Posted on 08/12/2007 9:58:04 PM PDT by CedarDave
It appears hell hath frozen over, for a Newsweek contributing editor published an article Saturday extraordinarily critical of his magazine's cover story last week about "global-warming deniers" being funded by oil companies in an organized scam to thwart science.
In fact, Robert J. Samuelson accurately noted how "self-righteous indignation can undermine good journalism," and that this disgraceful article was "an object lesson of how viewing the world as ‘good guys vs. bad guys' can lead to a vast oversimplification of a messy story."
Fortunately, Samuelson was just getting warmed up:
The story was a wonderful read, marred only by its being fundamentally misleading.
NEWSWEEK's "denial machine" is a peripheral and highly contrived story. NEWSWEEK implied, for example, that ExxonMobil used a think tank to pay academics to criticize global-warming science. Actually, this accusation was long ago discredited, and NEWSWEEK shouldn't have lent it respectability. ...
The alleged cabal's influence does not seem impressive. The mainstream media have generally been unsympathetic; they've treated global warming ominously. The first NEWSWEEK cover story in 1988 warned the greenhouse effect. danger: more hot summers ahead. A Time cover in 2006 was more alarmist: be worried, be very worried. Nor does public opinion seem much swayed. Although polls can be found to illustrate almost anything, the longest-running survey questions show a remarkable consistency....
Shocking. But, Samuelson wasn't finished:
But the overriding reality seems almost un-American: we simply don't have a solution for this problem. As we debate it, journalists should resist the temptation to portray global warming as a morality tale-as NEWSWEEK did-in which anyone who questions its gravity or proposed solutions may be ridiculed as a fool, a crank or an industry stooge. Dissent is, or should be, the lifeblood of a free society.
Bravo, Robert! Bravo!
(Excerpt) Read more at newsbusters.org ...
Senator Inhofe's blog has picked up the story and published first. FR link: Newsweek Editor Calls Mag's Global Warming 'Deniers' Article 'Highly Contrived'
PING!
pings
(I think the funniest thing I’ve seen is recent years is that bit about the Pious creating clouds of ‘smug’. I wish I’d thought of that!)
It appears hell hath frozen overI don't think it's hell freezing over as much as the theory of AGW unraveling. Even though the news media has totally ignored recent findings that 1934 is the hottest year in the last 107 years, the word is out there, creeping around, shaking the foundations of the Religion of AGW.
It's not that suddenly journalists have found integrity. That would require hell to freeze over. But it's not that at all.
It's just that the smart ones want to distance themselves from the huge rotting edifice of the Theory of AGW. They don't want to get caught standing near it when it crashes down, WTC-style, in a cloud of embarrassing dust and debris.
(Clutching chest)
THIS IS THE BIG ONE, 'LIZABETH!
Lawrence Solomon's "The Deniers" (a series of articles on the view of scientists who have been labelled "Global Warming Deniers"):
Other References:
Is this the same Newsweek that last year jumped to conclusions and put the mug shots of the Duke lacrosse players on the cover?
Yep.
Still waiting for an apology/correction for that overblown story...
“Dissent is, or should be, the lifeblood of a free society.”
it is not “dissent” however.
questioning theorys is part of the scientific PROCESS.
The global warming zealots are trying to GAG that process.
“Dissent is, or should be, the lifeblood of a free society.”
it is not “dissent” however.
questioning theorys is part of the scientific PROCESS.
The global warming zealots are trying to GAG that process.
Let’s all say it together.
Global warming is a hoax.
“Even though the news media has totally ignored recent findings that 1934 is the hottest year in the last 107 years,”
I don’t think the issue here is about individual year or a season, but the trend. There is no denying that climate is warming up significantly in the recent decades.
The CAUSE is something up for debate (and perhaps hijacked by leftwing lunatics), not the fact of climate change itself.
Global warming would save billions of dollars spent heating homes for the poor that will not pay their own bills.
Global warming is a good thing.
“Global warming” hoax BUMP!
And think how much more thermal mass we had sitting around in 1998 vs 1934 in the form of highways, parking lots, bldgs... When I lived in the SW, I learned that a good rule of thumb in gauging summer temps is that it was approx. 5 degrees hotter in town than it was out in the country because of all the accumulated heat from structures, pavement, etc. Plus the heat from a lot more internal combustion engines.
And, then there are all the a/c condensing units displacing indoor heat to the exterior. When you're dealing in the minutia of tenths & hundredths of a degree, this stuff adds up & makes a difference.
And, still, 1934 was hotter. A LOT hotter, I suspect.
Except for the fact that with the recent change, even that is not true. The "decade" of the 30's was the hottest. From this summary:
Four of the top 10 years of US CONUS high temperature deviations are now from the 1930s: 1934, 1931, 1938 and 1939, while only 3 of the top 10 are from the last 10 years (1998, 2006, 1999). Several years (2000, 2002, 2003, 2004) fell well down the leaderboard, behind even 1900.
It appears that the last few decades have shown an increase relative to the previous dip (ie. in ~1970), but I just learned the other day that the Urban Heat Island Effect (which I had always naively assumed was taken into account) is not even factored into any of these data sets. I was blown away by that. The IPCC considers it to be a non-factor.
As I just noted, the Urban Heat Island Effect is considered to be a non-factor by the IPCC. That really, really, really surprised me.
Newsweak must of been wacked big time over this article...hehehe...
Patently not true. In fact, quite the opposite.
You sound identical to certain types in the 60s solemnly discussing Global cooling.
I still have those reports and they were taken very seriously by many for a long time.
“Climate change” is more correctly called “weather.”
I’m not surprised because, if they did factor it it, the source of the hot air would be obvious.
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