[LINK] Scientists offered cash to dispute climate study

[rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au]

...and I almost forgot. The other tactic, now being deployed by the 
Institute of Public Affairs, is to put forward an unknowable proposition 
as a reason to do nothing. Hence: "We don't know that climate change 
will be bad for [X], so we should not act until we have measured its 
positive effects."

Hence:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21144521-601,00.html

RC

rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au wrote:

> Jan,
>
> Jan Whitaker wrote:
>
>> At 01:56 PM 3/02/2007, Rick Welykochy wrote:
>>
>>> (B) The survey of popular media (newspapers, magazines, TV) found that
>>>     approx 56% of the articles examined disputed the veracity of the
>>>     global warming (and also tended to use the term climate change 
>>> instead --
>>>     spin). The reason for this discrepancy? An active campaign funded
>>>     by vested interests (Big Oil) to discredit the theory through 
>>> popular
>>>     culture and media.
>>
>>
>>
>> Or is this nearly 50% alternative view an example of MSM (blog speak 
>> for mainstream media - had to look it up myself recently and decided 
>> to use it more often) trying to be 'unbiased'? The concept of having 
>> 'equal time' does nothing for showing the public that there is 
>> weighting toward one view or another.
>
>
> In a word, "yes". "Balance", for example in debates over the ABC, is a 
> piece of weaselry which is deployed to put media and journalists on 
> the defensive. As a result, people get tricked into believing they 
> have to give airplay to kookery like the denial lobby, intelligent 
> design, and so on.
>
> All too often, journalists have been drawn into debating whether or 
> not their coverage is "balanced" as a distraction. "Balanced" does not 
> matter: the MEAA code of ethics spells it out. Journalists are 
> required to tell the truth, and truth is an inherently unbalanced 
> concept. Truth says "the Earth is not flat", where balance says "even 
> the crackpot flat-Earthers deserve airtime".
>
> If a vastly wealthy lobby (which incidentally includes big 
> advertisers) needed to give airtime to the flat-earth theory, you can 
> be sure that they would construct a campaign which would target 
> publishers ("We just want to ensure that the public receives both 
> sides of the story, and remember that we are big advertisers") as well 
> as individual journalists. And we would start seeing stories talking 
> up the "other side of the argument".
>
> If you wanted to see where the money is, one good way is to look at 
> where kooks are treated seriously in the media. Creation science and 
> intelligent design gets a run in America because it is backed by 
> money. Climate change denial is driven everywhere by large dollars 
> (and undisclosed conflicts; a column last week by someone associated 
> with the Institute of Public Affairs quoted a criticism of the Stern 
> Review without disclosing that it was part-authored by one IPA member, 
> and part-funded by Exxon). Other examples will occur to others ...
>
> The "balance equals fair equals true" game played by the lobbies also 
> feeds into another journalist characteristic: "he said" journalism is 
> a really quick and easy meal, and the journalist gets to say: "What I 
> wrote is true: he did say it. I'm not responsible if he's a lying 
> shill. And anyway I had to get his opinion because the editor said the 
> story has to be balanced."
>
> The journalist gets a salve to the conscience, the shill is working 
> for an institute which only incidentally gets big donations from 
> advertisers like motor companies, oil companies and coal companies, 
> and the manipulation of the press by advertisers is done at arms' 
> length. And everybody's happy, except that the punters are given bad 
> science as being equally as important as good science.
>
> Richard Chirgwin
>
>>
>> The global warming v climate change language is a Bush White House 
>> thing. I heard somewhere that the US administration always changes it 
>> to 'climate change' because 'global warming' was seen to be too 
>> alarming. Change is thought to be a neutral word.
>>
>> Jan
>>
>>
>> Jan Whitaker
>> JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria
>> jwhit at janwhitaker.com
>> business: http://www.janwhitaker.com
>> personal: http://www.janwhitaker.com/personal/
>> commentary: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/
>>
>> 'Seed planting is often the most important step. Without the seed, 
>> there is no plant.' - JW, April 2005
>> _ __________________ _
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