Excerpts from the Guardian:
Forests expert officially complains about ‘distorted’ Sunday Times article
Press Complaints Commission told that newspaper story gives impression that IPCC made false Amazon rainfall claim
A leading scientist has made an official complaint to the Press Complaints Commission over an “inaccurate, misleading and distorted” newspaper story about a supposed mistake made by the UN’s panel on global warming.
Simon Lewis, an expert on tropical forests at the University of Leeds, says the story, published by the Sunday Times in January, is wrong and should be corrected.
He says the story is misleading because it gives the impression that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) made a false claim in its 2007 report that reduced rainfall could wipe out up to 40% of the Amazon rainforest. The Sunday Times story was widely followed up across the world, and, in the wake of the discovery of a high-profile blunder by the IPCC over the likely melting of Himalayan glaciers, helped fuel claims that the IPCC was flawed and its conclusions unreliable.
Lewis said: “There is currently a war of disinformation about climate change-related science, and my complaint can hopefully let journalists in the front line of this war know that there are potential repercussions if they publish misleading stories. The public deserve careful and accurate science reporting.”
The Sunday Times piece was originally headlined “UN climate panel shamed by bogus rainforest claim”, though this was later changed on the website version. It said the 40% destruction figure was based on an “unsubstantiated claim by green campaigners who had little scientific expertise”.
…
Lewis said he was contacted by the Sunday Times before the article was published and told them the IPCC’s statement was “poorly written and bizarrely referenced, but basically correct”. He added that “there is a wealth of scientific evidence suggesting that the Amazon is vulnerable to reductions in rainfall”. He also sent the newspaper several scientific papers that supported the claim, but were not cited by that section of the IPCC report.
…
Lewis also complains that the Sunday Times used several quotes from him in the piece to support the assertion that the IPCC report had made a false claim. “Despite repeatedly stating to the Sunday Times that there is no problem with the sentence in the IPCC report, except the reference.”
======================
Heh. This must be the first time Lewis has been interviewed by the press. From experience I can tell you that in matters of science, the message is often muddled by the time it gets to print. Sometimes this is intentional if the reporter has a specific agenda, but sometimes it simply is a combination of poor understanding of the subject and editorial considerations such as column space. Often a story as submitted will get cut down to size by the copy editor, changing the meaning by leaving out key details.
I don’t know if that is the case here, but it will be interesting to see what the PCC does.
Case in point. Two weeks ago I was interviewed by the Economist Energy and Environment Editor, Oliver Morton, for a story about the surface record. I completed four questions, and included details, but in bite sized form hoping they would get into the story because they were concise points. The reporter even asked if his assessment of my story about NCDC’s treatment of me, mentioned here was correct.
Here is the resulting story: The clouds of unknowing
What resulted for days of back and forth and carefully providing answers that I thought would be concise enough was this one sentence in response, even thought he reporter agreed in the email exchange that I had been “poorly treated” by NCDC.
A recent analysis by Matthew Menne and his colleagues at America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, argued that trends calculated from climate stations that surfacestation.org found to be poorly sited and from those it found well sited were more or less indistinguishable. Mr Watts has problems with that analysis, and promises a thorough study of the project’s findings later.
Heh. Such balance and accuracy in reporting by the Economist.
It was certainly not worth the effort I extended with the reporter, so I know how Mr. Lewis feels. Will I lodge a complaint with PCC for misrepresentation? No.
On that note, the rebuttal paper to Menne et al is looking better and better.
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Avatar , Titanic and Alien….(delirium)
James Cameron e Al Gore debatem futuro do planeta em Manaus
Anthony, Sorry for my translation automatically generated.
http://verde.br.msn.com/artigo.aspx?cp-documentid=23719817
James Cameron and Al Gore discuss future of the planet in Manaus
Writing UrbanPost of Sao Paulo
On 26 and 27 March, more than 300 businessmen, politicians, executives and researchers will meet in the Hotel Tropical Manaus
for the “International Forum on Sustainability. On the agenda is discussion about creating a commitment to sustainable development in the Amazon, and mechanisms to disseminate successful practices for the sustainable way and evaluate the economic and environmental value of the region.
On the first day, the opening event will be made by the researcher Thomas Lovejoy, then Al Gore goes to the podium for his presentation. On Saturday, it’s time for Governor Eduardo Braga and award-winning filmmaker James Camerom.
Al Gore
Albert Gore Jr. is just as renowned for his concern about climate change and for his political career. Ex-senator from Tennessee in 1990 and former U.S. vice president in the office of Bill Clinton (1993-2001), the Democrat won international renown in the presidential election U.S. 2000 to lose to Republican George W. Bush in a dubious vote count.
In fact, Al Gore as a political figure includes its position as an active member of environmental causes, such as the release of the documentary An Inconvenient Truth (An Incovenient Truth, 2006) with great merit demonstrated by the academy’s 2007 Oscar for best documentary and best original song. Apart from her plight as a cinematographic work, the film put the activist in front of the limelight even for the Nobel Peace Prize the same year that welcomed by his constant concern for the environment.
Since the 90’s, Al Gore has stood out as a writer with the publication of books related to green theme. In “Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit” (1991) the latest “Our Choice” (2009), the Democrat still divides his time as chairman of some renowned institutions such as Generation Investment Management and Current TV.
James Cameron
The director, producer and screenwriter international blockbusters like Avatar (2009), Titanic (1997) and Alien (1986) also sets the benchmark for environmentalists.
Cameron, as a leading expert in environmental law, trade regulation and human rights, a member of the Committee on Environmental Law of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN – International Union for Conservation of Nature and Nature Resourses), Direct Research on Global Environment and Trade at Yale University (USA), where is a senior member, and serves as professor of law at the College of Europe (Belgium). He was director of the Foundation for International Environmental Law (Field), participated actively in the negotiations of Eco-92 (RJ) following the development, among other things, the Kyoto Protocol. It provides also consulting services to governments, intergovernmental bodies and NGOs
Thomas Lovejoy
The scientist Thomas Lovejoy made his name with the creation of a concept widely applied among environmentalists – the so-called “biological diversity”. Released in the 80s, the term is still widely used to describe the variety of forests in the Amazon or try to explain phenomena such as Hurricane Katrina (New Orleans, USA).
Cite only the launch of a new term is redundant in the face of historical ecologist. Student is active in the Amazon for at least 40 years, pioneering research habitat fragmentation and current president of the Heinz Center for Science, Economics and Environment (Washington).
He worked in several renowned institutions such as the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF – World Wildlife Fund) and the U.S. stood as the founder of a series for network TV called “Nature.” In 2004, the Tyler Prize winner for his involvement with the environment and served as an honorary member and advisor to scientific and environmental issues in the managements of Reagan, Bush and Clinton.
The scientist, still in the 80s, predicted a loss of 10 to 20% of all species on the planet by 2020 and published some works – from articles to books – which are important references in the scientific world.
REPLY: Either this is satire, or you are one seriously deluded individual. – Anthony
Very good Anthony
Please look at:
John Blake (11:12:16) :
and ask why you did not comment on his post?
D. Patterson (19:14:43) :
Hmm I could have picked Elwood P. Dowd but that may have been too obvious.
watching commentators running around like chickens without heads (on both sides of this issue) just makes for a fertile ground to probe with an ankusa
harvey (16:23:49)
That’s the difference between an alarmist and a skeptic. The alarmist wants to goad with the ankusa. The skeptic wants to lead by a pasha.