The inaccurate LA Times story AGU cites was excerpted (via a Chicago Tribune reprint) and linked here yesterday at WUWT. AGU issued this press release today, which is repeated in entirety below. – Anthony
Inaccurate news reports misrepresent a climate-science initiative of the American Geophysical Union
AGU Release No. 10–37
http://www.agu.org/news/press/pr_archives/2010/2010-37.shtml
8 November 2010
For Immediate Release
WASHINGTON—An article appearing in the Los Angeles Times, and then picked up by media outlets far and wide, misrepresents the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and a climate science project the AGU is about to relaunch. The project, called Climate Q&A Service, aims simply to provide accurate scientific answers to questions from journalists about climate science.
“In contrast to what has been reported in the LA Times and elsewhere, there is no campaign by AGU against climate skeptics or congressional conservatives,” says Christine McEntee, Executive Director and CEO of the American Geophysical Union. “AGU will continue to provide accurate scientific information on Earth and space topics to inform the general public and to support sound public policy development.”
AGU is the world’s largest, not-for-profit, professional society of Earth and space scientists, with more than 58,000 members in over 135 countries.
“AGU is a scientific society, not an advocacy organization,” says climate scientist and AGU President Michael J. McPhaden. “The organization is committed to promoting scientific discovery and to disseminating to the scientific community, policy makers, the media, and the public, peer-reviewed scientific findings across a broad range of Earth and space sciences.”
AGU initiated a climate science Q&A service for the first time in 2009 to provide accurate scientific information for journalists covering the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. AGU has been working over the past year on how to provide this service once again in association with the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico.
AGU’s Climate Q&A service addresses scientific questions only. It does not involve any commentary on policy. Journalists are able to submit questions via email, and AGU member-volunteers with Ph.D.s in climate science-related fields provide answers via email.
The relaunch of the Climate Q&A service is pending. When AGU is ready to announce the service, we will notify journalists on our distribution list via a media advisory that the service is once again available for their use.
For additional information about the Q&A service please see a 2 March 2010 article [pdf] about the 2009 Q&A service that was published in AGU’s weekly newspaper Eos, and a blog post about the service on AGU’s science communication blog The Plainspoken Scientist.
The American Geophysical Union was established in 1919, and is headquartered in Washington, D.C. AGU advances the Earth and space sciences through its scholarly publications, meetings and conferences, and outreach programs. For more information, please visit the AGU web site.
============================================================
I just checked the source story on the LA Times website here
The story remains, but with this clarification now added mid story:
CLARIFICATION:
The effort by John Abraham is separate from the Geophysical Union’s.
There is no mention of the AGU press release.
The Chicago Tribune story here remains unchanged.
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So, everything that was said and quoted in the original article was made up in the minds of the reporters?
“The project, called Climate Q&A Service, aims simply to provide accurate scientific answers to questions from journalists about climate science.”
Same wolf, different wool.
“…accurate scientific answers IN OUR OPINION…”why do they always leave that part out?
JimB
Sounds like you, Steve McIntyre and other should get together and make a list of 50 or so questions that global warming cultists hate to answer or always spin, submit it and see how much they “not an advocacy organization” respond. Best if you can find some small town newspaper report to submit the questions so they can’t be tracked back to the “evil deniers”. Fastest way to deal with advocacy groups claiming not to be an advocacy group is to call there bluff.
So the Hockey Team have realised that Real Climate is not up to the job, and need extra help.
Now, if I was a journalist, which of course I am not, I would be tempted to post questions on AGW, to this crack team of Phd Climate Scientists, and then supply the question, and politically correct answer to a website dealing with such issues in a sceptical manner.
Anyone up for it?
Caught with their pants down…
*****someone needs to inform michael mann and MSNBC:
8 Nov: MSNBC Cosmiclog: Alan Boyle: Life after Climategate
If anyone thinks that climate scientist Michael Mann has been cowed by last year’s controversy over stolen e-mails, known as Climategate … or by last week’s election, which could lead to congressional hearings that target Mann and his colleagues … well, think again.
“They can threaten whatever they want,” the Penn State professor told me on Sunday, after his talk at the New Horizons in Science meeting at Yale University. “I’m quite confident to fight those sorts of witch-hunt attempts.”…
Although Mann didn’t exactly say “Bring it on,” he did note that “those on the other side of the aisle will see this as an opportunity.” He doesn’t think scientists will be pushed on the defensive by their congressional critics.
“We should look at this as an opportunity for offense,” he said…
“The ice sheets are not Republican or Democrat,” Mann said. “They don’t have a political agenda as they disappear.”…
*****Mann praised the American Geophysical Union for setting up a “rapid response task force” to parry efforts aimed at discrediting climate scientists. He said journalists also should exercise their traditional role as a “critical and independent arbiter” of the policy debate, particularly in the midst of “politically motivated inquiries that we haven’t seen in this country since the 1950s.”
It might sound as if Mann relishes the fight, but he acknowledged that life after Climategate has not been easy for him. His routine now includes dealing with veiled death threats as well as investigations such as the one in Virginia…
Mann is doing less research, and more speaking and writing. (For example, he’s one of the scientists behind the RealClimate blog.)
“I spend quite a bit of time these days on what I might generously describe as outreach,” he told me. “I think not every scientist should be doing this — but more scientists should.”
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/11/08/5426675-life-after-climategate
they realized that “congressional conservatives” just won control of the purse strings and decided to walk that nonsense back …
notice that they didn’t specifically deny making those statements … just a claim of “misreporting” as in “since it looks like we are playing avdocate and bashing our new overlords we decided to moderate our position” …
Another media debacle. Oh, wait. It says LA Times. That’s not media; it’s a propaganda print shop. Another debacle.
Why does the AGU need to provide anything, are they acting as an arbiter as to which information/research is accurate?” One wonders if the reporters got their information from insiders as to the true nature of the endeavor which wasn’t for public release.
If anything ever begged to be called a conspiracy – this is too stupid for words.
“An article appearing in the Los Angeles Times, and then picked up by media outlets far and wide, misrepresents the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and a climate science project the AGU is about to relaunch.”
“The project, called Climate Q&A Service, aims simply to provide accurate scientific answers to questions from journalists about climate science.”
Oh the irony!
One has to wonder how on earth they expect to be able to provide accurate scientific answers to the press if they can’t even communicate an accurate description of their intention to do that to the press!
I am glad to here AGU president say that the reports were wrong. I was alarmed that AGU was moving into advocacy. Any scientific organization that does so will lose my respect.
Climate Q&A Service sounds a lot like the Leckbot. Will they copy&paste their stuff from Twitter?
pat says:
November 8, 2010 at 3:38 pm
“*****someone needs to inform michael mann and MSNBC:
[…]
“I spend quite a bit of time these days on what I might generously describe as outreach,” he told me. “I think not every scientist should be doing this — but more scientists should.””
Yeah, i enjoyed his drumming skills.
@temp Good point.
At a wild guess:
Someone from AGU boasted to journalists about their plans for a climate rapid response team.
Someone higher up in AGU realised that if the AGU team was obviously pushing the CAGW line then they wouldn’t be effective, hence this latest release.
I suppose that if the chairman of a wind power company, whose wealth and status depends on CAGW, can lead an “independent” inquiry into the CRU, then a climate rapid response team can give independent unbiased information on global warming.
So no 700 volunteers then? How about the 39? It must have been the big pushback they received from commenters on the web. The Guardian is full of negative feedback. :o)
Well that didn’t last long. I thought it was too good to be true.
Closing in on 60 million hits now Anthony!
Let’s hold their feet to the fire. They proclaim they “accurately” report facts. Let’s keep their inaccuracies (or downright lies) right in front of them and the media. We won’t have to dig very far—on the contrary, it will be like “Where’s Waldo?” to find the true statements hidden in the lies.
The “…pending” “AGU’s Climate Q&A service addresses scientific questions only”.
Will it convey the uncertainties in climate science to the journalists? I doubt it.
But if AGU only deals with science and not policy, why is it that all of their science are on AGW only? If anyone from AGU who does not believe in AGW but volunteers to help answer the questions by journalists, would he be dispatched by the AGU leadership? Likely not. Which shows that AGU has become an advocacy organization, not a scientific one that its leaders describe it in the above press release.
The AGU claims that they are “a scientific society, not an advocacy organization,”
If that is so, then how can they possibly explain this slogan, prominently emblazoned on their masthead (emphasis mine):
“AGU _galvanizes_ a community of Earth and space scientists that collaboratively advances and communicates science and its power _to ensure a sustainable future_.”
How can a group ‘galvanize’ a ‘community’ without being an advocacy group?
How exactly are scientists supposed to ‘ensure a sustainable future’? A future without any of that toxic CO2 flatulence of course!
So they are lying to hide their true purpose: they’re “community organizers” by their own admission! (Obama would be proud of them).
Keith Olbermann was suspended from MSNBC for his contributions to political candidates because he is supposed to be an objective journalist (dripping sarcasm).
Climate scientists that form organizations to lobby Congress and actively advocate against the GOP/Tea Party should also categorically state if they donate heavily to political candidates. A simple perusal of opensecrets.org shows that many climate scientists/advocates/lobbyists donated heavily to the Obama campaign along with other Democrat candidates. Pennsylvania resident Michael Mann donated many times to the ’08 Obama campaign and also, for some strange reason, donated 200$ to the Martha Coakley campaign in Massachusetts, where Scott Brown was running to be the “41st Senator”. Thus, killing off cap-and-
tradetax would be against the interests of a very sympathetically minded climate scientist. Darrell Issa will likely have this information. Other climate scientists are easily searchable, but I do not want to point out who wasted money on Howard Dean’s campaign.Climate scientists should form a Union to lobby Congress on their behalf to keep the climate cash rolling in. I guess the American Geophysical Union could be that outfit…
I second that.
I am so looking forward to “accurate information”. Keep us posted. 🙂
Cheers
Ryan Maue says:
“Keith Olbermann was suspended from MSNBC…”
It was all for show. Olbermann’s suspension has already been rescinded.
Ryan: yes, hence the sarcasm. I suspect it was a trial balloon by Comcast/NBC to see how the nutroots would react.