Rolling Stone’s Jeff Goodell demonstrates what a biased journalist he is.
My first impression was to ignore the request for interview from Rolling Stone’s Jeff Goodell last week, after all, RS has pretty much blown what credibility they had after making a terrorist bomber a front page teen heartthrob.
But, I said to myself, “it’s my duty to reach people I might not ordinarily reach”. So, I responded in good faith. In exchange, I got slimed by Goodell.
Here’s the email exchange I had with him:
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thanks for this.
Jeff Goodell
Contributing Editor, Rolling Stone
518-xxx-xxxx
@jeffgoodell
My view is that AR5 is going to stillborn, mainly because it is already outdated by new science that won’t be included.
There have been 19 separate peer reviewed papers published in climate sensitivity to CO2 by 42 scientists since January 1, 2012 all describing a lower climate sensitivity.
There have been recent revelations in journals (Yu Kosaka & Shang-Ping Xie Nature 2013 and de Freitas &McLean, 2013 International Journal of Geosciences) that demonstrate ENSO (El Niño) in the Pacific is responsible for the 15 plus years of global warming slowdown known as “the pause”. These two papers strongly suggest natural variability is still the dominant climate control.
Then there is the lack of reality matching what the climate models tell us, such as this leaked graph from an AR5 draft:
Original from AR5 draft: http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/ipcc_ar5_draft_fig1-4_with.png
Annotated version: http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/ipcc-ar5draft-fig-1-4.gif
All this while global CO2 emissions have been growing steadily. The lack of temperature match to models, “the pause”, combined with these new ENSO findings tell us that global warming has gone from a planetary crisis to a minor problem in a Banana Republic where only a few vocal science rebels are arguing for immediate intervention.
The costs of mitigating the perceived problem are also staggering compared to the benefit, as the 50:1 project demonstrates:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zw5Lda06iK0
best regards,
Anthony Watts
Editor, WUWT
530-xxx-xxxx
—–Original Message—– From: Jeff Goodell
Sent: Tuesday, September 03, 2013 10:41 AM
To: awatts@xxxxx.xxx
Subject: Rolling Stone inquiry
Name: Jeff Goodell
Email: jeffgoodell@xxxxx.xxx
Message: Hi Anthony
I’m a writer for Rolling Stone, working on piece about upcoming IPCC report. I’m checking in with a few people to get their views on how they think it will be received. Thoughts?
Thanks
Jeff
Time: September 3, 2013 at 10:41 am
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And what did I get for my effort? A single word. Here is the paragraph where I appear:
But, of course, this is nothing new. In 2007, when the IPCC released its Fourth Assessment Report, it was also nearly certain that human activity was heating up the planet, with grave consequences for our future well-being. And six years before that, when the IPCC released its Third Assessment, scientists were pretty certain about it too. But phrases like “high confidence” in warming do not, to the unscientific ear, inspire high confidence in the report’s finding, since they imply the existence of doubt, no matter how slight. And in the climate wars, “Doubt is what deniers thrive on and exploit,” says Bob Watson, who was head of the IPCC from 1997 to 2002. The final report has not even been released yet, and already prominent bloggers in the denial-sphere, like Anthony Watts, are calling it “stillborn.“
(added) What is most galling, is that Goodell asked me for my opinion prior the release of the IPCC AR5 report, then chastises me in his article for giving it. Whatta guy. (/end add)
Meanwhile, full quotes exist in the article from Naomi Oreskes, Rajendra Pachauri, Bob Watson, Anthony Leiserowitz, Ben Santer, blogger Joe Romm, and last but not least the anonymous tweeting person(s) behind Organizing for Action, the successor of President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign.
Besides giving liberal use of the word “denier” in the most derogatory way possible, the article also mentions “Why the City of Miami is Doomed to Drown“. Where he fantasizes about the year 2030.
Read it all here: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warming-is-very-real-20130912?print=true
I suppose it’s par for the course from people that can’t tell the difference between water vapor from cooling towers and “carbon emissions”.
The stupid, it burns! http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-denier-elite-20130912
My single word with a “denier” label to my name is what I get for talking to “The Delinquent Teenager” crowd as if they were adults I suppose. I suggest that anyone who encounters Jeff Goodell in any future interview request, simply not respond – he’s shamelessly biased, fine with hatefully labeling people he doesn’t agree with, runs in the company of fools that can’t tell pollution from non-pollution, and now proven himself to be not worth the effort.
UPDATE: Shortly after I wrote this article, Goodell took notice on his Twitter feed, and shortly after that, the erroneous caption was replaced along with a different photo of the same power station in Germany, but with no explanation as to the error. Here’s what it looks like now:
Anthony – Did you really think you could walk around the warmist barnyard without getting manure all over your shiny shoes. Country folk always wear rubber boots for such strolls. GK
I thought RS was a rag about music. Oh well, this just illustrates the Peter Principle as applied to the media: the incompetent and useless rising to the top (if anyone can consider RS anything other than glorified TP).
“…flashy (apparently widely distributed)”
“Politics is the second oldest profession, I understand, and is closely allied to the only senior profession”
The difference between a politician and a practitioner of the oldest profession is that the latter will leave you alone once your transaction is complete.
I don’t know if all the “deniers” are realizing this yet, but folks like Goodell and all the rest of the CAGW crowd are in it to the death. Doubling down, tripling down, forsaking their human morality, these folks will be still telling you they are right up to the minute their policies kill you. They will do anything, say anything, and produce anything that promotes their agenda. So for “deniers” to try and use fact, reason, science, logic, etc. is really basically useless against them. You are essentially up against pathologically driven people. You are still not part of the “process”, you are not included, you are not needed, you are not wanted. Our ONLY HOPE is at the ballot box re: Australia. Goodell is an ass and knows it, proud of it actually. Not worth wasting a breath on this guy. Calling Rolling Stone advertisers IS worth your breath however.
Note that in the new pic, they just yellowed the steam a bit to look more like pollution. ROFLMFAO!
“Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them.
In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.”
Has anyone previously coined the term Dead-Ender Journalism? I’m claiming it for now to describe this type of religious writing on science matters.
I had no idea who Jeff Goodell is so I did some research and found a tired old man with thinning hair telling tired old stories thin on truth and based on debunked leftist talking points that span generations. This represents the entirety of his work. He is unoriginal and seems to attempt to put fire in the belly of his work by covering controversial topics and personalities already beat to death by superior writers in well-regarded publications. What a dull person he’s turned out to be. He could turn his life and career around by writing about the real world instead of the fiction that lives in the fat cells between his ears.
Goodell tweets: “How unfair! Anthony Watts didn’t get as much space in @rollingstone as an actual scientist.”
Question, Mr. Goodell: Did any “actual scientist” who disagrees with you– say Judith Curry or Richard Lindzen, or Roy Spencer–get any “space” in your fictional piece? I didn’t see any.
It’s instructive to note that your appraisal of the current state of climate science appeared in the Politics section of RS. That, of course, is where it belongs along with all the other political drivel that so frequently characterizes what Rolling Stone charitably calls “journalism.”
These people are psychopaths. Remember the good old days when psychopaths stuck mostly to doing serial killings?
Perhaps there’s a song in the offing.
Some brimstone baritone anticyclone rolling stone preacher from the east
Says, “Dethrone The Rolling Stone, hit it in its funny bone, that’s where they expect it least
Rolling Stone, like other successful publications, doesn’t give its readers material they’re not ready to absorb. They have been at the front edge of financial investigative reporting, with Matt Taibbi’s work. A word in edgewise isn’t necessarily a bad thing. “Stillborn” sums up the IPCC report pretty well.
Anthony,
Kudos for trying yet again to foster honest communication and debate. We always hope for similar participation from our opposition… but the outcome was predictable.
Jeff Goodell controls the message and the outlet like Putin and the KGB control dissent in Russia. Now he is trying to bait further response via Twitter. What a pathetically small, venal personae….
MtK
Is that all Goodell has got?
No class at all.
So I’m a Rolling Stone denier ..
@ur momisugly Jim:
It seems that you are correct and that the original smokestacks have been removed – so thanks. It was the lack of smokestacks that fooled me.
Now here’s something new that you might find interesting, and indeed if there is anyone commenting on this post who is terrified about increasing CO2 levels due to burning coal, or worse, burning lignite, here’s some good news for you! There is a new product produced by modifying lignite: http://www.gallileomovement.com.au/docs/msp/Solution-to-Pollution.pdf. Further information is available here: http://www.devourx.com.au/
So now we have a sweet irony: the very substance much-demonised by those of the ‘green’ persuasion turns out to be the very ‘magic bullet’ that can remediate real pollution organically. Included in the list of pollutants are radionuclides and PCBs, both hitherto intractable.
On a hunch I downloaded the second gasp generating power plant photo (it is the same plant, different view) and adjusted only the white balance and got nice fluffy white steam clouds vs the foreboding brown belch Mr. Twitter would like everyone to see.
Does he even know that steam (as water vapor) is an even more powerful GHG than his much besmirched carbon? If he were a journalist and interested in accurate reporting he’d have mentioned that.
BTW, I also searched far and wide and can find no evidence that birds and bats are killed at this power plant. It seems to be world-friendly and a good neighbor that provides steady reliable heat and light all through the winter months, no matter the weather. And it doesn’t rely on wind power as a backup. The UK needs more of these to prevent premature deaths to her elderly citizens on fixed incomes and who can’t afford the the luxury of a wind (under)powered economy.
@ur momisugly richard day re ‘glorified TP”,
Not even that, to slippery and BTW can someone tell Goodell how many trees his rag kills and so adds to the co2 crapopla?? besides all the other chemicals in said paper that prevent it from being nearly impossible to recycle other then using it as a heat source?
Oh about the cooiling towers, besides being labelled “smoke stack” there seems to be an almost genetic connection to this
“OH LOOK at those “Chimnies” that is a nuclear power plant!!! BOOM” (at least I did as a kid)
Jeff is a tool.
He doesn’t know it, but he’s a tool.