@boozoo: "Bob Carter
September 06, 2007 12:00am
<url>
THE question of press bias about global warming is in the news again.
Writing in the Japan Times, Christopher Lingle asks "What's up with the
journalists in the mainstream media?", adding that "reporting on issues relating
to global warming has become strikingly one-sided".
Things have in fact come to such a pass that Newsweek recently equated global
warming sceptics (itself a derogatory term for climate rationalist scientists
who give priority to factual evidence over speculative computer models) with
Holocaust deniers (yes, again), and accused them of being in the pay of Big Oil
or Big Coal (yes, again). The unoriginality and ad hominem nature of such silly
accusations, which are fuelled by trashy websites like Exxon's Secrets,
DeSmogBlog and SourceWatch, have become tiresome.
As US sceptic Frank Miele has pungently, though accurately commented - those who
are vocal in their support for global warming doomsterism are "less interested
in free expression of ideas than in total compliance with their ideas, less
interested in critical thinking than in being critical, and less interested in
the truth than in their truth". These attributes will of course be on abundant
display in this, the week of the Sydney APEC.
Meanwhile, at that guardian of public news sanctity, the BBC, plans were being
laid for the broadcast next year of a new, splashy "consciousness raising" event
on climate change- titled Planet Relief and involving public celebrities such as
Ricky Gervais.
Peter Horrocks, head of BBC TV News, should be given due credit for having
opposed these plans on the grounds it is not the job of a public broadcaster to
promulgate a moral campaign to save the planet. Unwisely, however, Horrocks went
on to add that "BBC News certainly does not have a line on climate change,
however the weight of our coverage reflects the fact that there is an
increasingly strong (although not overwhelming) weight of scientific opinion in
favour of the proposition that climate change is happening and is being largely
caused by man".
The utter lack of self-awareness in this statement, when it is compared with the
actuality of the BBC's broadcasts, epitomises exactly the problem with media
coverage of the global warming issue across the world, including Australia.
The BBC's "line" is self-evident to any independent and trained scientist who
watches its coverage. It is to reproduce, without a trace of critical analysis,
the alarmist utterances of a bevy of self-interested, self-perpetuating
scientists and science agencies, environmental pressure groups and "significant"
politicians (Tony Blair, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Bob Brown), while at
the same time ignoring or paying the most passing of lip service to any
independent scientists or "insignificant" politicians (President Vaclav Klaus,
Czech Republic; Senator James Inhofe, US Senate; Dennis Jensen, Australian
Parliament) who try to inject some critical analysis into the debate.
Horrocks' statement also embraces the typical semantic confusion that marks
journalists and editors when he asserts "climate change is happening", which is
not and never has been the issue. Of course climate is changing; it always has
and always will. In terms of the current public debate, the hypothesis to be
tested is not "is climate changing" but rather "do human emissions of carbon
dioxide cause dangerous global warming". Despite the 20-year-long efforts of
thousands of scientists and the expenditure of about $80 billion of public money
on research since 1990, no unambiguous (or even concerning circumstantial)
evidence exists for this proposition. Indeed, with the collapse of the "hockey
stick", and the recent failure of global temperature to follow its supposed
script, the sole argument an increasingly desperate Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change coterie is left with is the deployment of the results of
unvalidated, speculative computer GCMs.
Meanwhile, in the real (meaning empirical) world, the dangerous warming
hypothesis fails the most elementary of tests. Witness the fact, for example,
that global average temperature has flat-lined since 1998 against a 4 per cent
increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide over that period.
Has this ever been reported by the BBC or our ABC? No. Why not, Mr Horrocks and
Mr Dalton?
Public broadcasters' coverage of the global warming issue indicates their staff
do not understand the difference between sound empirical science and the virtual
realities of speculative computer modelling. This in turn reflects that none of
their news and current affairs personnel are both adequately trained in science
and have the ability and self-confidence to critically assess the climate change
issue independently.
As Lingle has observed: "creating group-think and mass behaviour should be
anathema to honest journalists" - a principal betrayed every day with respect to
the global warming issue by the staff of public broadcasters such as the ABC,
SBS and BBC.
Which raises the question, why have Australia's established investigative
journalists chosen to hide deep in their burrows over the global warming issue?
Professor Bob Carter is a geologist and climate change researcher at James Cook
University, Townsville
Regards
Bonzo
"Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and
environmental." Dave Forman, Founder Earth First Journal
"Human beings, as a species, have no more value than slugs." John Daily, Editor,
Earth First Journal
"The suffering of a crippled ant deserves equal consideration to that of a
crippled human child. If we could only save one, he says, we should decide by
the flip a coin or else we would be "speciests". Peter Singer, 'bioethicist'
Princeton University"
    @Justice: ""HangEveryRepubliKKKan" <email_address> wrote
<quote>
"Bonzo" <email_address> wrote
  Ahahahahahahahahaha... Stupid KKKonservative KKKlown. A trendline skirts
across the top of the data leaving equal portions of the data above and
below.  In this instane 10 dots above, and 14 below as a result of the crude
nature of ascii graphics.  Nevertheless it represents the best line that can
be fitted to the data based on minimizing the square of the distance between
the line and the real data.  It's called a least squares curve fit.
  You are completely ignorant when it comes to statistics and mathematics in
general aren't you Bonzo.
  Ahahahahahaha.. You don't know what statistics are, where it comes from,
how it is used, or how to use it, and yet in your vast ignorance, you seem
to think that you know more about science than all of the worlds scientists.
  "Voodoo statistics"  Ahahahahahahahah...  You need to go back to public
school and take a refresher course in basic technical literacy.
  Stupid... Stupid.. KKKonservative KKKlown....
"Bonzo" <email_address> wrote
  No?  Lets plot the data and find out shall we?  Here it is along with the
best linear fit to the data shown as "o".
1998 14.57  *********************o*****
1999 14.33  *****************>>>>o
2000 14.33  *****************>>>>>o
2001 14.48  ************************o
2002 14.56  *************************o**
2003 14.55  **************************o*
2004 14.49  *************************>>o
2005 14.63  *****************************o**
2006 14.54  ***************************>>>o
Look at all those "o"'s lined up there. The trend is up, Up, UP.
So Bonzo, who is paying you to post lies to this newsgroup?"
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