So what of the claims that sceptics are in the pay of “Big Oil.” The most repeated accusation is that organizations sceptical of man-made climate fears have received $19 Million from an oil corporation over the past two decades. Whilst it is true that organisations like the “George C. Marshall Institute” and “Heartland Institute” who have received part of their funding from Exxon in the past, the amount pales when compared to the funding that the believers are now drawing from both government and private sources.
James Spann, a meteorologist certified by the American Meteorological Society, suggests :
Billions of dollars of grant money is flowing into the pockets of those on the man-made global warming bandwagon. No man-made global warming, the money dries up. This is big money, make no mistake about it. Always follow the money trail and it tells a story, Spann wrote on January 18, 2007 For many, global warming is a big cash grab, Spann added.
"Tens of thousands of interested persons benefit directly from the global warming scare—at the expense of the ordinary consumer. Environmental organizations globally, such as Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and the Environmental Defence Fund, have raked in billions of dollars. Multi-billion-dollar government subsidies for useless mitigation schemes are large and growing. Emission trading programs will soon reach the $100 billion a year level, with large fees paid to brokers and those who operate the scams," Professor Fred Singer explained on June 30, 2007.
"In other words, many people have discovered they can benefit from climate scares and have formed an entrenched interest. Of course, there are also many sincere believers in an impending global warming catastrophe, spurred on in their fears by the growing number of one-sided books, movies, and media coverage," Singer added.
Even if you factor in former Vice President Al Gore's unsubstantiated August 7, 2007 assertion that $10 million dollars a year from the fossil fuel industry flows into sceptical organizations, any funding comparison between sceptics and warming proponents utterly fails. Al Gore launched a $100 million a year multimedia global warming fear campaign. Gore alone will now be spending $90 million more per year than he alleges the entire fossil fuel industry spends, according to an August 26, 2007 article in Advertising Age.
Also according to this article from the U.S Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works:
The [climate] alarmists also enjoy a huge financial advantage over the sceptics with numerous foundations funding climate research, University research money and the United Nations endless promotion of the cause.
The well-heeled environmental lobbying groups have massive operating budgets compared to groups that express global warming scepticism. The Sierra Club Foundation 2004 budget was $91 million and the Natural Resources Defence Council had a $57 million budget for the same year. Compare that to the often media derided (Sceptical) Competitive Enterprise Institute’s small $3.6 million annual budget. In addition, if a climate sceptic receives any money from industry, the media immediately labels them and attempts to discredit their work. The same media completely ignore the money flow from the environmental lobby to climate alarmists like James Hansen and Michael Oppenheimer. (ie. Hansen received $250,000 from the Heinz Foundation and Oppenheimer is a paid partisan of Environmental Defence Fund) The alarmists have all of these advantages, yet they still feel the need to resort to desperation tactics to silence the sceptics.
The last two highlighted sentences say a lot. Any funding directed towards sceptical organisations is labelled tainted money by the believers and as a result the funding from “Big Environment” towards the believers far outweighs the amount of money being spent by “Big Oil” on the sceptics. Yet the Greenpeace propaganda is more widely known. Dr. David Evans also wrote a detailed account of being a global warming scientist prior to his defection to the sceptical side in his article: "I Was On the Global Warming Gravy Train" (28/5/2007) where he states:
I was on that gravy train, making a high wage in a science job that would not have existed if we didn't believe carbon emissions caused global warming. And so were lots of people around me; there were international conferences full of such people. We had political support, the ear of government, big budgets. We felt fairly important and useful (I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet!
…Unfortunately politics and science have become even more entangled. Climate change has become a partisan political issue, so positions become more entrenched. Politicians and the public prefer simple and less-nuanced messages. At the moment the political climate strongly blames carbon emissions, to the point of silencing critics.
As Melbourne’s Herald Sun Columnist Andrew Bolt suggests:
The government money, of course, follows the alarmism - and the political advantage.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
The Reaction Of Some Of the Public To The Media Campaign On Climate Change
With all this constant doom and gloom being hyped by our scientist’s, politician’s, and media outlets and with some people not being aware there is even another side to the arguement, is it any wonder that the following is starting to happen:
We describe a patient with climate change delusion a previously unreported phenomenon. A 17-year-old man was referred to the inpatient psychiatric unit at Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne with an 8 month history of depressed mood... He also had visions of apocalyptic events... The patient had also developed the belief that, due to climate change, his own water consumption could lead within days to the deaths of 'millions of people' through exhaustion of water supplies. He quoted'internet research' to substantiate this. The patient described that 'I feel guilty about it', had attempted to stop drinking... He was unable to acknowledge that the belief was unreasonable when challenged.
Or this one:
Psychiatrists in America have identified a new mental illness that threatens the very fabric of society: an obsession with saving the planet. Some people are so addicted to cutting their carbon emissions that they seem to have gone quite mad. Take, for example, Sharon Astyk, who makes her four children sleep in a huddle so she doesn't have to turn on the heating.
Or this one:
Or Jay Matsueda, who waters his lawn with his own urine so that he doesn't have to flush the loo; he says that it was his ex-girlfriend's choice of gas-guzzling car, rather than his habit of weeing on the grass, that led to the break-down of their relationship.
Or even this one:
The New York Times, have dubbed the problem "carborexia". A carborexic is someone who has become irrationally compulsive in their efforts to reduce their impact on the planet, and who becomes stressed when dealing with those whose sensibilities are not so finely attuned.
Walking into a friend's house, they may start to sweat on seeing the 4WD in the garage and the plasma TV on the wall. They will bite their fingernails on noticing appliances not switched off when not in use. And they will finally crack when they hear someone flushing the toilet unnecessarily. Yes - apparently there are such occasions. Quickly muttering their goodbyes, they walk 5km home carrying in a mesh carry bag the pockmarked organic vegetables they had planned to eat raw at your house.
In the US, one Seattle family told The New York Times they scrub out and reuse the plastic bags in which their children take their school lunches, and the used nappy bag their toddler brings home from childcare.
This all seemed fine in people's own homes, but if it started to affect how they interacted with others then there was a problem, said Elizabeth Carll, a New York psychologist who specialises in obsessive compulsive behaviour. "If you can't have something in your house that isn't green or organic, if you can't eat at a relative's house because they don't serve organic food, if you're criticising friends because they're not living up to your standards of green, that's a problem," she said.
We describe a patient with climate change delusion a previously unreported phenomenon. A 17-year-old man was referred to the inpatient psychiatric unit at Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne with an 8 month history of depressed mood... He also had visions of apocalyptic events... The patient had also developed the belief that, due to climate change, his own water consumption could lead within days to the deaths of 'millions of people' through exhaustion of water supplies. He quoted'internet research' to substantiate this. The patient described that 'I feel guilty about it', had attempted to stop drinking... He was unable to acknowledge that the belief was unreasonable when challenged.
Or this one:
Psychiatrists in America have identified a new mental illness that threatens the very fabric of society: an obsession with saving the planet. Some people are so addicted to cutting their carbon emissions that they seem to have gone quite mad. Take, for example, Sharon Astyk, who makes her four children sleep in a huddle so she doesn't have to turn on the heating.
Or this one:
Or Jay Matsueda, who waters his lawn with his own urine so that he doesn't have to flush the loo; he says that it was his ex-girlfriend's choice of gas-guzzling car, rather than his habit of weeing on the grass, that led to the break-down of their relationship.
Or even this one:
The New York Times, have dubbed the problem "carborexia". A carborexic is someone who has become irrationally compulsive in their efforts to reduce their impact on the planet, and who becomes stressed when dealing with those whose sensibilities are not so finely attuned.
Walking into a friend's house, they may start to sweat on seeing the 4WD in the garage and the plasma TV on the wall. They will bite their fingernails on noticing appliances not switched off when not in use. And they will finally crack when they hear someone flushing the toilet unnecessarily. Yes - apparently there are such occasions. Quickly muttering their goodbyes, they walk 5km home carrying in a mesh carry bag the pockmarked organic vegetables they had planned to eat raw at your house.
In the US, one Seattle family told The New York Times they scrub out and reuse the plastic bags in which their children take their school lunches, and the used nappy bag their toddler brings home from childcare.
This all seemed fine in people's own homes, but if it started to affect how they interacted with others then there was a problem, said Elizabeth Carll, a New York psychologist who specialises in obsessive compulsive behaviour. "If you can't have something in your house that isn't green or organic, if you can't eat at a relative's house because they don't serve organic food, if you're criticising friends because they're not living up to your standards of green, that's a problem," she said.
Use Of Visual Media As A Propaganda Tool
Both visual media You Tube and Television are regularly being utilised by Greenpeace and other environmental interest groups to hype their climate change propaganda, as can be seen from these two example links:
This one showing Santa being rescued from a melting North Pole by the Rainbow Warrior:
This one showing a Polar Bear watching it’s world melt away that ran as a TV commercial:
There is no subtlety to them, they are designed to invoke an emotional reaction of fear and concern thus making the watcher become more willing to part with their hard earned currency.
According to the late Michael Crichton (author of the Global Warming novel “State of Fear” and AGW sceptic)
Environmental organizations are fomenting false fears in order to promote agendas and raise money.
Also according to Richard S. Lindzen, (Ph.D. Professor of Meteorology, MIT)
“There is a clear attempt to establish truth not by scientific methods but by perpetual repetition.”
This one showing Santa being rescued from a melting North Pole by the Rainbow Warrior:
This one showing a Polar Bear watching it’s world melt away that ran as a TV commercial:
There is no subtlety to them, they are designed to invoke an emotional reaction of fear and concern thus making the watcher become more willing to part with their hard earned currency.
According to the late Michael Crichton (author of the Global Warming novel “State of Fear” and AGW sceptic)
Environmental organizations are fomenting false fears in order to promote agendas and raise money.
Also according to Richard S. Lindzen, (Ph.D. Professor of Meteorology, MIT)
“There is a clear attempt to establish truth not by scientific methods but by perpetual repetition.”
UK Met Office Employs Hindsight to Claim Prediction Perfection.
This technique of rewriting information is not just restricted to the press, the UK Met Office was caught out rewriting their own forecasts after the prediction had passed.
In a previous post I discussed the way that the media hypes stories that support the theory of anthropogenic global warming. They will take singular, odd weather events and purport that they prove that catastrophic warming is happening. Similar events, which lean the other way, are immediately dismissed and the Media reminds everyone that singular events don't prove anything. It's the double standard that bugs me.
But if you want pure chutzpah you have go to England's Met Office. I saw a mention of these posts at “Watts Up With That” but I found this so astounding I had to verify each post myself.
Let's start with their weather forecast from September, 2008. The Met "forecast for the coming winter suggests it is, once again, likely to be milder than average.” (seen above).
Of course, as we reported, this winter in England was particularly bitter. So what did the Met say later about their earlier forecast? On December 12 the Met admits "that the UK has had the coldest start to winter in over 30 years." No one will fault them for not getting it right. But what I found astounding was that this statement claimed: "The Met Office seasonal forecast predicted the cold start to the winter season with milder conditions expected during January and February..” (As above)
They send out a press statement claiming the winter will be mild and when they get it wrong they send out another press statement claiming they predicted it would be unusually cold. In the same statement they told everyone that January and February, however, would be "milder" .
Unfortunately the beginning of January has remained quite cold and didn't turn mild as they forecast. But never fear. The Met Office released another press statement and ended it slapping themselves on the back. "The Met Office correctly forecast the spell of cold weather and kept the public informed via our various forecasts." (As seen above)
It is amazing how accurate their forecasts have become since they started doing them using the hindsight technique.
In a previous post I discussed the way that the media hypes stories that support the theory of anthropogenic global warming. They will take singular, odd weather events and purport that they prove that catastrophic warming is happening. Similar events, which lean the other way, are immediately dismissed and the Media reminds everyone that singular events don't prove anything. It's the double standard that bugs me.
But if you want pure chutzpah you have go to England's Met Office. I saw a mention of these posts at “Watts Up With That” but I found this so astounding I had to verify each post myself.
Let's start with their weather forecast from September, 2008. The Met "forecast for the coming winter suggests it is, once again, likely to be milder than average.” (seen above).
Of course, as we reported, this winter in England was particularly bitter. So what did the Met say later about their earlier forecast? On December 12 the Met admits "that the UK has had the coldest start to winter in over 30 years." No one will fault them for not getting it right. But what I found astounding was that this statement claimed: "The Met Office seasonal forecast predicted the cold start to the winter season with milder conditions expected during January and February..” (As above)
They send out a press statement claiming the winter will be mild and when they get it wrong they send out another press statement claiming they predicted it would be unusually cold. In the same statement they told everyone that January and February, however, would be "milder" .
Unfortunately the beginning of January has remained quite cold and didn't turn mild as they forecast. But never fear. The Met Office released another press statement and ended it slapping themselves on the back. "The Met Office correctly forecast the spell of cold weather and kept the public informed via our various forecasts." (As seen above)
It is amazing how accurate their forecasts have become since they started doing them using the hindsight technique.
The Media on Climate Change - Part Four
This practice of Re-edited articles to favour a AGW believer’s perspective is not just restricted to the print and television media. Wikipedia the online encyclopedia used by millions everyday to check for facts on millions of topics has been edited by not only a dedicated team of AGW believers to constantly trawl the 10 million pages and wipe out any changes that suggest the science is not settled, but also by Kim Dabelstein Petersen who is a Wikipedia editor and William Connolley, who is a Wikipedia administrator. As was discovered by Lawrence Solomon of the National Review Online in his article: Wikipropaganda On Global Warming (8th Jul 2008):
Ever wonder how Al Gore, the United Nations, and company continue to get away with their claim of a “scientific consensus” confirming their doomsday view of global warming? Look no farther than Wikipedia for a stunning example of how the global-warming propaganda machine works.
As you (or your kids) probably know, Wikipedia is now the most widely used and influential reference source on the Internet and therefore in the world, with more than 50 million unique visitors a month.
In theory Wikipedia is a “people’s encyclopaedia” written and edited by the people who read it - anyone with an Internet connection. So on controversial topics, one might expect to see a broad range of opinion.
Not on global warming. On global warming we get consensus, Gore-style: a consensus forged by censorship, intimidation, and deceit.
I first noticed this when I entered a correction to a Wikipedia page on the work of Naomi Oreskes, author of the now-infamous paper, published in the prestigious journal Science, claiming to have exhaustively reviewed the scientific literature and found not one single article dissenting from the alarmist version of global warming.
Of course Oreskes’s conclusions were absurd, and have been widely ridiculed. I myself have profiled dozens of truly world-eminent scientists whose work casts doubt on the Gore-U.N. version of global warming. Following the references in my book The Deniers, one can find hundreds of refereed papers that cast doubt on some aspect of the Gore/U.N. case, and that only scratches the surface.
Naturally I was surprised to read on Wikipedia that Oreskes’s work had been vindicated and that, for instance, one of her most thorough critics, British scientist and publisher Bennie Peiser, not only had been discredited but had grudgingly conceded Oreskes was right.
I checked with Peiser, who said he had done no such thing. I then corrected the Wikipedia entry, and advised Peiser that I had done so.
Peiser wrote back saying he couldn’t see my corrections on the Wikipedia page. I made the changes again, and this time confirmed that the changes had been saved. But then, in a twinkle, they were gone again. I made other changes. And others. They all disappeared shortly after they were made.
Turns out that on Wikipedia some folks are more equal than others. Kim Dabelstein Petersen is a Wikipedia “editor” who seems to devote a large part of his life to editing reams and reams of Wikipedia pages to pump the assertions of global-warming alarmists and deprecate or make disappear the arguments of sceptics.
I soon found others who had the same experience: They would try to squeeze in any dissent, or even correct an obvious slander against a dissenter, and Petersen or some other censor would immediately snuff them out.
Now Petersen is merely a Wikipedia “editor.” Holding the far more prestigious and powerful position of “administrator” is William Connolley. Connolley is a software engineer and sometime climatologist (he used to hold a job in the British Antarctic Survey), as well as a serial (but so far unsuccessful) office seeker for England’s Green party.
And yet by virtue of his power at Wikipedia, Connolley, a ruthless enforcer of the doomsday consensus, may be the world’s most influential person in the global warming debate after Al Gore. Connolley routinely uses his editorial clout to tear down scientists of great accomplishment such as Fred Singer, the first director of the U.S. National Weather Satellite Service and a scientist with dazzling achievements. Under Connolley’s supervision, Wikipedia relentlessly smears Singer as a kook who believes in Martians and a hack in the pay of the oil industry. Wikipedia is full of rules that editors are supposed to follow, and it has a code of civility. Those rules and codes don’t apply to Connolley, or to those he favours.
So given the level of contolling of the debate being utilised by "believers of the faith" elements of the media and other commonly used reference sources, is it any wonder many in the public believe all tha is thrust at them on this subject. Many would be unaware there is even another side to the arguement.
Ever wonder how Al Gore, the United Nations, and company continue to get away with their claim of a “scientific consensus” confirming their doomsday view of global warming? Look no farther than Wikipedia for a stunning example of how the global-warming propaganda machine works.
As you (or your kids) probably know, Wikipedia is now the most widely used and influential reference source on the Internet and therefore in the world, with more than 50 million unique visitors a month.
In theory Wikipedia is a “people’s encyclopaedia” written and edited by the people who read it - anyone with an Internet connection. So on controversial topics, one might expect to see a broad range of opinion.
Not on global warming. On global warming we get consensus, Gore-style: a consensus forged by censorship, intimidation, and deceit.
I first noticed this when I entered a correction to a Wikipedia page on the work of Naomi Oreskes, author of the now-infamous paper, published in the prestigious journal Science, claiming to have exhaustively reviewed the scientific literature and found not one single article dissenting from the alarmist version of global warming.
Of course Oreskes’s conclusions were absurd, and have been widely ridiculed. I myself have profiled dozens of truly world-eminent scientists whose work casts doubt on the Gore-U.N. version of global warming. Following the references in my book The Deniers, one can find hundreds of refereed papers that cast doubt on some aspect of the Gore/U.N. case, and that only scratches the surface.
Naturally I was surprised to read on Wikipedia that Oreskes’s work had been vindicated and that, for instance, one of her most thorough critics, British scientist and publisher Bennie Peiser, not only had been discredited but had grudgingly conceded Oreskes was right.
I checked with Peiser, who said he had done no such thing. I then corrected the Wikipedia entry, and advised Peiser that I had done so.
Peiser wrote back saying he couldn’t see my corrections on the Wikipedia page. I made the changes again, and this time confirmed that the changes had been saved. But then, in a twinkle, they were gone again. I made other changes. And others. They all disappeared shortly after they were made.
Turns out that on Wikipedia some folks are more equal than others. Kim Dabelstein Petersen is a Wikipedia “editor” who seems to devote a large part of his life to editing reams and reams of Wikipedia pages to pump the assertions of global-warming alarmists and deprecate or make disappear the arguments of sceptics.
I soon found others who had the same experience: They would try to squeeze in any dissent, or even correct an obvious slander against a dissenter, and Petersen or some other censor would immediately snuff them out.
Now Petersen is merely a Wikipedia “editor.” Holding the far more prestigious and powerful position of “administrator” is William Connolley. Connolley is a software engineer and sometime climatologist (he used to hold a job in the British Antarctic Survey), as well as a serial (but so far unsuccessful) office seeker for England’s Green party.
And yet by virtue of his power at Wikipedia, Connolley, a ruthless enforcer of the doomsday consensus, may be the world’s most influential person in the global warming debate after Al Gore. Connolley routinely uses his editorial clout to tear down scientists of great accomplishment such as Fred Singer, the first director of the U.S. National Weather Satellite Service and a scientist with dazzling achievements. Under Connolley’s supervision, Wikipedia relentlessly smears Singer as a kook who believes in Martians and a hack in the pay of the oil industry. Wikipedia is full of rules that editors are supposed to follow, and it has a code of civility. Those rules and codes don’t apply to Connolley, or to those he favours.
So given the level of contolling of the debate being utilised by "believers of the faith" elements of the media and other commonly used reference sources, is it any wonder many in the public believe all tha is thrust at them on this subject. Many would be unaware there is even another side to the arguement.
The Media On Climate Change - Part Three
But the issue is sometimes not how the article was written but how it was edited by the various media outlets.
Take as an example this article by Christopher Booker and Richard North, called “The Great Biofuels Con”, originally written for the UK “Telegraph” on the 12 July 2008. It appeared three days later and heavily re-edited in Melbourne's “The Age.” The re-editing made the article read very differently (despite not a word being changed) : Some extracts include:
Original text:
As damaging as anything to the belief that biofuels could help save the planet from global warming have been various studies showing that producing biofuels can give off more carbon dioxide than they save. So devastating has been this backlash that even the British Government, which prides itself on being the greenest of the green, commissioned a review, published last Monday, urging a slowdown in the move to biofuels. When this recommendation was endorsed by senior ministers, this put the UK directly at odds with a European Union policy to which it had already signed up. But the EU is firmly holding its line, saying it has no intention of lowering its target.
Re-Edited version:
As damaging as anything to the belief that biofuels could help save the planet from global warming have been various studies showing that producing biofuels can give off more carbon dioxide than they save.
So devastating has been this backlash that even the British Government, which prides itself on being the greenest of the green, commissioned a review, published last Monday, urging a slowdown in the move to biofuels.
When this recommendation was endorsed by senior ministers, this put the UK directly at odds with a European Union policy to which it had already signed up. But the EU is firmly holding its line, saying it has no intention of lowering its target.
Original text:
Stage Three began in 1992, when two developments coincided to move biofuels even higher up the political agenda. First, following a further oil price hike after the first Gulf War, Washington and Brussels believed that biofuels could be a way of using their then-massive crop surpluses to wean the United States and the EU off dependence on imported oil. The other came at the UN’s Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, when 100 world leaders and 20,000 environmentalists gathered to discuss mankind’s response to new environmental challenges, notably "global warming".
It was at this moment that the cause of biofuels, long championed by the UN for other reasons, became part of the "climate change" agenda. Over the next 10 years, the cause was driven by these two quite separate concerns. On the one hand, particularly in the US, a powerful lobby grew up among farmers who were encouraged by their governments to see biofuels as a lucrative source of income (in the US alone, annual biofuel production now tops nine billion gallons).
Re-Edited version:
Stage Three began in 1992, when two developments coincided to move biofuels even higher up the political agenda.
First, following a further oil price rise after the first Gulf War, Washington and Brussels believed that biofuels could be a way of using their then massive crop surpluses to wean the United States and the EU off dependence on imported oil.
The other came at the UN's Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, when 100 world leaders and 20,000 environmentalists gathered to discuss mankind's response to new environmental challenges, notably "global warming". It was at this moment that the cause of biofuels, long championed by the UN for other reasons, became part of the "climate change" agenda.
Over the next 10 years, the cause was driven by these two quite separate concerns.
On the one hand, particularly in the US, a powerful lobby grew up among farmers who were encouraged by their governments to see biofuels as a lucrative source of income (in the US alone, annual biofuel production now tops 9 billion gallons).
“The Age” in their editing not only split apart paragraphs but blended others together to totally change the emphasis given to certain parts in the original article. Of which their Melbourne based readership was unaware.
The re-editing of articles doesn’t end there. In April 2008 the BBC’s environment reporter Roger Harrabin changed a story he had written entitled “Global temperatures to decrease”, reporting some information received from the World Meteorological Organisation that in its original form supported the observation that there has been no warming since 1998. Why then did he change the story? Because he was being continuously emailed by environmental activist Jo Abbess to do so:
The result was that after much harassment by Abbess including threats like:
I would ask : please reserve the main BBC Online channel for emerging truth.
Otherwise, I would have to conclude that you are insufficiently educated to be able to know when you have been psychologically manipulated. And that would make you an unreliable reporter.
I am about to send your comments to others for their contribution, unless you request I do not. They are likely to want to post your comments on forums/fora, so please indicate if you do not want this to happen. You may appear in an unfavourable light because it could be said that you have had your head turned by the sceptics.
He finally relented to her demands and changed the article. Deleting sentences like:
But experts have also forecast a record high temperature within five years.
And replacing them with this:
But experts say we are still clearly in a long-term warming trend - and they forecast a new record high temperature within five years.
The WMO points out that the decade from 1998 to 2007 was the warmest on record. Since the beginning of the 20th Century, the global average surface temperature has risen by 0.74C.
While NASA, the US space agency, cites 2005 as the warmest year, the UK's Hadley Centre lists it as second to 1998.
Researchers say the uncertainty in the observed value for any particular year is larger than these small temperature differences. What matters, they say, is the long-term upward trend.
Other minor changes were also made. But not to the posts date time stamp which remained at 00:42 GMT, Friday, 4 April 2008 01:42 UK in both versions. Therefore, the general public were unaware of any changes or updates.
Take as an example this article by Christopher Booker and Richard North, called “The Great Biofuels Con”, originally written for the UK “Telegraph” on the 12 July 2008. It appeared three days later and heavily re-edited in Melbourne's “The Age.” The re-editing made the article read very differently (despite not a word being changed) : Some extracts include:
Original text:
As damaging as anything to the belief that biofuels could help save the planet from global warming have been various studies showing that producing biofuels can give off more carbon dioxide than they save. So devastating has been this backlash that even the British Government, which prides itself on being the greenest of the green, commissioned a review, published last Monday, urging a slowdown in the move to biofuels. When this recommendation was endorsed by senior ministers, this put the UK directly at odds with a European Union policy to which it had already signed up. But the EU is firmly holding its line, saying it has no intention of lowering its target.
Re-Edited version:
As damaging as anything to the belief that biofuels could help save the planet from global warming have been various studies showing that producing biofuels can give off more carbon dioxide than they save.
So devastating has been this backlash that even the British Government, which prides itself on being the greenest of the green, commissioned a review, published last Monday, urging a slowdown in the move to biofuels.
When this recommendation was endorsed by senior ministers, this put the UK directly at odds with a European Union policy to which it had already signed up. But the EU is firmly holding its line, saying it has no intention of lowering its target.
Original text:
Stage Three began in 1992, when two developments coincided to move biofuels even higher up the political agenda. First, following a further oil price hike after the first Gulf War, Washington and Brussels believed that biofuels could be a way of using their then-massive crop surpluses to wean the United States and the EU off dependence on imported oil. The other came at the UN’s Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, when 100 world leaders and 20,000 environmentalists gathered to discuss mankind’s response to new environmental challenges, notably "global warming".
It was at this moment that the cause of biofuels, long championed by the UN for other reasons, became part of the "climate change" agenda. Over the next 10 years, the cause was driven by these two quite separate concerns. On the one hand, particularly in the US, a powerful lobby grew up among farmers who were encouraged by their governments to see biofuels as a lucrative source of income (in the US alone, annual biofuel production now tops nine billion gallons).
Re-Edited version:
Stage Three began in 1992, when two developments coincided to move biofuels even higher up the political agenda.
First, following a further oil price rise after the first Gulf War, Washington and Brussels believed that biofuels could be a way of using their then massive crop surpluses to wean the United States and the EU off dependence on imported oil.
The other came at the UN's Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, when 100 world leaders and 20,000 environmentalists gathered to discuss mankind's response to new environmental challenges, notably "global warming". It was at this moment that the cause of biofuels, long championed by the UN for other reasons, became part of the "climate change" agenda.
Over the next 10 years, the cause was driven by these two quite separate concerns.
On the one hand, particularly in the US, a powerful lobby grew up among farmers who were encouraged by their governments to see biofuels as a lucrative source of income (in the US alone, annual biofuel production now tops 9 billion gallons).
“The Age” in their editing not only split apart paragraphs but blended others together to totally change the emphasis given to certain parts in the original article. Of which their Melbourne based readership was unaware.
The re-editing of articles doesn’t end there. In April 2008 the BBC’s environment reporter Roger Harrabin changed a story he had written entitled “Global temperatures to decrease”, reporting some information received from the World Meteorological Organisation that in its original form supported the observation that there has been no warming since 1998. Why then did he change the story? Because he was being continuously emailed by environmental activist Jo Abbess to do so:
The result was that after much harassment by Abbess including threats like:
I would ask : please reserve the main BBC Online channel for emerging truth.
Otherwise, I would have to conclude that you are insufficiently educated to be able to know when you have been psychologically manipulated. And that would make you an unreliable reporter.
I am about to send your comments to others for their contribution, unless you request I do not. They are likely to want to post your comments on forums/fora, so please indicate if you do not want this to happen. You may appear in an unfavourable light because it could be said that you have had your head turned by the sceptics.
He finally relented to her demands and changed the article. Deleting sentences like:
But experts have also forecast a record high temperature within five years.
And replacing them with this:
But experts say we are still clearly in a long-term warming trend - and they forecast a new record high temperature within five years.
The WMO points out that the decade from 1998 to 2007 was the warmest on record. Since the beginning of the 20th Century, the global average surface temperature has risen by 0.74C.
While NASA, the US space agency, cites 2005 as the warmest year, the UK's Hadley Centre lists it as second to 1998.
Researchers say the uncertainty in the observed value for any particular year is larger than these small temperature differences. What matters, they say, is the long-term upward trend.
Other minor changes were also made. But not to the posts date time stamp which remained at 00:42 GMT, Friday, 4 April 2008 01:42 UK in both versions. Therefore, the general public were unaware of any changes or updates.
The Media on Climate Change - Part Two
To show how the BBC has been influenced in the way it now views climate change: Dr. David Bellamy, a botanist, conservationist, author of 35 books and host to approximately 400 nature programs on the BBC was unceremoniously dumped by the BBC after stating some doubts about the effectiveness of wind turbines as methods of power generation, when as a guest presenter on the networks “Blue Peter” children’s program:
WHEN I first stuck my head above the parapet to say I didn't believe what we were being told about global warming, I had no idea what the consequences would be. I am a scientist and I have to follow the directions of science, but when I see that the truth is being covered up I have to voice my opinions.
The sad fact is that since I said I didn't believe human beings caused global warming, I've not been allowed to make a television program.
It is also not just that the levels of reporting have become unbalanced but so to has the way it is reported:
Many in the "science is settled" camp claim that the skeptics are untrustworthy -- that they are either cranks or otherwise at the periphery of their profession, or that they are in the pockets of Exxon or other corporate interests. The skeptics are increasingly being called Deniers, a term used by analogy to the Holocaust, to convey the catastrophe that could befall mankind if action is not taken. Increasingly, too, the press is taking up the Denier theme, convincing the public that the global-warming debate is over. – Lawrence Solomon (executive director of Urban Renaissance Institute, a division of Energy Probe Research Foundation.)
I myself have also noted a certain formula to the writing by individuals being printed by the media, and I believe it tends to follow this pattern:
1. Use the word “Deniers” instead of “Sceptics “when talking about any climate change opposition.
2. Quickly link these deniers to tobacco industry or holocaust to establish mistrust in their opinion.
3. Claim that all research into denying climate change is funded by “Big Oil”.
4. Show a couple of notable sites like “George C. Marshall Institute” and “Heartland Institute” that have drawn part of their funding from Exxon to prove linkage.
5. Explain that climate variation is normal, but exclaim “ Global Warming is Real!” to reinforce message.
6. Try to discredit the now famous Oregon Partition by claiming “most of the 31,000 graduates have nothing to do with climate science.” (Avoid mentioning about the 2500 that were used by the IPCC - especially that less than 10% were of climate speciality and some of the unusual profession some signers had) Thus creating the illusion that the climate scientists are only on the side of AGW believers.
7. Use a dubious quote from and unnamed source to discredit a world renowned scientist.
8. Tar the political opposition as “the party of climate change deniers”, (despite the government probably having many in their ranks too).
9. Finish off article with a scare that there are “No areas to hide on the planet” or the like when it comes to climate change.
Take as an example this article: Who is behind climate change deniers? by David McKnight written on 2nd August, 2008 and published in all the Fairfax papers:
It is almost a perfect example of writing an alarmist article to a formula. Not really surprising it appeared in "The Age" then is it?
WHEN I first stuck my head above the parapet to say I didn't believe what we were being told about global warming, I had no idea what the consequences would be. I am a scientist and I have to follow the directions of science, but when I see that the truth is being covered up I have to voice my opinions.
The sad fact is that since I said I didn't believe human beings caused global warming, I've not been allowed to make a television program.
It is also not just that the levels of reporting have become unbalanced but so to has the way it is reported:
Many in the "science is settled" camp claim that the skeptics are untrustworthy -- that they are either cranks or otherwise at the periphery of their profession, or that they are in the pockets of Exxon or other corporate interests. The skeptics are increasingly being called Deniers, a term used by analogy to the Holocaust, to convey the catastrophe that could befall mankind if action is not taken. Increasingly, too, the press is taking up the Denier theme, convincing the public that the global-warming debate is over. – Lawrence Solomon (executive director of Urban Renaissance Institute, a division of Energy Probe Research Foundation.)
I myself have also noted a certain formula to the writing by individuals being printed by the media, and I believe it tends to follow this pattern:
1. Use the word “Deniers” instead of “Sceptics “when talking about any climate change opposition.
2. Quickly link these deniers to tobacco industry or holocaust to establish mistrust in their opinion.
3. Claim that all research into denying climate change is funded by “Big Oil”.
4. Show a couple of notable sites like “George C. Marshall Institute” and “Heartland Institute” that have drawn part of their funding from Exxon to prove linkage.
5. Explain that climate variation is normal, but exclaim “ Global Warming is Real!” to reinforce message.
6. Try to discredit the now famous Oregon Partition by claiming “most of the 31,000 graduates have nothing to do with climate science.” (Avoid mentioning about the 2500 that were used by the IPCC - especially that less than 10% were of climate speciality and some of the unusual profession some signers had) Thus creating the illusion that the climate scientists are only on the side of AGW believers.
7. Use a dubious quote from and unnamed source to discredit a world renowned scientist.
8. Tar the political opposition as “the party of climate change deniers”, (despite the government probably having many in their ranks too).
9. Finish off article with a scare that there are “No areas to hide on the planet” or the like when it comes to climate change.
Take as an example this article: Who is behind climate change deniers? by David McKnight written on 2nd August, 2008 and published in all the Fairfax papers:
It is almost a perfect example of writing an alarmist article to a formula. Not really surprising it appeared in "The Age" then is it?
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