Guest Opinion by Kip Hansen
Foreword:
It pains me to write this opinion piece. As long-term readers here know, I have often defended Andy Revkin, ex-NY Times Environmental Journalist turned NY Times Opinion Section Environmental Columnist, here at WUWT, opening myself to attacks ranging from childish to vicious, and occasionally childishly vicious. Of course, when I comment at Revkin’s NY Times’ Opinion section blog, Dot Earth, whether supporting him or criticizing him, I am similarly attacked by soldiers on one side or the other of the Climate Wars.
Revkin recently committed what I consider a public journalistic offense, on his Dot Earth blog, which I had hoped to help him see in a different, more complete and fairer light, through private emails and by an advanced copy of this opinion essay sent to him yesterday (13 June). That effort failed and, in replies to my emails (in which he neither granted nor denied permission to publish, though explicitly asked), he has informed me of his reasoning and justifications (see the Postscript if that’s all you care to read). Truthfully, what Revkin says only makes his offense worse, in my opinion.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NB: This opinion piece is about journalism, lack of, not climate science or the other issues involved in the Watts/Peterson affair.
Andy Revkin, NY Times opinion section columnist, the author and host of the NY Times environment opinion blog Dot Earth, covered the Watts/McKibben meet recently in this in his piece:
A Climate Campaigner (Bill McKibben) and Climate Change Critic (Anthony Watts) Meet in a Bar….
to which I left the following comment:
“….Kudos to Andy for this — and for today’s title identifying McKibben as a “Climate Campaigner” and Anthony Watts as a “Climate Change Critic”.
….
The most interesting thing is that these two men are thought of as exemplars of the furthest reaches of opposing views on the climate change — yet in reality are clear thinking, reasonable men who simply disagree about a subject fraught with scientific uncertainty.
My thanks to Andy for highlighting this little get together, which should, in a rational world, be an everyday occurrence as colleagues in a shared scientific field meet and chat about their personal views.”
I still hold that opinion.
Revkin then disappoints, adding the following update at the top of the column:
“Update, June, 9, 8:51 p.m. | Having been on the run overseas since the weekend, I’m only now catching up with Anthony Watts’s attack on Tom Peterson, one of the authors of a recent National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration climate paper. The exchange, in which Watts accuses Peterson of prostituting himself and hints at fraud, occurred just before* he’d posted on his friendly meeting with climate campaigner Bill McKibben, described below.
Here’s my reaction:
Any notion that Watts is interested in fostering an atmosphere of civility and constructive discourse evaporates pretty quickly in considering how he handled his questions about that paper. Alternating between happy talk about rooftop solar and slanderous accusations is not constructive or civil.”
Challenged by readers, including myself, in comments, the only reply Revkin gives, to another commenter, is:
Andrew Revkin
Dot Earth blogger 12 hours ago
”I felt it was important to convey the “full Anthony Watts.””
In my opinion, Revkin has utterly failed in his duty as a journalist – the duty to find the facts and the context and report them without injecting personal or political bias.
He failed to discover the obvious fact that Watts had not attacked Peterson – Watts had sent a personal email to Peterson at his official government email address, stating a change in his [Watts’] personal opinion about Peterson’s scientific ethics. It was a harsh personal opinion, but it was personal, man-to-man, between men who should be colleagues and who have been communicating with one another on a one-to-one basis for years.
It is Peterson, a government employee, a government official, listed at climate.gov as “Principal Scientist at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center.”, who turns this exchange of official government email into a public matter. How? By sending a copy of his government email to a tabloid-like slander-slinging climate-wars website in Australia – a site with known and repeated antagonism to Watts and bending-over-backwards loving-kindness for all things and persons in agreement with the IPCC Climate Consensus. [This is my personal opinion of the website in question, based on repeated reading of content there. WUWT is not responsible for my opinion in this matter.]
What Watts did not do: He did not publish his personal opinion publicly – despite being the editor and owner of the world’s most viewed website on climate (by orders of magnitude). He did not write a joe-romm-ish 1,500 word screed and send it to the tabloid press. That action would have been a public attack. He did not do that. There was no public attack.
The Questions that would have been asked by a True Journalist:
What? Answer: A personal communication between a citizen and a government official at NOAA, in which the citizen expresses a harsh personal opinion about his loss of trust in the public official’s work product and/or personal professional ethics, that has morphed in the blogosphere into an “attack on Peterson by Watts”.
Who? Answer: Anthony Watts, proprietor of the world’s most viewed website in climate matters and Thomas Peterson, as “Principal Scientist at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center.”.
When? Answer: The original email exchange took place approx. 5 June. Thomas Peterson copied the email exchange with Watts from his official NOAA NCDC email account to a tabloid-like climate website in Australia on June 6, 2015 at 6:04 PM.
Why? Answer: Peterson’s real purpose in doing so is known only to him. But in his comment accompanying the copied email exchange he states “Dear Sou et al., I thought you might find an email exchange I had yesterday with Anthony Watts interesting.”
Does it bleed? Answer: [This flip question is ‘sorta’ what journalists ask themselves to see if there will be relevant public interest in the event.] Yes. US Government Official copies work-related email exchange to foreign web-based tabloid press, suspected of doing so for personal/political advantage in the Climate Wars.
Do we see these answers in Revkin’s journalistic effort? No, nothing in his published work product on this affair reflects that he even considered the context or the facts – other than the one-sided spin in the web-tabloid. Nothing in his response to criticism on his blog (where he gives only the one reply above) indicates that he even noticed that it was Peterson himself that turned a private communication into a “public attack” (although he knows Peterson made the email public) or that Peterson’s copying work-related government email to the foreign web-based tabloid press might be a violation of NOAA regulations or an government employee ethics offense. Or that it is extremely unprofessional at the very least.
In fact, it appears that Revkin’s only involvement with the issue has been to band-wagon on the politically-motivated Climate Wars blogosphere outcry – without reviewing the facts at all.
As of 11;25 AM today, I have had no response from Revkin to my comments on Dot Earth or to personal email to him requesting that he take another look at the affair.
I know that Revkin is over-committed time wise – holding what for most people would be at least two full-time jobs. Maybe he has been too busy to look more closely at the issue. If so, he should not have said anything until he took the time to review the affair properly in its entirety.
I invite him to do this review now and respond here at WUWT. (Or, if he wishes, he knows my email address and can comment fully to me off-the-record, with portions marked “OK for publication”, which he knows I will honor.)
I look forward to seeing a revision of his Dot Earth comments here or at Dot Earth.
# # # # #
Postscript:
I have received two replies from Mr. Revkin, which I do not have explicit permission to publish. Thus, rather than simply inserting them here, I will pull three fair-use quotes from them, which contain the essence of his reasoning and justification.
The first two quotes are from Mr. Revkin’s emailed response to an advance-of-publication copy of the above essay. In that response, the quotes are presented already as quotes, probably from his response to Anthony:
“What was notable was the contrast between your [Watts’] approach to Bill and to Peterson. I couldn’t justify the tone in what I wrote about your Chico meeting without an addendum reflecting what transpired here.”
“Suggestions of scientific fraud or prostitution, even in a personal email, are different (particularly given your policy about considering such missives ‘fair game for publishing,’ one presumes you figured this might end up public).”
My response to the above, though a great deal longer, can be summarized in this one extracted sentence: “Your reasoning is specious at best, even for a private citizen — as a journalist, they cut no ice at all. There is no journalism in that.”
The second is more damning, and came as a reply from Revkin to my response just above:
“Don’t take this wrong, but I really do have more important things to do than dig in further on this.”
What happened to the World Class Journalist Andrew Revkin? Has he hung up journalist spurs? placed his shiny Journalist Star in a shadow box and hung it on the wall? permanently shelved his pocket-copy of the Journalists’ Code of Ethics? Can it really be that he is simply too busy to do a proper journalist’s job?
Or has he traded all that in for the more-or-less anything goes rules of the Opinion Columnist?
Or has become just another echo-chamber partisan gunslinger on the Climate Team’s side of the Climate Wars, taking quick-draw cheap shots at those who others point out to him as opponents? unconcerned if he shoots down the wrong guy in any given shoot-out, too busy to check his aim.
Maybe this is what has become of the majority of science journalists …. They are all simply too busy to do their real jobs. What a sad sad day.
# # # # #
Note from Anthony:
Kip Hansen wrote this essay unsolicited. While I admit I used harsh words, probably the harshest I’ve ever used, I too was surprised that Dr. Tom Peterson chose to immediately send the email to the slimiest of outlets Sou aka “hotwhopper”, run by a person dedicated to denigration, who has not the integrity to use her own name: Miriam Obrien. While I regret that I didn’t choose my words better, I have no change in my opinion [after the NYT incident] on NCDC after what they did with Karl et al. 2015. And apparently, according to insiders, there was an internal fight at NCDC over the publication of Karl et al. 2015. I offered this backstory to Revkin, but he was uninterested.
Sadly, it speaks to the integrity of both Dr. Peterson and Andy Revkin that they consider this form of “journalism” acceptable.
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“I have received two replies from Mr. Revkin, which I do not have explicit permission to publish. Thus, rather than simply inserting them here, I will pull three fair-use quotes ”
If someone send you an email, it belongs to you to publish or not as you wish. They have given that email to you, just as if someone send you a letter, it is yours to publish if you wish. It has been given to you. You do not need their permission to publish an email or a letter sent to you. People turn over to media (and even police) emails or letters they have received (see the latest example in California where a political operative fabricated emails from a Republican candidate and then turned those emails over to police and media).
You do not need Revkin’s permission to reproduce emails. Those emails are yours to do with as you please.
Reply to crosspatch ==> That may be the rule for Joe Private Citizen but it is not the rule for anyone who considers themselves a Journalist — even a part-time nobody hack like me.
It should not be the rule for Revkin — though I have not known him to violate it personally — he condones Peterson’s sharing US government-agency official business email with a web-based tabloid in Australia, for personal advantage.
Except Obama said the war on warm weather is the most important issue…ever. Ditto, the Pope. And a bunch of other people who want to control the global energy systems.
So striking back at climate reporters or scientists who tell everyone that global warming isn’t happening is quite OK. Far from being angry about all this, the guys backing the global warming stuff are delighted and breaking laws, smear campaigns, lies and deception are all OK too because they are at war with warm weather.
This reminds me of Caligula’s war with Neptune.
I don’t have a problem with Anthony’s email to Peterson, he earned the criticism, but I think it was a waste of time. It’s not going to change any minds over there.
I don’t think one should expect privacy from emails either. Once it was in Peterson’s possession he can do with it what he pleases.
I also don’t think anyone should expect journalism from the New York Times that is professional and unbiased, that ship sailed long ago. Have you read any of Paul Krugman’s columns? He’s a very well educated and intelligent man whose bias always trumps science.
Revkin’s response is typical from someone who won’t admit mistakes.
Ah, but what about viciously childish? ^¿^
Reply to schitzree ==> Good point sir … I’ll have to check back posts…..
That is a rather narrow range Kip. What bout informative criticisms that could have led you to expect such actions from Revkin?
Does this mean Peterson is going to release all of his gov’t work-related emails? I am sure they’d make a much more fruitful read and are far more relevant to taxpayer $$$, climate research, etc, than his exchange with Anthony.
A foreign government might have better luck getting them. It appears that Peterson will conspire with anyone to complete his agenda. Just sayin….
China seems to have no trouble getting any information they want.
have often disagreed with revkin but thought him fairly fair.
this is a black mark.
Anthony,
The closer your bombs get to the target, the more flak you will see. I’d say you’re spot on.
I’m a teacher in the public school system. Let’s say a parent was upset at me, sent an email to me at my workplace that outlined his/her opinion of me, and then I forwarded that email to a private entity in hopes this disgruntled parent’s email got some public exposure. If I had the temerity to do that, I would most likely be charged with professional misconduct, was told to resign or get fired, and good luck getting a recommendation. This Peterson guy may very well find himself in the principal’s office. Let’s remember the hunt for climatedeepthroat who sent work-place emails to an outside private entity in hopes they would get some public exposure, and see if Mr. Peterson gets placed on the hotseat for OPENLY doing it.
Reply to Pamela Gray ==> Quite right — in the real world.
Had I shared internal email from my IBM work account with any outsider — for whatever reason — I would have been assigned two security personnel to watch me clean out my desk then I would have been escorted out of IBM headquarters in Armonk, NY, never to return.
Indeed. When I started working for IBM in 1983 in my contract it stated that anything I do or say while working for IBM was IBM property in perpetuity (Or words to that effect). I am not sure how IBM is going to get minute fragments of a 3745 out of my eye, but that’s a nother story.
Pamela
Well, maybe that works for teachers, but none of the (very public) principles in this food fight are school marms.
Frankly, while understanding Anthony’s email was not handled using “Marques of Queensbury” rules, I’m having a hard time getting excited about it. This seems like a lot of noise about process.
principles = principals
“school marm” ?, aren’t you a brave soul 🙂
Shouldn’t have school marms. They either fall in love with the children, or the children fall in love with them, or they hurt when the children cry.
==============
Reply to kim ==> I got it, even if no one else did.Very cute!
Good luck with that. He’ll probably get a bonus and a promotion.
Pamela – Indeed. And to intentionally try to make this into a public fight while simultaneously trying to blame Anthony for MAKING it a public fight is outrageous.
Ah, Pamela Gray, you have not imagined the worst of it. The spouse, also a teacher, had a “dispute” with a parent (a delusional nut-case, in my very considered opinion).
Parent had a wide-open Facebook – on which there were posted some very explicit threats of violence against both my wife and her principal. (Note, apparently none of them were by the parent – but they were also not contradicted in any way by her.)
Wife (before she was transferred to another school FOR HER OWN PHYSICAL SAFETY), received a visit from the district HR honcho. If she ever breathes a word about those threats, she is gone that very same day. If they could have, I’m sure they would have banned her from mentioning it to her own family, as well.
Yes, I slept with a loaded magazine next to the Glock for several weeks.
It appears that Anthony’s email struck a nerve. If it was off the mark it would have been ignored.
“The lady doth protest too much, methinks”
Well, well! I think the big story here is Peterson’s go-to blog! A foaming at the mouth, nasty, ‘Sou’ with zero credentials except she hates her father (I’ve known backgrounds of such unhappy, unfulfilled types). This should tell you all you need to know about Peterson and how unlikely it is that he can be influenced by reason.
The more sunlight the better…..I’d like to hear more about the internal fight at NCDC
Me too! 🙂
I expect to hear more. Maybe not tomorrow, but someday, and for the rest of my life.
================
Hey, Andy, here’s a story for you. You’ve been given a tip to a revelatory story, now let’s see that curiosity and intellectual integrity swing into action. I’m counting on you.
===============
Does Anthony really care that the e-mails were published? or is it how it was made public and Revkin calling it slander? If the private e-mail had been sent to someone else it might well have been slander but……?
Reply to Alf ==> Good questions — I don’t know. Anthony does say in his addendum: “While I regret that I didn’t choose my words better, I have no change in my opinion on NCDC after what they did with Karl et al. 2015.”
My beef with Revkin is that he used his “bully pulpit” at the NY Times to slam Watts based on a hit-piece in a web-based tabloid, apparently accepting their slimy spin wholecloth, without doing a journalist’s job — and when pressed, Revkin admits that he “ha[[s] more important things to do than dig in further on this.” — he is just too too busy to do a proper journalist’s job, but not to busy for a vicious snap shot aimed at the wrong actor in a scandal.
I subscribed to the NY Times for years, but recently canceled my subscription. It was once a great paper, but has become the liberal Fox News. No integrity, just a mouthpiece for one political faction. I do miss the old NY Times, but not what it has become. Revkin isn’t a reporter, he’s a propagandist like the others at that once great organization.
Well in the 30s they had an apologist for the Soviet Union. It was Walter Duranty. And he knew the truth.
Fox News is marginally right of center. How is that the equivalent of the NYT?
Do you have any evidence that Fox News has no integrity, other than the fact that they cover stories many people would prefer remain uncovered?
Mouthpiece for the Republicans? Would this be the same network that regularly gives air time to Al Sharpton?
Revkin:“Update, June, 9, 8:51 p.m. | Having been on the run overseas since the weekend”
“on the run” or “in Karaoke-ville” according to Revkin himself, who has all the time in the world to tweet, tweet, tweet?
check all the 9 to 12 June tweets from the World Conference of Science Journalists 2015 in Seoul. Revkin tweets plenty (& seemingly gleefully) about the “assassinated” scientist/Nobel Laureate Tim Hunt, whose career was destroyed by a tweet from a Connie St. Louis, from the Conference. then check all the MSM reports, most of which reference the Connie St. Louis tweet and find a single one which mentions her deep BBC connections.
of course, it was BBC who got this witchHUNT going & gaining momentum, yet they did not see fit to mention her BBC connections either, even when interviewing her. btw St. Louis still works for BBC as a Freelancer:
City University London: Connie St Louis
Senior Lecturer in Journalism
Connie St Louis, Director of City’s Science Journalism MA, is an award-winning freelance broadcaster, journalist, writer and scientist. She presents and produces a range programmes for BBC Radio 4 and BBC World Service.
She is a recipient of the prestigious Joseph Rowntree Journalist Fellowship to write a book based on her acclaimed two-part Radio 4 documentary series Raising Ham.
Her most recent programme on BBC Radio 4 investigated the use of designer drugs by pharmaceutical companies. She writes for numerous outlets including the Independent, the Daily Mail, the Guardian, the Sunday Times, BBC On Air magazine and BBC Online.
She worked for the BBC for sixteen years. Her production highlights during that time include securing Bill Gates’ first British interview and being invited to produce the 1997 Reith Lectures written by Professor Patricia J Williams
http://www.city.ac.uk/people/academics/connie-st-louis
after multiple attack articles in The Guardian, incl:
“Tim Hunt, where’s the science in your prejudice against women?” by Anne Perkins
and
“Why sack ageing sexists? Send them to rehab instead” by Gaby Hinsliff
a fairer view:
14 June: Guardian: Shamed Nobel laureate Tim Hunt ‘ruined by rush to judgment after stupid remarks’
Sir Tim Hunt reveals he was forced to resign from University College London without being given the chance to explain himself
by Rob McKie, Science Editor
The beleaguered British biologist Sir Tim Hunt has revealed that he was forced to resign from his post at University College London (UCL) without being given a chance to explain his controversial remarks about women in science. “I have been hung out to dry,” he told the Observer in an exclusive interview. “I have been stripped of all the things I was doing in science. I have no further influence.”…
“At no point did they ask me for an explanation for what I said or to put it in context,” he told the Observer. “They just said I had to go. There has been an enormous rush to judgment in dealing with me.”
This point was supported by Hunt’s wife, Mary Collins, who also has a post at UCL, as a professor of immunology. “Tim was still on the plane from Seoul when a senior manager at UCL phoned me and said Tim had to resign his honorary position. They had not even spoken to Tim at that point. He just said Tim had to resign or we fire him. It was very upsetting. We are both extremely angry.”
Hunt was then sacked from his post on the European Research Council’s science committee and has since resigned from other posts, including membership of a Royal Society committee. “I have become toxic,” he told the Observer. “I am finished.”…
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jun/13/tim-hunt-forced-to-resign
also check out Brendan O’Neill’s “The Illiberal Persecution of Tim Hunt” at Reason.
Reply to pat ==> A truly horrible affair re Tim Hunt. I agree completely.
The consensus (heh) at Reason is that they proved the point of the joke.
oops, should have posted Revkins’ twitter page:
https://twitter.com/revkin
As to the “prostitution” charge. Using the less reliable data (engine intakes) to correct the more reliable data (ARGO buoys) is indeed prostitution. That one really stuck in my craw.
Good for you AW.
Reply to M Simon ==> Anthony was not the first to imply that Karl et al (2015) is just-in-time, politically-motivated, command-performance science.
Anthony is the only one, as far as we know, that properly made the accusation privately and directly to one of the co-author’s the Karl paper rather than in public web-based press.
Note that despite the extraordinary and game-changing nature of the Karl et al findings — “there really hasn’t been a hiatus or pause in global warming after all” — there was not a peep, not a word, from Revkin at Dot Earth about it. why? I suspect that, like all intelligent educated people, Revkin felt the need to wash his hands and open a window after reading it — to wash off the taint of political interference in science and clear the air of the sickly sweet perfume of made-to-order science.
I don’t have the time to keep up the way I used to. So WUWT is where I get informed.
The New York Times is, roughly, on the same level as TMZ, the only difference being that TMZ is fairly profitable. The other thing about TMZ, most all the people that work there have a genuine sense of humor instead of an inflated sense of self importance.
Tom Peterson’s comment at Hotwopper provides a very revealing insight into modern climatological thinking.
He wrote, “One of the new adjustments we are applying is extending the corrections to ship data, based on information derived from night marine air temperatures, up to the present (we had previously stopped in the 1940s). As we write in the article’s on-line supplement, “This correction cools the ship data a bit more in 1998-2000 than it does in the later years, which thereby adds to the warming trend. …””
So, they used the night marine air temperatures (NMAT) to correct the engine intake SSTs. Now, engine intake SSTs typically have a global average systematic (i.e., deterministic, not random) measurement uncertainty of about ±0.7 C. The global average NMAT uncertainty is about ±0.36 C.* The latter is assumed to be random error, but that assumption is merely an unquestioned normative of the field (and typical in its tendentious convenience). It has no empirical or theoretical justification. It’s also a *very* subjective estimate. But useful to the illustration to come.
To bend over backwards fair, let’s assume that half of the NMAT uncertainty, ±0.18 C, really is from random error. The remainder, ±0.18 C, is then global average systematic error, which does not decrement as 1/sqrt(N).
Standard practice in the experimental physical sciences is that when correcting one data set using another, the total uncertainty in the corrected data set is root-sum-square (the Pythagorean sum) of the uncertainties in the two subsidiary data sets.
Let’s do that with Karl’s and Peterson’s NMAT-corrected ship SSTs; systematic uncertainty only:
Uncertainty in the NMAT-corrected ship SSTs = sqrt[(±0.7)^2 + (±0.18)^2] = ±0.72 C.
There we have it. Karl’s and Peterson’s corrected ship SSTs should have a 1-sigma uncertainty of ±0.72 C. And that’s a lower-limit estimate. So Karl’s and Peterson’s actual correction: 0.12±0.72 C.
Is everyone reassured, now, that our understanding has been improved?
Did anyone see a ±0.72 C uncertainty propagated into their results?
No? What?!? Such a shock! 🙂
Everyone can decide for themselves whether a ±0.72 C uncertainty impacts our knowledge of global surface air temperature, or our ability to choose which among rising, lowering, or static trends is actually happening.
*E. C. Kent and D. I. Berry (2008) Assessment of the Marine Observing System (ASMOS): Final Report, Project Report Rep., National Oceanography Centre Southampton, Southampton, UK.
Has Willis seen that?
M Simon
June 14, 2015 at 5:45 pm
As to the “prostitution” charge. Using the less reliable data (engine intakes) to correct the more reliable data (ARGO buoys) is indeed prostitution. That one really stuck in my craw.
============
This is prostitution…..if you do it the other way around…..you still have the pause
The trend would be the same…but .12 C less would give you the pause…and .12C more erases the pause
The result was the ship data averaged .12 C warmer than the buoys….yet, adding more buoy data adds more cool bias……..because it’s getting colder you asswipes!
======
“The second example I will pose as a question. We tested the difference between buoys and ships by comparing all the co-located ship and buoy data available in the entire world. The result was that buoy data averaged 0.12 degrees C colder than the ships. We also know that the number of buoys has dramatically increased over the last several decades. Adding more colder observations in recent years can’t help but add a cool bias to the raw data. What would you recommend we do about it? Leave a known bias in the data or correct the data for the bias? The resulting trend would be the same whether we added 0.12 C to all buoy data or subtracted 0.12 C from all ship data.”
When they say “the trend” do they mean short term or long term? And yes. I think it is getting cooler. So they warmed the good data with the less good data.
In the longer run reality will intrude. I do not believe hey can keep up the charade much longer.
It is my opinion that PLANT FOOD has no effect on climate.
Let me see if I get this right. I have data that shows 10.00 that is known to be accurate and at the same location and time I take another measurement known to be less accurate and it shows 10.12. So I correct all the readings of the more accurate readers by +.12.
And conveniently this adjusted data erases the long decried pause.
correct……
Revkin’s view of climate change skeptics at the time couldn’t be clearer: he thought they were uneducated morons, and took it as his mission to enlighten them with the facts as determined by himself and his fellow global warming advocates. Revkin speaks even more candidly about how he views his “job” in a 2007 email to NASA scientist Jim Hansen and others (emphasis added):[A] key take-home point, please, is that this story was written mainly for the benefit of the 10s of millions of disengaged or doubtful or simply under-educated Americans out there for whom it is NEWS that the only discourse now is among folks who believe human-forced climate change is a huge problem. (as Jim Hansen said in my story, exclamation point included!)
the ‘hotter’ voices are doing their job well. i’m doing mine.
Which may explain why the scientists seem to view Revkin as more of an ally than a reporter in some of the emails among themselves. “I’ll let all of you know if there are any other reasonable interview requests from folks we trust (e.g. Andy Revkin, etc.),” wrote climate scientist David Thompson to his colleague Phil Jones in one message.
Some may argue that it’s unfair to criticize Revkin for his private comments, and point out that none of these emails on its own could be characterized as an egregious ethical lapse. Maybe. But combined, they point to a pattern. There’s also this: Revkin was the same Times reporter who refused to publish the first trove of ClimateGate emails in 2009, claiming they were off-limits because they were “private” conversations (a standard the paper evidently hasn’t applied to other leaked documents). He also dismissed the scandal as meritless.
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/11/28/leaked-emails-nyt-climategate/
Reply to clipe ==> See mine re Revkin and ClimateGate:
Here
I read both emails. First AW’s and then the response from Peterson. I suggest people here do the same. You will then be fully informed.
The thief is in grief — he’s robbed by a thief.
Nobody but you, Mr. Hansen, is to blame that “childishly vicious” comments are all you deserve after trying to be “civil” with totalitarian propagandists.
Reply to Simon ==> anyone with a strong stomach can read the tabloid report, which contains Peterson’s emails (sent to [them] by himself) by clicking the link contained in the first pull-quote from Revkin — the one that starts with ““Update, June, 9, 8:51 p.m. | ….”
So, Revkin was given a copy of a [letter] sent to Tom Peterson. My question is… did Revkin seek to contact Anthony Watts for comment prior to publishing his interpretation of events?
I think it matters, a lot!
Reply to Mike Smith ==> You seem to have some of the details a bit confused. See the first few paragraphs in the body of the main essay, after the Forward.
Revkin read the web-based Australian tabloid report of the so-called attack by Watts on Peterson, which included copies of the email exchange sent to it by Peterson himself, and based his (Revkin’s) comment at his bully-pulpit in the New York Times solely on that report.
Revkin does not say [he] contacted Watts — Watts did send, post hoc, a backgrounder email to Revkin, to give him the full story. Revkin replied to Watts, as detailed in my essay, but did not change his comments on Dot Earth. I backgrounded Revkin in comments on his blog, and in personal email to him, including sending him a copy of my opinion essay above. Revkin was unrepentant, as you can see from his quoted replies.
Revkin was reporting on the Australian flap. That was the news story from his POV. That’s his news judgment, including his “I felt it was important to convey the ‘full Anthony Watts’,” since he has apparently added psychological profile to his reportorial skills.
However, I am of another mind, and perhaps more cynical. A Principal Scientist at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, an author of a recent controversial paper, gets his feelings hurt and enlists the help of an activist/cum marketer’s blog in another country to lick his wounds and rile the faithful? This is what US government scientists do?
This smacks of that letter that a bunch of Congressmen wrote to the government of Iran to tell them not to deal with the US President because they (the 69 letter writers) were going to undo it, even though they have no congressional power to act as Head of State. As a smart observer noted at the time, how would the American people have reacted if a bunch of Congressmen during Reagan’s term wrote Andropov or Gorbachev and told him that Reagan didn’t really truly have the power to engage in nuclear talks, so ignore him?
So, in my view, Revkin is missing the real story here. But he’s not an investigative reporter, nor even a reporter. He’s graduated to columnist and crafting his own opinion.
The real story here is that our institutions are failing us, and serving hidden masters.
For those interested, Stossle has a program on FOX news now that discussed Green Tyranny.
I understood AW’s email pretty much how it’s described here: sent to a NOAA official in his capacity as a working NOAA official, direct to his address.
Sure, it had some strong words. The words highlighted a loss of trust and sense of betrayal. Too many people forget the changes in the paper will now become part of the official global temperature record, starting June 18th. It is official US federal business – it has to be held to a higher standard. The fact that, the adjustments are based on such a flimsy standard of statistical significance, that the paper erroneously calculates linear trends over overlapping time periods, and that its fudging of a temporally sparser, ostensibly better data set in comparison to a longer series throws up enough red flags to suspect the reason for pursuing this route of analysis.
If you read Jay Lawrimore’s (on of the paper’s authors) article promoting their paper on The Conversation , any lingering doubts about the motives of the scientists in publishing this paper would be erased.
The above means the pause was ‘inconsistent with the expected effect of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations’?
Lawrimore’s very words bring to question his organization NOAA’s low standard-of-evidence in assessing trend in the adjusted data to see if they matched ‘the expected effect of increasing greenhuose gas concentrations’.
Instead of focusing on the corruption of science at hand, we have observers like Brandon Shollenberger going off on Anthony Watts in a mini-orgy of political correctness.
This poor paper destroys trust in the US official government temperature record. The fact that they would bend over backwards and pursue such a low standard sets off several alarms. It is as though they are pursuing a pre-determined conclusion. This implies all prior adjustments made by the same scientists must be subjected to a level of scrutiny that has, sadly owing to a combination of several factors, yet to take place. Such scrutiny should rigorously examine the rationalizations offered for the various adjustments, as clearly, it appears the scientists are capable of coming up with a near-never-ending stream of justifications and post-hoc reasoning to keep messing with the record.
Well. I just read Anthony’s letter at HotWhopper (gad! what a name!). I thought it was pretty reasonable, temperate and accurate.
I’m not sure how NODC folk think about themselves. Surely, they must “believe” in order to get out of bed in the morning, but Anthony is correct: the phony fudging of data to stuff into the Cinderella slipper of a generation of failed models should — on some level, in their minds — be wrong. ….if not evil.
One can be civil with a clown or a fool — or a believer. The NOAA folk should have had more integrity to have done what they did: they do “know.” ….Lady in Red