How should scientists respond to the “he said, he said, he said, she said” media world we live in now that science journalism has died?

Another day, another major media outlet libels Michael Mann — and James Hansen.

In a new black eye for Newsweek, their lengthy attack on climate scientists has been exposed as relying on massaged data and tawdry innuendo.  While they have already corrected a number of mistakes, they left a bunch in, and decided not to change the overall theme of their now baseless story.  That would have meant gutting the sensationalistic headline and visuals they apparently believe they need to grab eyeballs for their ever-shrinking magazine.

But Newsweek needs to do more than simply change a few egregious mistakes in its piece.  They need to issue an apology to Mann and Hansen — and Al Gore — and a big-time retraction.

Right now, their credibility on the entire energy and climate issue is hanging by a rapidly melting icicle — see Media stunner: Newsweek partners with oil lobby to raise ad cash, host energy and climate events with lawmakers “” while publishing the uber-greenwashing story, “Big Oil Goes Green for Real.” Indeed, their dubious partnership with Big Oil makes this climate story doubly problematic.

Memo to scientists:  You need to figure out  a new communications strategy in a world where much of the media places more weight on a few discredited anti-science disinformers repeating long-debunked falsehoods a hundred times than they do on two major exonerations by leading academics and the country’s top scientists.

Here’s the scoop.  Newsweek decides to do this big attack on climate scientists.  They gin up a clever headline (with visual to match) and a nasty subhed:

Read more

Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN), a potential candidate for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012, completed the reversal of his stance on global warming today on Meet the Press. When asked by NBC’s David Gregory if climate change is real, the former champion of strong climate action questioned “how much of it is man-made,” charging climate scientists with “data manipulation and controversy.” He then said a cap-and-trade system of market-based limits on global warming pollution would be a “disaster”:

The climate is obviously changing, David. The more interesting question is how much of it is man-made and how much is as a result of natural causes and patterns. Of course, we have seen data manipulation and controversy, or at least debate within the scientific community. . . . And the way you address it is we should all be in favor of reducing pollution. We need to do it in ways that don’t burden the economy. Cap and trade, I think, would be a disaster in that regard.

Watch it:

Pawlenty’s charge of “data manipulation” is based on the libelous claims of fossil-fueled conspiracy theorists.

Like Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Pawlenty was one of the nation’s chief Republican champions of cap and trade until recently, but now is mimicking Sarah Palin instead. In 2007, Pawlenty supported a cap-and-trade system to reduce Minnesota’s global warming pollution by 80 percent by the year 2050. “Maybe we can lead them,” Pawlenty then said about Congress passing cap and trade, “or even shame them into action. It’ll become de facto national policy.”

Transcript: Read more

Virginia’s Attorney General is claiming that global warming is “unreliable, unverifiable and doctored” science, but the state’s climatologists aren’t buying it, as Brad Johnson reports in this Wonkroom repost.

Read more

Duh!

Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Saturday that major Capitol Hill renewable electricity proposals would not prompt additional generation from sources like wind and solar power beyond the increases expected under existing programs.

The Hill report is not really big news.  I wrote back in May that EIA projects wind at 5% of U.S. electricity in 2012, all renewables at 14%, thanks to Obama stimulus! Now can we get a stronger renewable standard?

The story makes it doubly clear how pointless an “energy-only” bill would be:

Read more