Earlier this week, Politico, the influential Beltway newspaper, ran an awful story on climate change skeptics (two, actually). I kind of, um, flipped out, and Politico got bashed by Joe Romm, Brad Johnson, Ezra Klein, Matt Yglesias, Steve Benen, Curtis Brainard, and Adam Siegel.
Now Politico has run a long letter by Russ and me and a response from Politico editor Jeanne Cummings. Most of what there is to say about the original piece is in there.
A few extraneous thoughts as the hubbub dies down.
Some sympathy is due reporter Erika Lovley. She got pretty brutal treatment, from me among others, but she's just an inexperienced cub reporter who's no doubt horrified at the storm that's blown up. (I wish now that I hadn't impugned her natural intelligence, which I know nothing about; it's not like I've never been rolled.) The real blame here belongs to Politico's editors, who should have given her more guidance, at least enough to stop this piece.
In her response, Cummings says, "The reaction by that broad community to this relatively minor nod to their last opponents seems, itself, a bit overheated." I've heard similar things from other people, along the lines of, "The story was bad, but it's just one little story, a goof, why the nuclear response?"
Well, there's a history here, that's why. The media too often treats climate change as a squabble between right-wing skeptics and "extreme environmentalists". For decades, it's been portrayed as an interest-group pissing match or a quasi-religious dispute between ideologues. Serious people, grown-up non-ideologues, didn't much get involved.
But that portrayal is utterly at odds with reality. It's not a squabble. Average global temperature is rising and humanity's greenhouse gas emissions are responsible. That is something "environmentalists say" because it is a fact. It is firmly entrenched in mainstream science, having undergone peer review of a scope and intensity beyond any other scientific theory in memory. It has been corroborated across dozens of scientific fields and new findings bolster it every day.
For those of us writing about climate change, and for climate scientists, it's been like being stuck in the Truman Show (or Network). Imagine, I don't know, health advocates being forced to waste years arguing not about solutions and policies but simply that tobacco is a genuine health threat. Oh, wait ...
A lot of anger has built up over time, and yes, a bit of a hair trigger. After I published my post I was contacted and thanked by science reporters, congressional aides, and various greens. They, like me, were under the impression that the media's propensity for false "balance" on climate change was finally in the past -- that the era of Potempkin debate about basic climate science was over.
That's what I forgot in my unduly heated post, though: It is over. Pieces like Politico's are anachronisms. The antediluvian up-is-downism of Marc Morano, Chris Horner, and Ed Morrissey is an anachronism. Reality is back in season. National, state, regional, and city leaders all over the world are collaborating and moving forward on strategies for reducing emissions; even the hardcore polluters whose interests Morano seeks to represent are no longer clinging to outright denial.
Here's the thing: The deniers and the interests they're fronting for will be back. All these same guys -- the same think tanks, industry coalitions, and good-soldier bloggers -- will be back next year lying about the cost of carbon legislation, with economics as shoddy as their science. If a paper like Politico is still getting hoodwinked by their last bag of tricks, how can we trust it will see through the next one?
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And a note from the editor:
Too often in these days of the instant online news cycle, arguments about serious subjects devolve into personal attacks -- blog vs. blog, anchorman vs. anchorman. Grist was right to go after the two Politico stories, but we took unfair shots at the reporter who wrote them. Dave's mea culpa aside, it was my slip up, not his.
We can't erase our mistake, but I can promise Grist readers that we'll keep our snark and razor wit aimed at bad ideas, not people (though we do reserve the right to continue calling Sen. Jim Inhofe a cynical flat-earther). Enjoy the rest of the Thanksgiving weekend.
-- Russ Walker
What to make of the new climate poll
Skeptics claim global warming is fake after top scientists’ emails hacked at CRU
Comments
View as Flat
ce1907 Posted 5:00 am
28 Nov 2008
Lov*ey will back with a razor at your throat
soon
and again and again and again
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Anna Haynes Posted 5:28 am
28 Nov 2008
IMO, Politico owes its public now, on the issue of climate science & consequences; and to atone to their readers, they should bring on someone (Oreskes? Gelbspan? Mooney?) to bring the readers up to speed as to why this disinformation has been occurring - it's not enough just to "erase" those two articles with your letter, they need to move public understanding forward - and the most effective way would be to shed light on the actors and efforts that have generated such public confusion for so long.
(and from what I've seen here in the hinterlands, the public is still clueless about the denial industry.)
My community recently experienced something similar, BTW - a (reformed, he asserted, though it's hard to tell from the transcript) denier appeared on a local radio station. And locally too, I'm suggesting that the followup should involve bringing someone on who can not just "undo" the impression this fellow left, but actually move public understanding forward.
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Jon Rynn Posted 6:35 am
28 Nov 2008
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naught101 Posted 7:22 am
28 Nov 2008
Maybe. Evolution would be a contender.
Mistake in the first sentence in the last paragraph:
The deniers and they interests they're fronting for will be back.
check out http://www.envirowiki.info, the knowledge database for environmentalists and activists.
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Anna Haynes Posted 7:30 am
28 Nov 2008
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Delay And Deny Posted 10:13 am
28 Nov 2008
Look, you guys have a Democrat President, a full Democrat Congress that is near (or perhaps even truly) filibuster proof. Al Gore could probably be annointed as a god of State by the current people soon to be in power.
I don't see why you waste your time going after a few people who raised a red flag.
If you want to reduce Co2 emissions -- go ahead. You have the mandate.
It's like why do SNL comedians still make jokes about Sarah Palin?
Reason -- because it's easier to complain than to get things done.
But when you do -- please take all the responsibility...along with the credit. If -- o, if -- you should be wrong.
Texeme.Construct.Questioner
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Bob Wallace Posted 2:38 pm
28 Nov 2008
Your guy is still in the White House.
And you guys still have almost an equal vote in the Senate.
How about bringing up the "foot dragging" issue again? Say mid-February....
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amazingdrx Posted 3:50 pm
28 Nov 2008
Media that sticks to the facts on GHG climate change is labeled as having a liberal bias. It's just that simple.
Senior editors and producers, many of whom are not aware of the facts, hire and promote people like Erika who are willing to ignore facts in the name of political correctness.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Whiskerfish Posted 1:49 am
29 Nov 2008
South Africa has the world's fifth-largest coal reserves. There is a HUGE push to hugely expand coal-burning to an extent that would make this country easily the highest per-capita user of coal in the world.
I have documented how local 'experts', funded by Exxon-supported entities in the US and using the same talking points, tactics and references as US-based deniers, have influenced the govt to ignore global warming. (We're not talking small-town newspaper punditry -- we're talking people being invited to dinners with govt. ministers to get them to change policy.)
The deniers here have had a nearly free ride because there are very few journos who have the background in climate change or the investigative nouse to expose them (my articles stand alone in the wilderness, so to speak). Loveley needs to be shot down, early and loudly, to stop her nonsense spreading.
She's only a cub, you say. Tough. The media biz is tough. If I had anything to say to her it would be 'welcome to the world, baby, now pick yourself off the ground and don't screw up like that again. The planet matters more than your feelings.'
Cheers
Whiskerfish
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Anna Haynes Posted 2:40 am
29 Nov 2008
Whiskerfish, provide links please.
> The planet matters more than your feelings.
Amen to this. Too many people have trouble grasping it.
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JMG Posted 2:40 am
29 Nov 2008
People who advocate for a clear understanding of physical reality aren't "climate change advocates" and deniers and confusionists aren't "skeptics."
The 5% Project
Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay.
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amazingdrx Posted 2:58 am
29 Nov 2008
Incomparable! Read it and weep Politico.
The execs around here seem to be fully aware of the facts.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Anna Haynes Posted 4:55 am
29 Nov 2008
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Whiskerfish Posted 2:20 am
30 Nov 2008
and
http://www.noseweek.co.za/article.php?current_article=143 ...
and even
http://www.noseweek.co.za/article.php?current_article=136 ...
Subscription required -- with the exchange rate being what it is, very affordable for US$-earning folk.
Whiskerfish
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Hamnick Posted 2:41 am
30 Nov 2008
Lovely doesn't deserve any sympathy. She's a lousy, lazy reporter. Anyone who has read stories on gloabl warming for at least the last 5 years would know exactly where Inhofe is coming from. The woman can't do a google search? It's the kind of crap I would have written in high school, when I thought it was much more important to generate controversy and make a name for myself than to worry about actual facts. To all the bloggers who went after her, I'd say, "Bring it on!" Maybe she'll learn a lesson before she does any more damage.
And despite their mea culpa, Politico has no excuse either.
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Pangolin Posted 5:57 pm
30 Nov 2008
This article should have been properly labeled an advertisement and it's sponsors published. There was no reporting there.
Put the Carbon Back
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GreyFlcn Posted 10:38 pm
01 Dec 2008
-David Ahlport
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MentalDeficit Posted 6:01 am
02 Dec 2008
"Journalistic Ethics" requires a minimal degree of skepticism and fact-checking. David wrote, "Erika Lovley ... is either the most dimwitted, gullible reporter in D.C. or ... um, I can't think of another explanation." The only problem with that characterization is that David missed the other (even more "discourteous") explanation: That Erika Lovley committed journalistic negligence in her embrace of venality.
Politico's mistake was twofold: (1) Hiring a reporter that incompetent or venal, and (2) Failing to exercise basic editorial oversight responsibility.
DISINFORMATION is far more damaging than any physical pollutant. Not only does disinfo have a longer "residence time" in the cultural environment, it also can reproduce exponentially. What Politico did, was equivalent to re-introducing smallpox among the broad population, just when a long and costly vaccination campaign had eradicated it among the broad population (by confining it to Inhofe's Oklahoma and the Saxby Chambliss cesspools of Georgia).
Disinformation is a pathogen. The public-health approach to virulent pathogens is to identify dangerous carriers, quarantine them to protect the public, and only then, to treat those carriers.
So David and Russ -- please get clear about your own responsibilities, as human beings and as journalists. The "Emily Post" school of journalistic etiquette would have you write an article titled, "Climate Disinfo Pathogen Escapes Confinement; Threatens all Humanity!" But it would be "discourteous" and "unfair", if you actually informed the public about WHO carried this new infection, or WHERE the outbreak occurred.
Please wake up and do your job. Or do you think Obama will singlehandedly save us from Disinformation?
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