Roger Tattersall, aka “Tallbloke” has an old story worth re-telling today in the “false balance” arguments being made about my appearance on PBS. Its’ all part of a strategy. He writes:
Nice old cutting this, from the ‘Boston Sunday Globe’ 31 May 1992. Click for the full size image, sorry for the poor quality, but it is legible. The attempt to remove dissenting voices from the media has been in full swing for 20 years. Lewdandorky’s attempt to get man made global warming sceptics written off as ‘lunar landing deniers’ is just another route to the same goal. These people are unable to convince the public via fair open debate with their intellectual opponents.
It is journalistically irresponsible to present both sides as if it were a question of balance. Given the distribution of views, with groups like the National Academy of Science expressing strong scientific concern, it is irresponsible to give equal time to a few people standing out in left field.
T]he overall weight of evidence” of global warming “is so clear that one begins to feel angry toward those who exaggerate the uncertainty.
-Stephen H Schneider 1992-
Russell Cook (@questionAGW) says in comments there:
That is a scan I originally linked to in my JunkScience guest article “In Case of Heart[land] Attack, Break Glass” http://junkscience.com/2012/02/19/in-case-of-heartland-attack-break-glass/ (7th paragraph there), and in my comment here http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/11/the-other-problem-with-the-lewandowsky-paper-and-similar-skeptic-motivation-analysis-core-premise-off-the-rails-about-fossil-fuel-industry-corruption-accusation/#comment-1076717 which is within the comments section of my own guest post at WUWT about ‘the other major problem’ with the Lewandowsky paper.
I also showed it in the comment I placed at the PBS NewsHour to predict the AGW backlash Watts was going to get: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/science/july-dec12/climatechange_09-17.html#comment-653837814
My heartfelt hat tip goes to Australia’s Brenton Groves for supplying me with that scan and the larger “Racing to an environmental precipice: Fear of future on deteriorating planet sets agenda for Rio de Janeiro summit” May 31, 1992 Boston Globe article containing it.
I believe there was a Gore / Schneider / Gelbspan connection at the beginning of it all. Consider that in September of 1992, Schneider said the following in a Discover magazine “Can We Repair the Air?”article (8th paragraph): “The White House, some business groups, and a few contrary-minded scientists had always argued that the possibility of a nasty greenhouse effect was too uncertain to justify spending billions of dollars to fix it. They (as the tobacco industry has done for decades with smoking) called instead for further studies. …” http://discovermagazine.com/1992/sep/canwerepairtheai120/?searchterm=Hurricanes%20Intensify%20Global%20Warming%20Debate ( http://www.webcitation.org/69uvrQUd2 )
My thanks to you for spreading the word of how this is a 20 year boilerplate smear.
It is 3 simple talking points: “settled science” / “corrupt skeptics operating in a parallel manner to old tobacco industry shills” / “the media is not obligated to give skeptics equal balance because of the first two points”.
Ross Gelbspan consolidated this 3-point mantra into the successful smear it became after late 1995. The story must be told far and wide, and I and can use all the help I can get in telling it.
RICO keeps coming to mind.
Tallbloke, that’s a great find! This beats the Boykoff Bros.1992 “balance as bias” paper by 12 years. That paper was written up by a group that calls itself FAIR (as opposed to cloudy?) ….
Journalistic Balance as Global Warming Bias
Creating controversy where science finds consensus
By Jules Boykoff and Maxwell Boykoff
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1978
also at Academic Search…
http://academic.research.microsoft.com/Paper/4911402
so this nonsense actually got published. No doubt Naomi Oreskes was a “peer” reviewer.
In alphabet soup, FAIR is so-called “Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting”, “challenging media bias and censorship since 1986”. From the article:
A new study has found that when it comes to U.S. media coverage of global warming , superficial balance—telling “both” sides of the story—can actually be a form of informational bias.
So this FAIR group, who challenges media censorship, supports censoring “a small group of global warming skeptics (who) have their views greatly amplified.”
So, we have…
Balance is Bias. – Boykoff Brothers, 2004
War is Peace. Ignorance is Strength. Freedom is Slavery. – Big Brother, 1984
Great find Tallbloke !! Have been watching this go on for a long time. I am confident that the comments on the PBS blog will actually hurt the CAGW folks. The average person will find the venomous hatred repugnant.
Note the author of this piece.
Roger, do you have any insight as to why Gelbspan’s ideas were so influential? Was it just right idea, right time, for a bunch of NGOs looking for a hook? Or what?
Yep, settled science. This is the same Schneider who published the noveau ice age classis, “Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Aerosols: Effects of Large Increases on Global Climate”
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/173/3992/138.abstract
that concluded that aerosols – soot et al. – would be “sufficient to trigger an ice age.”
So, if the science is settled, why do we pay 2.5 billion a year for more of this science? And why do we pay these guys handsome salaries for 40 years to change their minds?
Schneider in his ice-age phase (the Hansen aerosol link)
Schneider’s tipping point
So. PBS is biased. Against CAGW.
…
Pull the other one, it has bells on.
(It was never about the science, it was always about power and control. See Earth Day 1970. From. Day. One.)
Here are a few more quotations, excerpted from
http://www.green-agenda.com
Now seriously, do you really think this is all about global warming?
Is it not possible that CAGW alarmism is just a smokescreen?
It must be obvious by now, even to the most stupid of warmists, that the world is no longer warming, and has not been warming for 10-15 years..
And the warmists are not all stupid, so what are they up to?
In their own words:
__________
“Complex technology of any sort is an assault on
human dignity. It would be little short of disastrous for us to
discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy,
because of what we might do with it.”
– Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute
“The prospect of cheap fusion energy is the
worst thing that could happen to the planet.”
– Jeremy Rifkin,
Greenhouse Crisis Foundation
“Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the
equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.”
– Prof Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University
“The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another
United States. We can’t let other countries have the same
number of cars, the amount of industrialization, we have in the US.
We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are.”
-Michael Oppenheimer,
Environmental Defense Fund
“Global Sustainability requires the deliberate quest of poverty,
reduced resource consumption and set levels of mortality control.”
-Professor Maurice King
“We’ve got to ride this global warming issue.
Even if the theory of global warming is wrong,
we will be doing the right thing in terms of
economic and environmental policy.”
– Timothy Wirth,
President of the UN Foundation
“No matter if the science of global warming is all phony…
climate change provides the greatest opportunity to
bring about justice and equality in the world.”
– Christine Stewart,
former Canadian Minister of the Environment
“The data doesn’t matter. We’re not basing our recommendations
on the data. We’re basing them on the climate models.”
– Prof. Chris Folland,
Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research
“The models are convenient fictions
that provide something very useful.”
– Dr David Frame,
climate modeler, Oxford University
“I believe it is appropriate to have an ‘over-representation’ of the facts
on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience.”
-Al Gore,
Climate Change activist
“It doesn’t matter what is true,
it only matters what people believe is true.”
– Paul Watson,
co-founder of Greenpeace
“The only way to get our society to truly change is to
frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe.”
– emeritus professor Daniel Botkin
“The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and
spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest
opportunity to lift Global Consciousness to a higher level.”
-Al Gore,
Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech
“We are on the verge of a global transformation.
All we need is the right major crisis…”
– David Rockefeller,
Club of Rome executive member
“We must make this an insecure and inhospitable place
for capitalists and their projects. We must reclaim the roads and
plowed land, halt dam construction, tear down existing dams,
free shackled rivers and return to wilderness
millions of acres of presently settled land.”
– David Foreman,
co-founder of Earth First!
Déjà vu
Time
Feb 17, 1992
It is tempting to forget or ignore the transgressions of ourselves and others when we are in general agreement with them. My experience shows that any time anyone’s faith is challenged or is perceived to be, he strikes out. All to often that strike is as ill conceived or as biased as that to which he objects. All this social climate nonsense is all to reminiscent of the cold war, modern American politics and the ongoing squabbling within and among religions. As I recall the recent noise from the “post modern” folks is not unlike this only in slightly politer terms. You can find some excellent parallels in the NM’s The Prince too. Nothing new under the sun only the means of doing “evil” to those of a different opinion.
The narrative was always there (once they got passed the 2nd coming of the Ice Age), even before they had the science, which, when it came was, of course, conducted to verify the narrative.
Someone with the knowledge and stomach to do so should take the ten most influential warmist papers and audit them for confirmation bias. I’m guessing it wouldn’t take much to expose the whole sorry affair for what it is: religious conviction dressed up as rational, objective research that affirms the need for governments to tightly control all economic activity.
Anthony, according to the cutting it was Al Gore that said the second para about “feeling angry towards those who exaggerate uncertainty” and not Schneider.
Cheers,
Simon
But, but……..1992 was 20 years ago. Aren’t we supposed to be all dead now?
“In 40 years, he [Robert Balling] said, China alone will burn about 50 percent more coal.”
After 20 years China is burning close to 300% more coal. And adding another 1.2 GW of coal-fired power plant every week.
And that was only 15 years after we were threatened with a new Ice Age due to the Global Cooling of the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, complete with the threat of food shortages, according to the CIA’s summary of the leading climate science of the day.
Hats off to Tallbloke for turning this up and also to Allan Macrae, in these responses, for providing those chilling quotes from the left wing conspirators whose purpose is so clearly expressed within them.
The penetration into Western society of The Plan is deep and depends on the infiltration and coercion of the media for it to succeed. The collapse of journalistic enquiry and integrity at the BBC is one if it’s greatest successes – indeed, senior staff at the BBC have produced statements on air saying it is not necessary to report the CAGW debate in a balanced way, statements that mirror the quote from Schneider 20 years ago.
This is why Anthony’s admirable appearance on PBS has produced such a hysterical, hate-filled reaction. For a brief moment, they lost control of a major media organisation. Even worse, they sense that it may be a bellwether that The Plan is faltering.
Anthony’s blog, Jo Nova and others, Andrew Bolt – one of the fearless journalists who works for truth and enquiry – those from all walks of life who contribute to these responses and pro-actively debate the issues at all levels…..these are the things that give us hope that the earth will return to the scientific method.
“T]he overall weight of evidence” of global warming “is so clear that one begins to feel angry toward those who exaggerate the uncertainty.”
-Stephen H Schneider 1992-
====================
If I only express my uncertainty, would that deflect the anger.
I’m not sure were the anger is coming from:
The exaggeration, or the uncertainty.
I don’t do the former, and not because it is so easy to falsify.
I hope everyone realizes that the UN Foundation mentioned above is not part of the United Nations. It is directly responsible to the State Department.
It has a UN-like logo but does what the Secretary of State wishes. For example the GACC is Hillary’s initiative to assist and improve women’s health through disseminating improved cooking stoves.
The opinions of its head are not UN policies and may have a very different agenda from one President to the next.
I couldn’t agree with the sentiment of this article more, nor could I disagree with its application less. I hate it when news agencies present facts and fallacies as if both are equally valid. They are not. News agencies should present facts and only facts.
The problem is fallacies sell papers, and fr***s manipulate reporters to present fallacies.
This is one of my pet peeves. Fr***ulent economists have been doing it for nearly a century, and as a result our economy is about to collapse when the greatest debt bubble in history pops. The sad but true fact of our lives is the fr***s in all facets of our life have won. They’ve gotten rich by aligning with the politicians and looting the rest of us.
I used to believe fighting the fr***s on global warming was a pivotal issue. Now I realize it’s worthless. They can’t steal our wealth and send it overseas. We have no wealth left to steal. The plutocrats who control the Fed have already stolen everything from us but the kitchen sink, and Bernanke is going to steal that from us with QE3. This debate has become academic in the most trivial sense.
“telling “both” sides of the story—can actually be a form of informational bias.”
Well. DOH !!
One side produces real information.
The other side, alarmism, backed by very little real information.
So yes, telling both sides is DEFINITELY “informational bias”
And what about all those 5,000,000 “climate” refugees.. Can anyone name just one ????
Down here, we have lots moving from south to Queensland, in a northerly direction….. to warmer climes !!
Mind you, I suspect that in a few years, those in the northern parts of the NH may very well be needing to travel south also to warmer climes. They will not be able to afford to heat their houses in winter, even if electricity is available.
good find! It sets an interesting context for a lot of matters in the past 20 years.
fyi, The last quotation, according to the article, was from then-Senator Al Gore, not from Schneider:
I reckon nothing of interest happened in the Arctic this summer.
REPLY: I reckon you are incapable of using the scroll bar on the front page of WUWT – Anthony
AndyG55 said:
I thought they called it denial.