...you're taking this all a bit too seriously. I mean, come on, anyone that believes anything from the 'Drudge Report' isn't worth anyone's while to try and get through to. It's pretty obvious there aren't any "startling errors" in Gore's movie, or else they would have made it onto somewhere a bit more prestigious.

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!).

My conversations with the old guard goes way past alarmist character assassinations.  They accept global warming and it's full consequences.  They won't live long enough to see the worse of this disaster.  It is not their problem.  They intend to live out the rest of their lives in relative comfort, in a slowly warming climate.  Live and let die.  Old money has retired.   If they shoot at Al Gore, that's just for sport.

Funny how the IPCC report suddenly becomes the gold standard to the Right when they use it to bludgeon Gore.

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 ...

I don't think this was a hit piece as much it was an attempt to make an interesting story by making something that is not all that controversial into a controversy.

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."

I agree the piece ended well for Gore, and it did include some quotes from James Hansen, but the bulk of the quotes were clearly marshalled against Gore. Note the rhetorical tactics Nagourney uses:

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.

"some seriously shoddy journalism in the fine recent tradition of the Times."

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

Broad's article is depressing, not only because of the innuendo and the half-truths, but also because it misleads readers into believing that Al Gore's style of presentation is an important part of the global warming story.

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!

To see Pielke Jr. playing Batman to Kevin Vranes' Robin? They're both firmly in the media and publishing little of worth. Vranes doesn't even appear to have a single published article on climate change. Pielke Jr. meanwhile has been milking articles published years in the past.

Benny Big Eye

I don't consider this hit piece to be an accident.  The Times has a habit of cultivating conservative reporter/propagandists so as to protect its credentials with the right.  Call it the Judith Miller gambit.

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.

I'm as shocked as anybody that the NY Times, aka The Liberal Newsletter with an Agenda, would go after one of their own. But, he deserves it. That movie is a bunch of lying garbage.

I like your suggestion, Steven T.  It would never have occurred to me, to write a letter to the Columbia Journalism Review.

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!

May as well have come from Coulter itself.

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act!" -- George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair)