised to tighten its review procedures. Even so, this and one or two other trivial mistakes were presented by some as further proof that scientists cannot be trusted and that warming is a hoax.
There have since been several reports upholding the U.N.’s basic findings, including a major assessment in May from the National Academy of Sciences. This assessment not only confirmed the relationship between climate change and human activities but warned of growing risks “” sea level rise, drought, disease “” that must swiftly be addressed by firm action to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.
Given the trajectory the scientists say we are on, one must hope that the academy’s report, and Wednesday’s debunking of Climategate, will receive as much circulation as the original, diversionary controversies.
Surely the NYT editorial board can do more than just hope?
Related Posts:
- U.S. National Academy of Sciences labels as “settled facts” that “the Earth system is warming and that much of this warming is very likely due to human activities”
- Final ‘forensic’ UK report on emails vindicates climate science and research underlying the Hockey Stick
- Much-vindicated Michael Mann and Hockey Stick get final exoneration from Penn State “” time for some major media apologies and retractions
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Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
I suppose this will not be the last time the Grey Lady displays her multiple-personality disorder.
A pity that she can’t seem to get on the right side of things permanently.
“one must hope that the academy’s report, and Wednesday’s debunking of Climategate, will receive as much circulation as the original, diversionary controversies…”
So does this mean we will see repeated versions of this and other exonerations on the front page of the NYT for a few weeks at least? (maybe even an investigation into who bankrolled the sophisticated criminal operation that illegally hacked the emails in the first place in advance of Copenhagen – and why?)
Or is it just other news outlets that are supposed to mea culpa??
Yeah, don’t hold your breath. Do you think that Sarah Palin will retrack or apologize for her anti-Global Warmining “ClimateGate” editorial in the Washington Post in a follow up editorial or at least a post on her Facebook page? Not a chance.
So how much has now been debunked in that one short paragraph from Palin’s WashPo editorial? Every Sentence?
As you so correctly point out, the damage is already done and there’s little hope that the mainstream media will put out the massive amount of effort required to repair the damage and do what’s neccessary to correct the public’s perception that Global Warming is real and a threat. Plus, reporting that truth stuff is boring. Controversy and scandals are more interesting – something with a ‘gate’ suffix – certainly pulls in more readers. The mainstream media will focus on the next scandal (gate) – not old news.
There is still the matter of just who was behind the theft of the emails. If they are not brought out into the light of day they will continue to make hacking attacks against climate scientists.
The NY Times has a very large plate of festering dead crow to spoon thru for sure.
This is the future of humanity we are talking about here. Now that the science has yet again been vindicated, never not, IMO, I as well HOPE the NYT sees fit to publish numerous future Global Warming News articles with renewed sense of purpose and edification. In the old days, before the “Sell Out,” we use to call that “Journalism.”
Wow! What happened. This is a major correction from one of the worst! (Among respected media sources) Excellent news. Must go and read.
Joe wrote: “Surely the NYT editorial board can do more than just hope?”
Of course they can do more than just hope.
They can engage in blatant, sneering hypocrisy by printing this editorial, and then go right back to business-as-usual, protecting the fossil fuel corporations’ hundreds of millions of dollars in profit per day against the public interest in ending the consumption of their products.
Joe1347:
I hear you. And, the climate inactivists are good at creating “news”. If “Climategate” dies, they’ll try to resurrect it by doing something stupid and sensational, like launching another bullshit legal action against Michael Mann. Result: newspapers won’t report old truths, but they’ll report this bullshit event.
Perhaps Climate Progress can try doing something gimmicky just to get the Muir Russell report on a front page. :-B
Let’s hope a few more people, including MSM editors, are spotting the clear pattern: climate scientists – and those who accept the science – are always right, the deniers are always wrong.
All the NYT has done is declare the death of the tactic of Climategate skepticism. Otherwise they have not really emerged from their carbon cocoon.
Masters of The Art
I’m not one to believe in conspiracies or (in the case of the media) planned wrongdoing.
So, when I say what I’m about to say, I think that The New York Times suffers from what it suffers from because of its own paradigms, false assumptions, and “systems”.
With that said . . .
The New York Times is a master of the arts of too little too late; saying one thing and doing another; taking a stand on something just to the degree that it hardly makes any difference; and doing much more to enable and support the status quo problems than to actually address them.
The record plainly shows that The New York Times hasn’t covered key letters from groups of scientists; hasn’t listed all the bona fide scientific organizations that say that climate change is real, on its front page; enabled the “climategate” controversy and helped to fuel it (where was Andy Revkin at the time?); hasn’t bothered to directly clarify and correct all the misinformation and misleading information that ExxonMobil has conveyed in its advertorials in the paper; and has basically treated climate change as a “business as usual” topic.
One wonders if the editors who write the editorials even read the paper or even comprehend the problem that the paper itself contributes to? Are they the same people? Is the left hand criticizing what the right hand does, while neither hand realizes the problem?
As always, (because the past can’t be changed), the real test is what The Times begins to do tomorrow. We’ll see.
Jeff
Berbalang says:
July 11, 2010 at 11:15 am
“There is still the matter of just who was behind the theft of the emails. If they are not brought out into the light of day they will continue to make hacking attacks against climate scientists.”
****************
The first place we should look at are the Oil Companies themselves who probably paid hackers to do it.
We should also think of turning the tables on them. There is one huge opportunity for discovering a “Denier Gate”. I won’t mention it at this time but it doesn’t take too much searching to find something very rotten in the “Denier Zone”.
Looks like the tide has turned.
All decent media will now follow!
What a lot of effort to convince them!
Looks like the tide has really turned!!!
The insurance industy is also finally coming clean and speaking up on the dire state of affairs.
Something they have known about for a long time, but have played the cards close to their chest for obious reasons.
I think society will now acknowled the issue as a whole.
However, we are in dire straits, but must strive for the best.
Good luck all…
The link…
http://m.guardian.co.uk/ms/p/gmg/op/sszPghAtHumBOI7nF8dg6uA/view.m?id=500733&tid=120787&cat=Climate_change
But, Joe, the Big Money doesn’t buy advertising to pay for such exoneration.
Berbalang and Villabolo,
Thanks for reminding us about the media’s lack of interest in the hacking of CRU computers, which was clearly a criminal activity performed with great sophistication. The jumpsuited maintance men at the University of Victoria climate research unit were probably paid by the same people.
Oil company black ops are very well paid, and law enforcement is unlikely to produce indictments. Even if they do, prosecution will be long and expensive. Federal and local prosecutors are disinclined to go forward, because the probability of an insider willing to step forward as a witness is very low, making a successful prosecution dicey.
This is a perfect opportunity for journalists to step forward and demand justice. Guess what we’ve heard so far? Nothing. This needs to change. The CRU probe in Britain is in limbo, and the Canadians have ignored the attempted breakin at Victoria. A journalist who puts the pieces together could make himself a lifetime reputation, as Woodward and Bernstein did. The problem appears to be support from editors and publishers. This may have to be done on a shoestring by Mother Jones, or an independent reporting for Rolling Stone. Are you listening?
okay, uncle, uncle, just stop pounding us Joe!!!
It was a white wash by the members of the mutual admiration society.
The next big outing of information should be whether the IPCC estimate of the rate of climate change is way too conservative and that global warming is progressing much faster than the standard and even accelerated “quick melt” estimates.
Expectation levels of scale-appropriate action have been suppressed for so long that they are way too low for broad effective advocacy of suitable action.
The analytics should determine the rate of climate change acceleration. This is much more important than the NY Times’ “A Climate Change Corrective.”
This would be like seeing if the planes are currently on the way to bombing Pearl Harbor with the intention of being able to prevent complete disaster.
20. fj2 (continued)
The first analytics might be quite simple to the effect:
This is what the IPCC predictions are for a given time as compared to what exactly is happening for the same point of time; such as predicted Arctic ice volumes, temperatures, etc.
Of course, there is a lot of complexity but, this is what the science is all about and there should be enough information to determine the rate of acceleration which is extremely important.
This is the big story from the news and media perspective and even more importantly from the reality-based responsible governance perspective.
April Smith at 19 -
Your willingness to try to smear the integrity of others, while having nothing at all to offer in the way of evidence, reflects rather badly on your own integrity.
Try stepping outside the bigotry of your fixed ideas – you might find it refreshing.
Regards,
Lewis
Mike at 17 -
The word among some of the London journos is that the UEA hack was ordered not by oil or coal companies, but ‘rogue elements’ within the Saudi establishment.
Given that the DOD has made plain its concerns over climate destabilization as an inexorable threat multiplier, they’d be negligent if they’d failed to put intelligence resources onto monitoring active resistance to ending fossil fuel dependence.
Thus quite apart from diverse other intelligence resorces at his command, Obama has to be in a position to arrange the exposure of those who commissioned the attack.
His reticence is getting quite noticable, don’t you think ?
Regards,
Lewis
23. Lewis Cleverdon,
“Given that the DOD has made plain its concerns over climate destabilization . . . monitoring active resistance to ending fossil fuel dependence. . . . arrange the exposure of those who commissioned the attack.”
Excellent points.
In listening science reviews of the amount of mixing of the
deep water of the oceans there came a point of thinking that
if the deep ocean water doesn’t mix that much and has flows
but not real mixing as the water above, what then?
Does the oily water in the deep portions of the Gulf of
pollution just stay in the deep water for a 1000 years?
If so then it would be another example of the sweet talk
and the fund raising parties didn’t see far, but ruined
much today and ruined much for many tomorrows.