On the other hand, I’d judge him considerably more harshly than he judges himself for the original article, whose underlying issue he claims still stands. Even without the revised backgrounder, that article fails to support its premise. He admits the older version of the backgrounder was circulated in the early 90s, yet somehow offers it as proof the GCC was denying the conclusions of the late 1995 scientific report. He also asserts in the original piece– and continues to assert — that omitting the section on contrarian arguments from the primer was highly significant, even though the primer was never made public. He might have argued that the primer was intended to be made public, but then suppressed. Since he didn’t, I tend to assume he found no evidence that that happened.

I’m a bit confused about his attribution of the error to the “tyranny of time.” The events he wrote about occurred more than 13 years ago; I doubt a week or two’s delay would have spoiled the newsworthiness. I can’t think of a looming deadline — well, other that Gore’s Capitol Hill testimony (that’s mostly just a cynical joke).

Veteran New York Times science writer Andy Revkin calls it “my worst misstep as a journalist in 26 years.”

http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/2009/05/reporter-revkins-worst-misstepaftermath-of-a-climate-reporting-gaffe/

Has anyone here tried to post a comment on realclimate? I just did – and it was continually rejected as ’spam’. A note told me to check for dodgy words – which I did, but I had to give up for my sanity. Do they only allow favoured contributors?

Yes.

The following comment is by someone who appears to be a RealClimate moderator [posted on Climate Audit; note the "we"] :

About the banning policy on RealClimate. RealClimate is a science blog, not a political discussion blog, and they are quite clear on that. Unlike many of their opponents, they are not paid to promote a certain agenda, and that limits how much time they can afford to use on answering comments from people with nicks like “nannygovtsucks”…

I’ve written about it before, I believe. To evaluate claims, or to distinguish signal from noise, we apply networks of trust to decide who we should use our limited time to listen to. It’s not unlike google’s algorithm, where a link from an important site carries more weight than from an unimportant one. Everyone does it, but in science it’s institutionalized in the peer review process: a respected peer gets to set the agenda more, decide which results are important, which paths should rather be explored.
~Harald Korneliussen

A few comments:

First, despite their denials, RC is a heavily political discussion blog. As President Eisenhower pointed out, government money is dangerously corrupting science. Government in a democracy is inherently political. Gavin Schmidt is James Hansen’s immediate subordinate. The entire agenda of RC is to politicize science in order to divert more money into government-favored pockets.

The next false claim is that other sites are paid to “promote a certain agenda.” This is pure psychological projection, in which one’s own wrongdoing is imputed to others. It has been disclosed that George Soros financially supports RealClimate. And James Hansen, purportedly working for the taxpaying public, is the recipient of over a million dollars in cash from organizations with an AGW agenda.

As numerous posters at WUWT have made clear, RC routinely censors comments that dispute their AGW agenda.

RealClimate is a propaganda site. That is one of the main reasons they did so poorly in the Weblog Awards; people don’t want to be spoon fed propaganda. WUWT won the “Best Science” site award because this site provides a forum for all points of view, while RealClimate is an echo chamber that deletes/censors uncomfortable comments [the final vote total gave WUWT ten times the number of votes that RC got].

It corrupts science when a government agency runs a blog that censors comments from taxpaying citizens, in order to please those who give hefty cash donations to those running the blog.

However, it seems to be (based on current evidence and not computer models) that alarming climate change is a myth. Just as it seems to be that this year’s Arctic ice extent will not even worry the BBC (although they are unlikely to report on it if it turns out to be a record-build).

I can’t be alone in finding that we seem to want to worry ourselves. I’ve no doubt that ‘Swine Flu’ will turn out to be a mild one that should never have worried the world. Climate change, despite its initial ‘promise’ of doom seems to have been way-overblown. Looking at the graph of global temperatures for the past 20 years I cannot for the life of me see what worries some people. With some predictions of a strong link with the PDO comes forecasts of falling temperatures for the next 20 years. The caveat is that these are yet again – guessed, just as alarming warming was. So far, that ‘warming’ guess has turned out to be incorrect.

The public have been told that the world will fry, and that is why Monckton’s graph will sit very comfortably in the minds of people. The warming-worriers are to blame for that. Whether or not his graph is factual has become irrelevant. The science of this went out of the window when computer models were brought in. We were no longer saying what is happening, but what we think will happen. As I cannot remember anyone 10 years ago telling me that by 2009 the global temperature would have fallen by 0.03 degrees C (that’s what my calculator says) then I conclude that we are in the realms of appealing to the public’s mind, rather that actuality. And many people reading realclimate are to blame.

RIP science.

WE NEED TO BE DEALING with real world stuff like food and water supplies.

If I’m not mistaken, I believe we have to read between the lines with Andy. He can be turned when the facts will allow him to. Think ahead. You need someone on their side to flip.

For those old enough to remember, think Walter Cronkite turning on the Vietnam war.

It would behoove you all to engage frequently on his blog, especially when he finally posts on feedback and on the PDO. Remember, the alarmists have failed miserably because they do not want to persuade us so much as they want us to submit.

WRT attempts to “frame” the argument with more maleable language, a while back, Lucia noted this brilliant strategy by a “communications” expert.

http://rankexploits.com/musings/2009/dynamics-of-online-polls-weblog-awards/

(Scroll down to Comment 8339 and my following comment)

Add to this the thigh-slapping claim by some true believers that the term “Climate Change” was actually invented by Republican strategist Frank Lunz (Google: “Climate Change” “Frank Lunz”; just don’t have anything in your mouth when you read the results!), and you’ve got some real head-scratchin’ (as well as thigh-slappin’) “framing strategies” to contemplate.

When I wrote the Communist Manifesto, and Capital, I didn’t think about carbon dioxide even once. Don’t you bourgeois capitalists have a heart? I’m still being blamed for Stalin’s crimes, and now you’re saying that I made Al Gore! Nonsense!

Cap-and-trade is entirely consistent with capitalist modes and relations of production, and entirely consistent with capitalism. Go and ask Adam Smith or Thomas Malthus, if they’re still around – capitalists, both of them. Anyway, it’s the proletariat who will suffer from cap-and-trade, not the bourgeois capitalist classes, you can be sure of that.