If you visit the Drudge Report, you'll find the following bit of typically breathless hype:
NY TIMES PLANS HIT ON GORE, NEWSROOM SOURCES TELL DRUDGE: 'Scientists argue that Gore's warnings are full of exaggerated claims and startling errors'... Reporter William Broad filing the story, 'A CALL TO COOL THE HYPE'... Developing...
"Developing" indeed. Looks like Broad "newsroom sources" is angling to get the maximum possible exposure for his piece. As everyone knows, when it comes to the D.C. press, Drudge rules their world.
Who knows what kind of poop Broad will scrape off his heel for this piece. Remember what RealClimate said about Broad's last foray into climate science: "Broadly Misleading."
Suffice to say, if there were any "startling errors" in the science Gore presented in his not-exactly-low-profile film, I suspect some enterprising journo would have gotten scientists to go on record about it already. But we'll see.
Update [2007-3-12 19:1:10 by David Roberts]: Well, it's out, and sure enough it's a steaming pile of half-truths, innuendo, and discredited hackery -- not surprisingly, you find Roger Pielke Jr.'s name front and center. Much more later.
Comments
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Delay And Deny Posted 9:58 am
12 Mar 2007
Ok, so this is an article, about a rumor about an article that might get written -- and yet, you're flying off the handle about it?
I mean, did Albert Einstein go around nervous because he "suspected" everyone was all Absolute Frame of Reference-ish and Relativity "Unbelievers".
Gee-whiz, Grist!
The Texeme Construct offers international text memetics construction and textcasting services. http://www.you-read-it-here-first.com
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tico89 Posted 10:43 am
12 Mar 2007
Typical, though, the way they all pick on someone like Gore, as he's high-profile and can be labelled as a non-scientist. Seem to be leaving the IPCC alone. Perhaps William should Broaden his horizons (ok, couldn't resist!).
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David Roberts Posted 12:05 pm
12 Mar 2007
www.grist.org
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Jason D Scorse Posted 12:15 pm
12 Mar 2007
J.S. teaches environmental economics and blogs at http://www.voicesofreason.info. He is a proud liberal in the true sense of the term.
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sunflower Posted 12:35 pm
12 Mar 2007
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Jason D Scorse Posted 12:46 pm
12 Mar 2007
Hmmmm.... Sounds familiar.
On a second reading of the article, however, I don't think it's a hit piece.
J.S.
J.S. teaches environmental economics and blogs at http://www.voicesofreason.info. He is a proud liberal in the true sense of the term.
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JMG Posted 1:50 pm
12 Mar 2007
As many, many IPCC participants have noted, the report is a consensus document that, therefore, offers the most conservative statements only.
As noted throughout Fred Pearce's outstanding new (really new) book, "With Speed and Violence: Why scientists fear tipping points in climate change," the IPCC report is almost, by definition, the best we can hope for, and that's as of 2005 (a long time when you're talking about something that is both being studied so intensely and changing so fast as our climate).
So after spending years bashing the IPCC process, suddenly the teeter-totter tips and the IPCC is magically transformed into a cudgel with which to bash Gore, for how dare he speak beyond this august report with which we have NEVER disagreed ...
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josullivan58 Posted 3:54 pm
12 Mar 2007
The last part of the article is most informative when they quote Dr Oppenheimer:
"On balance, he did quite well -- a credible and entertaining job on a difficult subject," Dr. Oppenheimer said. "For that, he deserves a lot of credit. If you rake him over the coals, you're going to find people who disagree. But in terms of the big picture, he got it right."
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plum Posted 6:00 pm
12 Mar 2007
Link negative language to Gore: "mocked Gore's assertion", "alarmists", "scaremongering", "shrill alarmism", "overselling", "exaggerated and erroneous".
Portray sceptics as "centrists". This article is the first time I've seen the phrase "centrist detractors". This is a pretty formulation from a rhetorical point of view: it has the effect of moving the centre of gravity to the right.
Let the sceptics attack Gore, but don't ask them to defend themselves. This makes Lindzen, Easterbrook et al seem reasonable.
Get one of the sceptics (but only one) to proclaim they have no conflicts of interest with corporations. This both implicates consensus scientists as paid shills and allows other sceptics to bask in the righteousness of "being correct".
Subtly undercut James Hansen, who "concedes" the sceptics' point. Elevate Gore's "minor inaccuracies" to the level that they balance out ALL the accuracies.
Never indicate how large a section of the total number of scientists in the field are sceptics. At the same time, chip away rhetorically at the legitimacy of the consensus behind AGW.
This last point is the most interesting to me, as I see it a new tactic from the right. It's also Rovian: attack the enemy where they feel strongest.
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Steve Bloom Posted 7:41 pm
12 Mar 2007
OK, so Easterbrook sounds like a reasonable, mainstream kind of guy, right?
But then three minutes on Google Scholar finds this abstract from last May in which Easterbrook says: "Historic fluctuations of alpine glaciers, solar activity, and measured isotope changes suggest that the present global warming could well be solar in origin, rather than a result of increased atmospheric CO2. (...) Global temperature curves show a cool reversal from ~1955 to ~1980), inferring that global temperatures then were not driven by atmospheric CO2. Solar irradiance curves almost exactly match the global temperature curve and satellite data suggest that the earth has received increased solar radiation over the past 25 years, coinciding with the present 25-year warm cycle. If the cycles continue as in the past, the current warm cycle should end soon, and global warming should abate, rather than increase, in the next 25-30 years. Using these data as a basis, the coming century should experience a cooler climate from ~2006 to ~2035, a warmer period (probably warmer than the 1977-2005 warm period) from ~2035 to ~2065, followed by another cooler period from ~2065 to about the end of the century."
This is in explicit disagreement with the IPCC on what is perhaps the most fundamental point of climate science. Not only that, several of the particulars (e.g. that there is a significant insolation trend over the last 25 years) are simply false. IOW, Easterbrook is way, way out of the science mainstream, has an obvious axe to grind and is willing to resort to just making things up.
The only way Broad could have missed this is to have done no fact-checking at all. This was some seriously shoddy journalism in the fine recent tradition of the Times.
Aside from that, my favorite part was titling RP Jr. an "environmental scientist" and then using the same title for Jim Hansen. In Roger's dreams. Think he'll ask for a correction?
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amazingdrx Posted 8:03 pm
12 Mar 2007
The NYT has become "fair and balanced". Following the mode of Time magazine.
"Time for kids" recently informed our children how flex fuel vehicles and fuel farming will save the planet. Corporate propaganda in the classroom.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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caniscandida Posted 9:58 pm
12 Mar 2007
Fortunately the judgments of Oppenheimer and Hansen are included, the only ones which are fair and which should be thought to matter. Unfortunately, they are thrown in with a lot of distracting garbage.
Probably it is fair to say that all scientists in every field and specialization feel some anguish regarding the communication of their findings and judgments to people who are not scientists. Many of them seem to be irked by any form of discourse on their areas of expertise that would not pass muster within their coterie of professionals; and they react with contempt. And so it is gratifying that James Hansen praises Al Gore by saying, cutely, that he "sees the forest for the trees," and that he communicates the gist of the climatologists' findings better than they could themselves.
(N.B., Plum, I like your list, but Adam Nagourney is not the rhetorical tactician in question. He is another NYT writer, who specializes in presidential and electoral politics. For all I know, he may already be writing things about Al Gore's presidential prospects. But his is not the name on this article.)
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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Benny Big Eye Posted 11:42 pm
12 Mar 2007
Benny Big Eye
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Steven T Posted 12:18 am
13 Mar 2007
A good way to make the Times pay for its journalistic sins is to write letters to the various journalism professional groups. For example, a letter to the editor -- or even an essay -- in the Columbia Journalism Review could make the Times stand up and pay attention.
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egbooth Posted 12:57 am
13 Mar 2007
http://www.realclimate.org
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rainking Posted 1:33 am
13 Mar 2007
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caniscandida Posted 1:38 am
13 Mar 2007
It is true that in the past few years, as you say, the Times has very self-consciously tried to run more articles that might appeal to conservative readers. William Broad's article seems very much to fit that pattern.
But it is also possible that they intend to support one or another of the leading Democratic candidates for president, and would prefer that Al Gore stay out of the race, or anyway, that he look less impressive as a late-entering competitor.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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sunflower Posted 4:17 am
13 Mar 2007
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yoder Posted 8:02 am
13 Mar 2007
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act!"
-- George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair)
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