This is well worth a read. Andrew Revkin, who wrote an opinion blog and sometines opinion columns for the New York Times wrote an essay describing his years of reporting on the issue. There are some surprises in it, for example:
Journalism’s norms also required considering the full range of views on a complex issue like climate change, where science only delineated the risk but societal responses would always be a function of considering various tradeoffs. In 2007, I included Bjorn Lomborg’s climate book, Cool It, in a roundup of voices from “the pragmatic center.”
Lomborg, a Danish political scientist, became a widely quoted contrarian pundit after the publication of The Skeptical Environmentalist, a previous book that had challenged—and was vigorously challenged by—the environmental science community.
Given how Lomborg hadn’t resisted having his arguments wielded by factions seeking no action to cut climate change risks, my description of him was not apt.
But the reaction from longtime contacts in environmental science was like a digital sledgehammer. An e-mail string excoriating the story was forwarded to me in hopes I would understand how far I had strayed. In the exchange, one of the country’s top sustainability scientists told the others: “I think I’m going to throw up. I kept trying to believe that Andy was quite good, albeit subject to occasional lapses as well as rightward pressure from NYT higher-ups. But this is really too much. We have all over-rated him.”
and this:
It was Pete Seeger who helped me understand this as we sat in the kitchen of his hand-hewn home tucked high on the wooded shoulder of the Hudson Highlands overlooking Newburgh Bay. Pete was a friend and neighbor, with whom I’d been singing and conversing since I moved to the Hudson Valley in 1991.
He recalled how his father, a musicologist, used to prod friends who were scientists: “You think that an infinite increase in empirical information is a good thing. Can you prove it?”
Pete then described how his father would then exclaim that faith in science is no different than faith in anything else.
“Face it, it’s a religion,” Pete said.
Full essay here:
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Until Dot Earth blog was closed in NYT, I particated in the discussions. Revakin is balanced moderator.
sjreddy
Dr. S. Jevananda Reddy –
Agreed. Revkin, whatever you think of his viewpoints on Climate Change, accomplished the rare feat of running a climate blog (discussing multiple topics concerned with the environmental state of planet earth as well as energy needs for the human race) which succeeded in attracting conscientious commenters from both camps, for the most part. In contrast to practically all other MSM outlets on the subject of Climate Change, he did not censor skeptics. Compare the Guardian’s climate page.
Thus he managed to get skeptics as well as climate-concerned citizens and scientists to pursue a dialogue. That alone is worthy of applause.
Right Kurt. Andy has the inclusive personality that has allowed him to see the valid points about climate skepticism. And he realizes that we’re all conscientious people trying to find a solution to a “wicked” problem. The only other writer that comes close is Judith Curry, also a lukewarmist who’s able to see merit in most positions on climate change. Curry’s blog is unique in that there are serious warmists who feel welcome there.
Unfortunately, Curry has distanced herself professionally from the climate debate but still makes a valiant effort to provide relevant commentary and interesting blog posts. in fact, her articles on sea level rise have pretty much disposed of this issue, at least for the short term.
It is good to see some of the adult voices from Revkin’s “Dot Earth” blog speak up in his defence. I commented frequently on Dot Earth from 2008 until the NYT dropped it in 2016. I often disagreed with Andy but we also found many points of agreement. The primary virtue of Dot Earth was that Andy never censured the views of those who submitted comments, whether in the warmist or the more skeptical camps. Thus it never became an echo chamber like so many other blogs. Nuance was possible, and a real debate. Dot Earth was a superior blog and the public forum is poorer for its lack.
I concur with those who applaud Andy’s toleration of skeptic comments. One of the highlights of my life was having bitter alarmists call his blog ‘DotKim’ a few times during the brief nine months I commented there.
He did, however, censor at least 5 comments of mine. It was good editing, heh.
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He censored some of mine too, probably for good reason, but never because of their skepticism. But Andy was unique in how he did it. A couple of times he emailed me and told me to change a sentence because of language or some other issue. He could cut you off if things got too heated – you were put in time out until you cooled off, But he was ever the gentleman. Contrast that to the behavior of many blog moderators.
Incidentally, I’m glad to see Anthony follow in his footsteps and try to run a civil blog that’s tolerant of all points of view. There may be some censorship but I doubt it. If there were we’d hear more about it.
Guardian — initially the guardian included my comments, later sensorded my observations and later blocked my comments.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
First observation – Revkin’s article is three years old, from Winter 2019.
Second observation – Revkin writes well and researches well, obtaining relatively in-depth comment (considering the line space offered) from acknowledged experts in the fields of interest. He has displayed a fair amount of ‘civil courage’, going beyond the cliché and calling out the most egregious hyperbole. For a widely-acclaimed reporter on environmental issues for over three decades, for notably leftist publications including the NYTimes, he invited some notable “Lukewarmists” on DotEarth to offer their point of view.
Third observation – Revkin suffered a stroke. Give the fellow a break. His article is his personal attempt to review and rationalize his own evolution as a journalist covering the environment, as a mortal being and a father. He is also somewhat self-deprecating and humorous:
“a liberal, Ivy League, middle-class Northeasterner”… “an agnostic lapsed Reform Jew”… “prone to a kind of reverse tribalism”
He also plays music – can’t be all that bad!
Erratum: “Revkin’s article is three years old, from Winter 2019”.
Meant to say Winter 2016, of course.
Many seem to be here for the unscientific validation they get for contrarian (meaning disbelief or disagreement without sufficient evidence) beliefs. They take it as an article of faith that, as one person irrationally and 100% incorrectly claimed, there is “not a shred of empirical scientific evidence” for global warming being the dangerous trend scientists assert.
Remember, a scientific assertion is not only a claim. A claim is something that is said to be true, with or without evidence. Religions are 100% based on claims that cannot be verified, mostly ancient claims written by people we don’t know, who used no scientific knowledge or methods to back up those claims.
A scientific assertion is something said with confidence backed by evidence. In this case, the preponderance of established scientific evidence reveals that the Earth is warming, it has been doing so much more rapidly than historical variations would predict, due mostly to human activity since about 1850.
The scientific assertions include that the warming has dangerous and world-changing consequences that have happened, are happening, and that much more will happen very soon. Furthermore, regardless of the other (minor and scattered) benefits to humans of these changes, most of the changes are happening at a rate that many if not most species cannot safely adapt to, upsetting entire ecosystems and intertwined, interdependent ecosystems, in the process.
Most who post here seem mostly concerned about validation. They gloat and pick at people who disagree. They act like children happy to be elite, accepted members of a clique at elementary school. They work hard by bullying to keep out anyone they deem isn’t fit to belong because of contrary fact-based ideas. They don’t like words that make them feel bad even though they are true, factual descriptors, like words beginning with “den-” and ending in “-its” and “-ism.”
On the other hand, even though the previous words are banned, the members of this clique are free to use phrases like “hysterical,” “warmist,” “alarmist” and other antiscience, unfactual epithets undeserved by a community of scientists who have worked very hard with great intelligence and compassion, doing the research–while this clique’s members merely sit on their butts, whining and complaining and bullying and griping on websites for years and years with no action to disprove the established science.
The clique members want to be right, they don’t like being contradicted, they want comfort from their fellows for being right.
That’s the subtext, which is clear because those who comment act like a little group of friends whose apple cart is being upset by some pesky activity or thing they don’t like, so they gripe and complain and pick at those who are upsetting their unusual, little empty, useless apple cart. And they direct their whining and petty hate and frustration at those who merely carry the message, created by scientists, their applecart doesn’t actually carry any apples!
That conceit, false belief, wishful hope, easily disproved lie to oneself or whatever you want to call it, is 100% dead wrong.
The science, which is verifiable by anyone with the training and intelligence to do it, well-established, says that the globe is warming at a rate unprecedented in history and it is damaging our planet.
The onus of disproving that–not merely gathering to gripe and complain and poke and criticize, without a preponderance of verifiable scientific evidence– is on YOU, the person seeking to upend established science.
No amount of armchair analysis, whining about allegedly “bought” scientists taking huge paychecks (false) from the billion-dollar industry of global warming, Climategate, other unproven conspiracy theories, and cherry-picked data and studies that don’t refute the preponderance of data, or other childlike complaining will change the results of science.
Only you doing investigations in a correct scientific manner, using valid data and a reasonable theory that can be proved by the data, will change the fact that science.
FACTS:
HUMANS ARE WARMING THE EARTH TOO FAST.
IT’S DANGEROUS IN MANY WAYS, TO US AND MANY MANY SPECIES.
WE MUST WORK TOGETHER TO MITIGATE IT.
It’s certainly your American constitutional right to complain. It’s also your constitutional right to look ridiculous pathetic and fact-free.
Get up off your couches and chairs and get a climate science degree and prove the Science wrong! Otherwise keep flapping your tongues. The wind you make certainly isn’t pretty or useful.