MEDIA & DEMOCRACY – Today, The Conversation launches a week-long series, looking at how the media influences the way our representatives develop policy. To kick off, Stephan Lewandowsky asks how media misreporting undermines a functioning democracy.
It is a truism that a functioning democracy relies on independent and strong media that hold the powerful to account.
A tacit, and often overlooked, presumption underlying this principle is that the media pursue their role in an ethical and impartial manner.
If the media themselves abandon ethical standards and replace robust and truthful reporting with spin and the pursuit of an agenda, a crucial element of a functioning democracy has been lost.
In fact, without vigorous competition and meaningful legal checks, there is no reason why a privately-owned media conglomerate could not create an Orwellian environment that deceives politicians and large segments of the public alike.
Anyone inclined to doubt this should consider recent events in the UK involving the Murdoch media.
The behaviour exhibited by some Murdoch ink slingers, who by an act of grand self-delusion have labelled themselves “journalists”, beggars belief.
To hack into the phone of a missing school child, thus interfering with a police inquiry while arousing false hope in parents desperate for a sign of life from their daughter, surely must be considered an act of moral depravity.
Public revulsion at those actions has put an end to the docility with which British politicians have hitherto served the Murdoch press. As the multiple investigations proceed, more and more dubious practices have come to light — the “double agents” that worked for Murdoch from within Scotland Yard, for example — that even an imaginative novelist would not have invented for fear of seeming over the top.
It’s an Orwellian nightmare.
In Australia, News Limited figures have been quick to distance themselves from events in the UK, assuring us that such behaviour was limited to rogue elements among the British tabloids, and proclaiming that Australian outlets are serving the public with high ethical standards.
Some politicians appear to have been unimpressed by those protestations, and calls for an inquiry into the Australian media are refusing to go away.
Many Australian scientists have also remained unimpressed by the protestations not only of News Limited figures, but also by the media coverage of scientific matters by many Australian outlets, from the ABC to Fairfax to News Limited (the latter differing from the former two in a step function of accuracy).
Simply put, the Australian media have failed the public by creating a phoney debate about climate science that is largely absent from the peer-reviewed literature, where real scientific debates take place.
Over the next several days, a series of articles in The Conversation will shine an inquisitive light onto specific instances of misrepresentation, distortion, or spin by the Australian media as they relate to climate change.
There is an urgent need to analyse the media’s systemic failures, not just because a democracy can only function when the media play their role ethically and truthfully, but also because misrepresentations, once published, have lasting cognitive consequences.
Much research on how people update their memories shows that, well, it shows that people do not update their memories.
If people are told that Joe Blogs is a suspect in a jewellery theft, then a subsequent retraction — “Joe is no longer a suspect” — will often remain ineffective. Although people will recall the correction, their behaviour in response to inference questions reveals continued reliance on the false initial information. People will still nominate Joe when asked whom the police should interview in connection with the theft.
Misinformation sticks in people’s memories, even when they acknowledge a correction, and even when they earnestly seek to discard a memory they know to be false.
The potentially tragic implications of this human cognitive limitation are obvious in a judiciary setting.
Research conducted with “mock” jurors in an experimental setting typically reveals that although jurors state that they have obeyed the judge’s instruction to disregard compromised evidence, the jurors' behaviour — as revealed by them rendering guilty verdicts — remains largely unaffected by corrections.
Lest one think that those are “just findings from laboratory experiments,” it must be noted that a substantial proportion of the American public (between 20% and 30%) continued to believe that Weapons of Mass Destruction had been found in Iraq after the 2003 invasion, notwithstanding the fact that the search had remained futile. (And notwithstanding the fact that the absence of WMD’s eventually became official U.S. policy with bipartisan support.)
Of course, media coverage of the search for WMDs was characterised by literally hundreds of reports in which “preliminary tests” indicated the presence of chemical weapons, all of which then turned out to have been false alarms. (And to give the media credit, they were also reported.)
Clearly, it matters a great deal if reports in the media turn out to be false.
Even if corrected, misinformation tends to stick around in people’s minds.
Worse yet, there is some evidence that under certain circumstances, a correction may inadvertently reinforce the original, false information in people’s minds. For example, research by Professor Norbert Schwarz has shown that health-relevant information, when presented in the popular “myth vs. fact” format, can sometimes reinforce the myth, rather than replace it with the fact.
Clearly, it matters a great deal if the media misreport an issue, even if they issue a correction or apology.
When it comes to climate change, an issue of such global significance, failing to report the facts could thus have enormous repercussions, even if corrections are later issued.
Fortunately, there are some ways by which people can be encouraged to discount misinformation: I will consider those in a few days, after we analyse some specific instances of media spin.
This is the first part of our Media and Democracy series. To read the other instalments, follow the links here:.
Part One: Selling climate uncertainty: misinformation in the media
Part Two: Forget the fantasy politics – advertising is no substitute for debate
Part Three: Democracy is dead, long live political marketing
Part Four: Selling the political message: what makes a good advert?
Part Five: Drowning out the truth about the Great Barrier Reef
Part Six: Event Horizon: the black hole in The Australian’s climate change coverage
Part Seven: Spinning it: the power and influence of the government advisor
Part Eight: Cops, robbers and shock jocks: the media and criminal justice policy
Part Nine: Bad tidings: reporting on sea level rise in Australia is all washed up
Part Ten: Big money politics: why we need third party regulation
Part Eleven: Power imbalance: why we don’t need more third party regulation
Part Twelve: Scientists vs farmers? How the media threw the climate ‘debate’ off balance
Part Thirteen: Warning: Your journalism may contain deception, inaccuracies and a hidden agenda
Part Fourteen: The hidden media powers that undermine democracy
This article is about the media’s representation of climate change – we’d love to hear your opinions on that topic. If you would rather discuss the existence of climate change, there are many other articles on the site covering that issue: please take your comments to one of those discussions.
The Conversation
Comments (106)
Comments on this article are now closed.
Michael J. I. Brown
(ARC Future Fellow and Senior Lecturer at Monash University)
A startling example of The Australian misrepresenting science is its reporting of Phil Watson's study of tidal gauge records. This was discussed on the ABC's Media Watch (http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3282940.htm) and on The Conversation (http://theconversation.edu.au/sea-levels-continue-to-rise-but-not-uniformly-csiro-2478).
Michael J. I. Brown
(ARC Future Fellow and Senior Lecturer at Monash University)
While some believe The Australian correctly reported on the Watson paper, this is not the opinion of Phil Watson himself.
This is highlighted by the following letter from the NSW Office of Heritage and Environment (from http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/media/DecMedia11072205.htm);
I refer to today's article titled, Sea-level rises slowing: tidal records.
Your article has misrepresented our Mr Phil Watson's research paper by saying that "global warming is not affecting sea levels". This is untrue…
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John Nicol
(logged in via Facebook)
Do you really find it approriate to argue a scientific case against the reporting by the Australian by referring to a letter from the NSW Depatment of Enviornment and Heritage, even if they do allow their own interpretations to be "reflected in NSW policies" This hardly qualifies as a "scientific finding that the acceleration of sea level rise has fallen" which is what Watson found and what the paper reported. The statement by the paper I believe, did add its own lines in mentioning correctly that the result appeared to contradict the projections of accelerated rises i.e. an increased rate of rise, as presented by the IPCC. John Nicol jonicol18@bigpond.com
Michael J. I. Brown
(ARC Future Fellow and Senior Lecturer at Monash University)
Rather than arguing the merits of the science of the Watson paper (which is discussed by others in this forum), I am merely highlighting the fact that both Phil Watson and the department he works for clearly believe that The Australian distorted the findings of the Watson paper.
John Nicol
(logged in via Facebook)
Dear Michael,
It is intersting that you should choose to criticise the Australian for reporting the results of a peer reviewed paper by Phil Watson showing that the RATE of sea level rise has decreased - the sea level has not decreased but the rate of change is smaller. As Watson points out, it is still rising, but just not so fast as before, as was reported quite correctly in the Australian and quite wrongly criticised by Media Watch.
Recently published work by NASA, from satellite measurements…
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Derek Bolton
Retired s/w engineer (logged in via email @gmail.com)
I would accept that The Australian's spin on Watson's paper was only a minor exaggeration, in the scheme of things. Watson's "a weak deceleration from 1940 to 2000" became "Sea-level rises are slowing". A 2000 end-date becomes, by the use of the present tense, now. For lack of any other long-term data in the area, Watson only looked at four gauges, but in The Aus this becomes a sound basis for a general pronouncement.
But more egregious was quoting Brady as "a climate change researcher at Macquarie University". This is at least a failure to check facts.
[Fwiw, some of the blame for this debacle should be laid at Watson's door. The data he used show a marked difference between the East coast and West coast Australian sites. After subtracting out the 100 year linear trends, the yearly deviations are negatively correlated between the two. This casts serious doubt on the adequacy of the data for any such conclusion.]
John Nicol
(logged in via Facebook)
Wait on Derek, The difference between gauges is a certainty. Particularly between East and West coasts with diurnal lag and many other factors to be adjusted for. What Watson did was to carry out an analysis based on all of that information which had been collected as accurately as possible over 100 years. The persons who read his paper were satisfied it was a genuine piece of scientific work.
In order for you or anyone else to question the integrity of the findings taken from an enormous…
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Derek Bolton
Retired s/w engineer (logged in via email @gmail.com)
I read Watson's paper at the time and found it very surprising that it included no statistical confidence analysis. That is, he provided no evidence that the deceleration observed was anything other than noise.
It seems I am not alone in considering Watson's conclusions unsubstantiated; see http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/1125_hunter.pdf, from which I quote "while Watson has enough data to estimate the trend, the validity of any estimated acceleration is open to question"
I don't understand…
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Doug Evans
Now that I'm in the mood. On the subject of debating folk like Hendrickx and Nicol there is an excellent post by Dave Roberts on Climate Progress 'What’s the Best Strategy for Dealing with Deniers?':
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/08/13/271676/whats-the-best-strategy-for-dealing-with-deniers/
The context is the USA but there are plenty of resonances.
John Nicol
(logged in via Facebook)
Michael, do you accept that the Chinese with their modern new power stations which in some cases have replaced less efficient dirty stations, are putting out a higher ratio of sulphur etc to CO2 than is the case for the average power plant around the world. The authors are writing pure speculation without any evidence whatsoever that there is any increase in particulate matter.
John Nicol
John Nicol
(logged in via Facebook)
That seem to be the main aim of people arguing for AGW. They immediately find some tearaway characteristic with which to tar and feather the "sceptics" or "deniers" As Mark says, what gives you the right to refer to our comments as those of a denier. In none of the above posts, has anyone supporting the IPCC case provided one single reference which supports their case for the role of carbon dioxide as being the cause of climate change. It is in the court of you and the IPCC to provide this evidence…
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Sherry Mayo
(logged in via Facebook)
I can see why people to the right of the political spectrum are tempted by climate skepticism - as they find the typical climate policy prescriptions rather unpalatable. However this is ultimately going to be a self-defeating tactic as climate change becomes increasingly obvious. It would be much more productive for those on the right to focus on the policy arena and come up with a climate policy that they can live with.
The Heartland institute is fond of promoting climate skepticism but at their recent climate skeptic conference they did allow one 'regular' climate scientist a slot as the token dissenter. What he said was very interesting and I think those whose politics lean to the right and who are tempted to adopt a climate skeptic position should check it out:
http://www.viddler.com/explore/heartland/videos/369/
Mark Matthews
General Manager (logged in via email @gmail.com)
@Sherry...
Because, if we accept that we are polluting the environment with carbon, then we must also accept that we need to regulate polluting industries.
And we know how much the right loves interference into the market don't we.
We have seen the same response to the science behind ozone depletion, second hand smoke, acid rain and even (yes Marc Hendrickx) asbestos.
Interestingly though, today the Vic liberals proposed further regulation into wind farms, but seem to have trouble with any regulation of coal power generation. Go figure ...
Marc Hendrickx
(Geologist)
Michael,
Perhaps you would care to clarify your comments on asbestos. My MPhil thesis dealt with the health implications of natural occurrences of asbestos in eastern and south Australia. It is an issue largely overlooked by health authorities at present. The loss of important medical records by the Federal government meant I was unable to complete the project as planned.
see...http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/missing-records-a-loss-to-asbestos-research/2008/05/04/1209839456304.html
Mark Matthews
General Manager (logged in via email @gmail.com)
No doubt we all feel frustrated with governments when they disregard scientific evidence put forward by experts. No doubt we all want the government to improve their funding into scientific research that contributes knowledge to the public interest.
My comment (assuming that your reply was meant for me (Mark not Michael)) relates to the disappointment so many of us feel when governments refuse to act in a timely fashion on issues that affect the environment and public health.
Toby James
retired physicist (logged in via email @yahoo.com)
There are several references to the 2007 report of the IPCC (AR4) in this thread, in which some contributors seemingly place considerable trust. However, some newspapers and other media have somewhat of a problem with extracting credible information to write about from that report.
The UN and its IPCC Chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, are strong in their emphasis on the reliability and robustness of their AR4 report.
For example: "The IPCC doesn't do any research itself. We only develop our assessments…
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Michael J. I. Brown
(ARC Future Fellow and Senior Lecturer at Monash University)
Climate denialists (including some media commentators) often highlight the Himalayan glacier error in the IPCC report, which is remarkable given the report is supposed to be littered with errors.
The significant errors in the IPCC reports are discussed in http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/02/ipcc-errors-facts-and-spin/ and the IPCC reports also come with errata.
Toby James should reference the page and section number of the IPCC report that claims 50 to 200 million refugees resulting from sea level rise by 2010. I believe this claim is from the blogsphere rather than IPCC AR4.
Toby James
retired physicist (logged in via email @yahoo.com)
The sea level 50+ million refugees by 2010 actually comes from higher up the climate chain: http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2008/ga10725.doc.htm
Its really the grey references, all mixed in with the rest that undermine the credibility of AR4
Michael J. I. Brown
(ARC Future Fellow and Senior Lecturer at Monash University)
Toby James' last post has two major flaws. It relies upon guilt by association and it relies upon misinterpretation.
Toby James cannot find the supposed error in the IPCC AR4, but says IPCC AR4 is wrong anyway because of a press release (from a different part of the UN).
The 50 to 200 million number is for the broad category of "environmental refugees" and not exclusively refugees from sea level rise. Environmental refugees result from a number of causes. For example, environmental refugees include farmers who must leave their land because of changes in climate.
John Nicol
(logged in via Facebook)
Dear Michael,
While the discussion has departed a bit from the original, I am still waiting for you to provide me with one or perhaps two papers which show definitively that carbon dioxide increases will be reponsible for increased global temperatures. I don't mean Arrhenius paper where he presented his hypothesis, nor Fourier, Tyndalll, or Callendar, or Kiehl and Trenberth. I mean a real paper that discusses the behaviour of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and tells us accurately and completely, just what it does that has caused all this angst. Theoretical or experimental would suit. Thanking you in anticipation. John Nicol jonicol18@bigpond.com
Derek Bolton
Retired s/w engineer (logged in via email @gmail.com)
This is not a criminal trial. That anthropogenic CO2 will likely lead to very expensive climate change over the next century or so does not need to be proven beyond reasonable doubt. Even a 50% chance would be plenty of reason to act. So "definitive" evidence cannot be demanded of one side of the debate only.
Anyway, as you say, this is way off the original topic. Moderator?
Andy Casely
Environmental Consultant (logged in via email @hotmail.com)
John Nicol - you seem to want, in a single paper, the entire theory and verification of climate. You also want it while excluding many of the key pioneers. It's like asking for key papers on relativity while excluding the works of Einstein.
You could read Spencer Weart's chapter on the carbon dioxide greenhouse effect in his "Discovery of Global Warming", which is complete with many dozens of references to the original papers.
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm
Richard Alley's presentation…
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John Nicol
(logged in via Facebook)
G'Day Andy (Casedy), Yes I have read Spencer Weart's article(s) and have carried on some intersting correspondence with him. However, we did not discuss the more interesting and complete theory nor experimental evidence which describes the behaviour of carbon dioxide in the atmospheric gases since as Spencer explained, he is a science historian for the APS and not a practicing scientist, so does not really understand the science to a high enough level. This analysis includes the effects of convection…
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Andy Casely
Environmental Consultant (logged in via email @hotmail.com)
*citations required. John, claims made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Nice try, but clearly you're intent on ignoring the work of Tyndall, Arrhenius, Callender, Plass, Broecker, Schneider, Ramanthan, Hansen, [and the many others] or all the direct observational work, detection and attribution studies, or studies of the physical properties of the atmosphere. In fact it seems you'd like to ignore the work of any scientist that shows the effectiveness of CO2 at trapping longwave…
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John Nicol
(logged in via Facebook)
Sorry Doug, but I am more interested in discussing the Australian papers themselves, rather than what a third party may or may not have said about them.
John Nicol
jonicol18@bigpond.com
Marc Hendrickx
(Geologist)
Your first mistake is to assume that we are "deniers". What pray tell are we guilty of denying?
Doug Evans
For anyone with a strong stomach and an interest in the misinformation that the Australian peddles on climate change Tim Lambert's long term project on Deltoid blog 'The Australian's War on Science is a must http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/the_war_on_science/index.php?page=9
Marc Hendrickx
(Geologist)
For anyone interested in the manner in which ABC have misrepresented climate science, refer to ABC NEWS WATCH, the missing news section is particularly revealing.
http://abcnewswatch.blogspot.com/p/missing-news.html
David Howard
Home Duties (logged in via email @optusnet.com.au)
Media regularly report observations of economic data and this reporting is uncontroversial, for example, the rate of inflation or unemployment. They may well then enrich this with input from commentators or economists.
Reporting on climate does not take this path, it is more likely to be a jigsaw puzzle of reports. One month you might get a report of changes in the arctic and a month later a report on a reef in the middle of the pacific. These reports are then enriched with comments from politicians.
Perhaps it is time for media to publish monthly figures from Hadley or AVISO.
Toby James
retired physicist (logged in via email @yahoo.com)
David Howard "Perhaps it is time for media to publish monthly figures from Hadley or AVISO"
The media already do. Anyone can keep up with daily - monthly - annual data on heaps of different weather and climate variables, direct from the sources who collect them.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/
Giles Pickford
Retired, Wollongong (logged in via email @bigpond.com)
The most subtle influence that a malignant media can wield is by NOT reporting the truth.
Climate Change, Peak Oil, Food shortages and War are all caused by one thing. There are too many people in the world.
However the Murdoch media especially carry many opinion pieces to the effect that there are not enough.
Giles Pickford
Marc Hendrickx
(Geologist)
The ABC particularly culpable in regard to misinforming the public. They really should dump their activist reporters and hire some with integrity...
Bias at the national broadcaster is as easy as ABC
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/bias-at-the-netional-broadcaster-is-as-easy-as-abc/story-fn59niix-1226009060141
Aunty is mistaken but not malicious
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/aunty-is-mistaken-but-not-malicious/story-e6frg6zo-1225921441996
Nick Kermode
(logged in via email @hotmail.com)
I find it quite funny and ironic Marc Hendrickx making accusations of bias, then linking to op ed pieces by.....wow, Marc Hendrickx as proof. His other posts in this thread suggest he is against bias, of course at the same time as vehemently only presenting one side of the debate himself, which seems not unusual.
Marc Hendrickx
(Geologist)
Can't "see" without a "saw"
Mark Matthews
General Manager (logged in via email @gmail.com)
When you state that the ABC are biased, who are you comparing them too? Who in the media are you holding up as a bastion of fair and balanced reporting? Is this across all topics, because you seem particularly focused on climate change on your blog (ABCNewswatch). Perhaps you should rename your blog to ABCClimateChangeReportingWatch
Marc Hendrickx
(Geologist)
I don't have a position Michael, I'm just interested in seeing the full story covered, not just one side. While peer reviewed papers continue to be published in well respected scientific journals that go against the alarmist case, there remains a legitimate argument to make that this "climate crisis" has been exaggerated by the IPCC, and inflated by those with a limited grip on reality. This argument deserves to be reporting upon.
The Australian's coverage on CC, far surpasses anything put out by…
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Sherry Mayo
(logged in via Facebook)
The Australian's reporting on climate change is consistently appalling and driven by a partisan political agenda. For a scientists point of view it is pretty alarming to see science being skewed in this way. I am surprised to see you defend it.
The IPCC reports attempt to synthesize all the science on the topic and are put together by scientists. They are probably the best starting point to get an overall impression of the state of the science. The only problem is that IPCC 2007 is a bit out of date now and we have to wait until 2012 (I think) for the next one.
John Nicol
(logged in via Facebook)
Sherry,
I would be very interested in reading some examples of "The Australian's reporting on climate change is consistently appalling and driven by a partisan political agenda. For a scientists point of view it is pretty alarming to see science being skewed in this way"
I don't think this statement, which is easy to write down, means anything in terms ofproving the case being made that the Australian is biased.
John Nicol jonicol18@bigpond.com
Marc Hendrickx
(Geologist)
Sherry, some examples of what you claim would be good, else all you have is idle speculation.
Mike Hansen
Mr (logged in via email @gmail.com)
Start with Tim Lambert's blog
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2011/08/the_australians_war_on_science_71.php
and work backwards through the other 70 examples
Marc Hendrickx
(Geologist)
I have done similar with the ABC. Seems the MSM is not the place for deadly accuracy in science reporting. No surprise.
John Nicol
(logged in via Facebook)
Marc Hendrickx,
I am not sure what you and I are doing wong here, but we seem to have accumulated a negative rating, and while I hate to emphasize this, you, on -4, are doing (much) worse than I am on -2! Oh No. I looked below and find that you have gone up to -3 and I am on -5. Michael and some others are +5. Oh my God!
John Nicol
Marc Hendrickx
(Geologist)
John,
Groupthink alive and well! I guess the audience here are more inclined to vote on personalities and favourites rather than consider the ideas being put forward. Of course any idea that goes against any part of the flow must be heresy and treated accordingly.
Just consider yourself lucky its just a few lowly electrons being thrown our way and not something more substantial.
Mark Matthews
General Manager (logged in via email @gmail.com)
There's a rich irony Marc in your appeal to solidarity with John whilst criticising groupthink don't you think?
Marc Hendrickx
(Geologist)
Hard to hear above the cacophony Mark, but I think I heard an apology or some form of explanation for your misrepresentation of my work on natural occurrences of asbestos that appears below. Perhaps you can repeat it so we all can hear.
Marc Hendrickx
(Geologist)
ABC belatedly provide an article on the CERN results! Seems someone is taking notice.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2011/08/29/3304715.htm
Michael J. I. Brown
(ARC Future Fellow and Senior Lecturer at Monash University)
A delay of less than a week isn't too shabby for an international science story.
There are many cautions regarding the CERN results, some of which are discussed in a Nature commentary "Cloud formation may be linked to cosmic rays" by Geoff Brumfiel. This commentary is behind the Nature paywall but I am sure copies of it can be found online.
Kirkby, the lead author of the paper notes "At the moment, it actually says nothing about a possible cosmic-ray effect on clouds and climate, but it's a very important first step".
Michael J. I. Brown
(ARC Future Fellow and Senior Lecturer at Monash University)
Given The Australian's track record on reporting climate change and Marc Hendrickx position on this topic, perhaps readers will be sceptical of Marc's articles and their conclusions.
With regards to national broadcasters and science reporting, there was a recent review on BBC science reporting. This was discussed on The Conversation and the recommendations of that report could well be applicable to large sections of the Australian media. The recommendations are;
1. An at times “over-rigid” (as…
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John Nicol
(logged in via Facebook)
How does a news paper watch dog define "marginal opinion" in a correct scientific context. Time was when Einstein, Bohr and Heisenberg, Enrico Fermi as well as many others would have been regarded as being on the margins. John Nicol jonicol18@bigpond.com
Michael J. I. Brown
(ARC Future Fellow and Senior Lecturer at Monash University)
John Nicol provides an illustration of a tactic that appears again and again in the climate debate - the implication that those denying climate change are on par with those scientists who have caused great paradigm shifts in science. He does not provide evidence nor references for these scientists being viewed as "marginal opinion" by their colleagues.
Interestingly, several of the physicists mentioned in John Nicol's post were held in great esteem by their scientific colleagues but fled political persecution. Perhaps this is more relevant to the current debate.
John Nicol
(logged in via Facebook)
Michael, My reference to these scientists does not refer to their flight from Germany but their positions in regard to accepted science in the period between 1900 and 1930 when they were doing their greatest work on relativity and quantum theory. They wer for sure, held in the highest regard, but not everyone agreed with their theories. Einstein debated Heisenberg's uncertainty principle until he died. As in other universities, the head of the Clarendon Laboratory at Oxford, one of the worlds…
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Michael J. I. Brown
(ARC Future Fellow and Senior Lecturer at Monash University)
So lets go back to the original discussion of the weight given to "marginal opinion" in the media.
As can be seen from the above discussion, the great physicists mentioned in John Nicol's early post were not considered "marginal opinion" within science. Their work was lauded relatively soon after it publication. Like all good theory and experiment, the results are debated, discussed and tested for decades afterwards. Some notable recalcitrants refuse to accept the overwhelming evidence for the new…
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Mike Hansen
Mr (logged in via email @gmail.com)
Hence the quote from quantum physics pioneer Max Planck talking about the "emeritus" professors of his day.
"An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents; it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that it opponents gradually die out and that the growing generation is familiarized with the idea from the beginning"
The Philosophy of Physics, 1936, Max Planck (1858 - 1947)
Tim Lambert
(Program Director, Computer Science at University of New South Wales)
Hendrickx's claim of ABC in the link he posted above reminds of the story of the man who kills his parents and then pleads for mercy because he's an orphan. Details here:
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2011/03/the_australians_war_on_science_62.php
John Nicol
(logged in via Facebook)
Tim Lambert,
"reminds of the story of the man who kills his parents and then pleads for mercy because he's an orphan"
Tim, this does not seem to me to be a very pleasant or conversational remark It is also fairly unbecoming for a person who claims to be employed by one of our seats of higher learning, even if is in IT.
John Nicol jonicol18@bigpond.com
Marc Hendrickx
(Geologist)
Tim's argument reminds one of Monty Python's black knight, as played by Jabba the Hut. ABC posted a comment to its environment blog that defamed Steve McIntyre. I requested the comment be removed. In its defense ABC's environment reporter further defamed McIntyre. ABC finally removed the comment when McIntyre requested it be removed.
Tim somehow finds holding the ABC to account a waste of tax payers money and condone's ABC's deceitful practice. With respect to rational debate on climate change it seems Tim doesn't have a leg to stand on.
John Nicol
(logged in via Facebook)
I note that my earlier reply to Michael Brown has been removed and I note the editors comment regarding the topic being on the "bias in reporting climate change" and on what arguments should be put aside as being irrelvant because there is only a small numbr of persons on that side and the references to "misinformation" implying this is coming from the skeptical side of the debate. That is fine.
But reference to the "phoney dabte" is a direct assault on sceptical scientists as in "Australian media…
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Michael J. I. Brown
(ARC Future Fellow and Senior Lecturer at Monash University)
John Nicol should read my original comment more carefully. It discusses The Australian's coverage of the Watson paper, rather than just introducing an argument about rising sea levels.
Misrepresenting the facts appears to be all too common in the current debate (even in the space of a single discussion thread). This highlights why the vast majority of scientists see this as a phoney scientific debate (albeit a real political debate).
John Nicol
(logged in via Facebook)
Thanks for your response Michael. Yes I have read the Australian article and would appreciate your giving me evidence from that article which suppots your contention that what they said was wrong. To make it easy I have slottd the article in below, chancing my arm with the kindly Editor.
"ONE of Australia's foremost experts on the relationship between climate change and sea levels has written a peer-reviewed paper concluding that rises in sea levels are "decelerating".
The analysis, by NSW principal…
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Michael J. I. Brown
(ARC Future Fellow and Senior Lecturer at Monash University)
I don't have the time to deal with all the errors, so I will just deal with an easy illustrative example...
"But scientific projections, led by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, have suggested climate change will deliver a much greater global tide rise in mean sea level this century of 80-100cm."
If one goes to Table 3.1 of the IPCC AR4 Synthesis Report one finds estimates between 18 and 59 cm.
Since the IPCC AR4 Synthesis Report is readily available online, it would have been easy for The Australian to do some fact checking before publishing the article. Alternately, perhaps Dr Howard Brady, "climate change researcher", could have caught this error.
John Nicol
(logged in via Facebook)
Michael,
I am very familiar with the IPCC reports which require an extraordinary amount of work to extract a clear vision of what they are saying in that most of the discussion is on the gross errors in their many different estimates which range from about +-1.2 mm/yr to +-2.2 mm/yr - note these are errors not rates of rise. They invariably project accelerated rises and the estimates do in fact range to about a metre with different probabilities and dependence on whether tis amount of ice melts…
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Michael J. I. Brown
(ARC Future Fellow and Senior Lecturer at Monash University)
John Nicol's post does not make the problems with The Australian's interpretation of the IPCC sea level rise projections go away.
As illustrated by the site linked from John Nicol's post, many of the projections are far less than the one metre value quoted by The Australian.
John Nicol
(logged in via Facebook)
This hardly makes the report in the Australian wrong and if you look at the diagram you will see that theyalso allow for a much higher rise. I fone is to apply the precautionary principle, hich is wat the IPCC and others urge us to do wrt carbon tax - even though, if Australia stoppe emitting all carbon dioxide tomorrow, the maximum effect on temperature according to IPCC would be at most 0.02 C - and for no emissions and all that pain, the country side littered with unsightly windmill farm!
John Nicol
jonicol18@bigpond.com
Michael J. I. Brown
(ARC Future Fellow and Senior Lecturer at Monash University)
The alleged discrepancy between Watson's work and the IPCC's estimates of sea level rise was quite central to The Australian article. Consequently, the misreporting of the IPCC's estimates of sea level rise is a major flaw in The Australian's reporting of Watson's paper.
Marc Hendrickx
(Geologist)
Here'a an example of how the facts are being misrepresented...
Climate Commissioner Tim Flannery (who has not published any peer reviewed papers on climate change), recently stated:
Prof Flannery said while climate change would be a significant issue for the region over the next century, its effects were being felt in other parts of the country today.
“There are islands in the Torres Strait that are already being evacuated and are feeling the impacts."
http://manly-daily.whereilive.com.au/news/story/tims-grim-sea-warning/
There are in fact no islands in the Torres Strait that are being evacuated. A falsehood from the climate commissioner, that slipped under the ABC's news radar.
Marc Hendrickx
(Geologist)
Note to editor,
Can you please restore John Nicol's reply.
John Nicol
(logged in via Facebook)
Stephan,
I note your comment " the Australian media have failed the public by creating a phoney debate about climate science that is largely absent from the peer-reviewed literature, where real scientific debates take place." Which indicates that you know very little about science and the inner the workings of science. I wonder if you are the right person to be writing on this topic of bias in the media. In fact, as mentioned in another comment above, the prime culprit in all of this is the…
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Guido Tresoldi
(logged in via Twitter)
I think is very noble for The Conversation to discuss issues like these. However unfortunately it seems that many punters have made their decision and no reasonable arguments will sway them away from the anti-climate change stance fuelled by the tabloid media.
James Vicars
(logged in via LinkedIn)
Stephan's argument is spot on: the media have indeed failed the public by creating a phoney debate about climate science. With the threats posed by climate change beaten down to more conservative ones than may be warranted, it may have even failed humanity.
The difficulty is seeing that climate change is beyond being an 'issue'. It is perhaps a unique challenge to the vast and technologically-advanced human society which now exists, because it requires not only trust in science but concerted action beyond partisan interests. Yes, a big ask - perhaps even beyond our capability. But not our vision. This is where the media could play a vital role, and its failure could lead to disaster for ourselves as a species. This is the responsibility all mass media and especially media owners must face up to.
Doug Evans
John Nicol commented:
"Sherry, I would be very interested in reading some examples of "The Australian's reporting on climate change is consistently appalling and driven by a partisan political agenda. For a scientists point of view it is pretty alarming to see science being skewed in this way" I don't think this statement, which is easy to write down, means anything in terms of proving the case being made that the Australian is biased.
Well I'll presume to speak for Sherry. Of course John Nicol…
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James Vicars
(logged in via LinkedIn)
Quite a rogues' gallery, Doug. I could think of instances relatively easily too. And the most pernicious part is how it's done: the relentless misreprentation, trivialisation and ridicule occurs near the front of the paper and by the use of the denigrating or tangential headline (a 'brutal weapon' used against the Federal Government almost daily) particularly when obliged to report something antithetical to its view. By preference, contrary views or data are more frequently 'buried'; though it might ensure these are reported, the paper's treatment of them shows its contempt. I seem to remember one major climate science story making it to the front page only to be dwarfed by a large photo and comment by a Bondi regular that HE hadn't noticed any climate change in 30 years.
Ken Fabian
Mr (logged in via email @westnet.com.au)
As ships line up for the Northwest Passage, as ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica accelerates, after the warmest decade on record, ending with the warmest year on record with an abundance of exceptional extreme weather events... the conviction that climate science is wrong - either outright or by being overstated - is well entrenched.
The 'best' arguments against usually involve excising a selected piece of a single graph (oddly CRU graphs are most often used because they leave out the Arctic…
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Toby James
retired physicist (logged in via email @yahoo.com)
Ken, where did you get the: "... abundance of exceptional extreme weather events... "? I thought the opposite was the case.
Recent historically low global tropical cyclone activity http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2011GL047711
Ken Fabian
Mr (logged in via email @westnet.com.au)
Try again -
http://www.skepticalscience.com/2010-2011-Earths-most-extreme-weather-since-1816.html
Toby James
retired physicist (logged in via email @yahoo.com)
Ken, That's a link to a climate spin blog. The link above is to the facts.
Michael, the " significant ongoing discussion" is just might, perhaps and maybe. And that's so often what the media pick up; they are looking for stories that sell papers - they and all the commercial media are there to make money and if that means making the news, then that's what they will do.
The fact that in the past 5-years global tropical cyclone activity has decreased markedly, will never make the headlines. And those who get their 'facts on the climate' from front page headlines and activist blogs live in a parallel universe.
Ken Fabian
Mr (logged in via email @westnet.com.au)
Are you implying the extensive list of extreme record breaking weather events didn't occur in 2010 because you don't like the source I linked to? Why the focus on numbers of cyclones - and not their intensity - whilst passing over and ignoring the abundance of real world indicators of ongoing climate change? I suggest the focus on a single aspect that climate science is openly uncertain about simply distracts from the abundance of other areas where high levels of confidence are well established…
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Andy Casely
Environmental Consultant (logged in via email @hotmail.com)
John Nicol: it's an interesting 'cooling phase' we've entered, when one of your claimed datasets shows last year to have been the hottest on record:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/
So we've been cooling since, er, 2011?
Could you point us to a global temperature dataset (HADCRUT is not quite global, but you can try there), where over a sufficient period of time to identify signal from noise (about 15-20 years in temperature time series), global temperature has been cooling? Also show…
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John Nicol
(logged in via Facebook)
Ken,
While you did not indicate for whom your response above was intended, I believe it may have been my comment above. No I didn't criticise your stament because of the source, although the source does not actually have anything to say about carbon dioxide's role - it only looks at evidence for Global Warming. I am not denying that the earth warmed but at Skeptical Science they generally go against the NASA, GISS and HADCRUT publications which show clearly that at present we are in a cooling phase…
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Ken Fabian
Mr (logged in via email @westnet.com.au)
I was replying to Toby, but you illustrate quite well the lack of intellectual rigour by staunch opponents of manmade CO2 having a crucial role in our climate as they attempt to make evidence for a warming world appear doubtful -
Choosing a measure/indicator that naturally has ups and downs in it. Like global average surface temperatures.
Selecting within the above for a too short period with more downs than ups to highlight your belief that we are in a period of cooling - a bit like insisting…
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Michael J. I. Brown
(ARC Future Fellow and Senior Lecturer at Monash University)
There is significant ongoing discussion of the impact of climate change on cyclones and hurricanes.
It has been widely reported that the intensity of cyclones and hurricanes may increase (i.e., higher wind speeds) but their total number per year may decrease. However, this is a topic of ongoing research and many disagree with this conclusion.
An example of recent reporting on this issue is http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/28/us/28climate.html
John Nicol
(logged in via Facebook)
Yes Michael, There is indeed a lot of discussion on the effect of warming in changing the frequency and intensity of these weather events, but there is no conclusion as yet and there are many contradictory results being published. This is progressing as the science of waether and climate should with some proper debate. The only beef I have with the system is the closing of debate on CO2 which is also still undefined, but which most if not all climatescientists in the University units and CSIRO refuse to discuss and have shown clearly that they do not have any evidence, just a belief and an assumption John Nicol
Ken Fabian
Mr (logged in via email @westnet.com.au)
I did try and provide a link but it hasn't appeared.
Ken Fabian
Mr (logged in via email @westnet.com.au)
Check out Jeff Masters' article - 2010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816? at Skeptical Science.com
And all this is in spite of a quiet sun, pollution (airborne aerosols/Asian brown cloud) strongly masking the impacts of rising ghg's and 2010 ending on a strong la Nina.
John Nicol
(logged in via Facebook)
Ken,
It is intereting that so many people quote the so-called "extremes" of weather and climate as being the "most....." since the middle ages, the highest since 1816, the worst in 70 years, .... without the sligjtest atempt to recognise that there must be something cyclical in the climate. Unless you can say "This is the.... it has EVER been", then there is nothing "unprecedented" in the climate we are experiencing today. A sensible approach is then to look for the cycles which cause this to happen…
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Derek Bolton
Retired s/w engineer (logged in via email @gmail.com)
Why must there be something cyclical? Doesn't follow at all. There probably are several cyclical influences at any given time. Some might be very hard to detect against the background noise. Some might only exist in specific circumstances, so could last for a few cycles then go away, and return much later.
Lots of scientists have trawled for cycles, with varying degrees of success.
Multivariate analysis (http://yosemite.epa.gov/ee/epa/wpi.nsf/2efc4c5acad95f918525669800666fd7/09a325564570efbb8525754500736096!OpenDocument) shows solar forcing to have contributed 10% of the warming in the last 100 years and nothing discernible in the last 25.
John Nicol
(logged in via Facebook)
The solar "forcing" included in the models ONLY takes account of variations in solar intensity and virtually nothing else. The biggest influence of the sun rests with the solar wind and the "frozen" magnetic fields which it brings with it and shields the earth from cosmic rays. In addition, the gravitational effects of the planetary system cause the earth's orbit to change and for its axis to wobble. You may also note as I said elsewhere in this site, that the highest and lowest changes in the…
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Derek Bolton
Retired s/w engineer (logged in via email @gmail.com)
The extract taken from a National Academy of Sciences article in "You're getting warmer, warmer, no, your climate argument is getting cooler now" (The Australian, July 6) was a classic in the art of selective quotation. The extract posed the recent slowdown in warming as a mystery, thereby conveying the impression that it remains a mystery. The original article's abstract went on to provide an explanation. Here paraphrased for brevity:
"Over the 1998-2008 period, a normal solar decline combined with a flip from El Nino to La Nina and a rise in sulphur emissions. This paper finds that the resulting drop in temperature would have been sufficient to mask the expected warming from greenhouse gases for that 10 years."
Mark Matthews
General Manager (logged in via email @gmail.com)
Of course, never let it be said that News Ltd is not fair and balanced in it's reporting, presenting both sides of a difficult and controversial debate such as the theory of a geocentric universe.
"Those promoting geocentrism argue that heliocentrism, or the centuries-old consensus among scientists that Earth revolves around the sun, is a conspiracy to squelch the church's influence."
from http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/newshome/10134011/Galileo-got-it-wrong-Catholics
I wonder, does the SBC need to present both sides of a scientific debate as if they deserve equal weight
Doug Evans
Not satisfied with the fact that the ABC has already become the platform of choice for the neo-liberal opinion makers he favours Marc Hendrickx seems to want all alternative opinion to his expunged from the public broadcaster. Try http://duggyvans.blogspot.com/2011/08/my-last-post-drew-attention-to-articles.html
or
http://www.independentaustralia.net/2011/business/the-institute-of-public-smokescreens/
James Doogue
(logged in via email @doogue.net)
In reading this article, it was difficult to keep in mind the title “Selling Climate Uncertainty: Misinformation in the media”. It seemed mostly a rant against the Murdoch press.
Lewandowsky states that having a strong and independent media in a functioning democracy relies on the underlying presumption “that the media pursue their role in an ethical and impartial manner”. It also appears ‘The Conversation’ of which Lewandowsky is a founding partner, has a similar presumption in pursuing its role…
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Warwick Brown
Retired (logged in via email @yahoo.com)
The endless attacks on the media for not conforming to the Gatekeepers decision on what is or is not “Fit to Print”, is getting a bit hysterical. I appreciate that everyone must be disturbed and horrified about the UK behaviour of the tabloid press, the Murdoch title being the main focus right now (not forgetting the 30 organisations and 300 journalists exposed in Operation Motorman for getting information from private investigators, let alone what will come out of the new enquiry) but don’t make…
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Marc Hendrickx
(Geologist)
Search ABC news for Steve McIntyre on the ABC and you get the following result:
"Your search - steve mcintyre site:www.abc.net.au/news - did not match any documents."
McIntyre's important work in debunking the Hockey Stick temperature reconstruction has been widely reported on elsewhere. In 2010 he even made the New Statesman's list of the top 50 people who matter. Given the ABC has been living up to its charter that calls for balanced, unbiased reporting, perhaps someone from the ABC can explain this inconsistency? Why is news of Steve missing in action from ABC news?
Michael J. I. Brown
(ARC Future Fellow and Senior Lecturer at Monash University)
The "hockey stick" controversies are an example of how media reporting can distort the public's view of science. Many people believe the "hockey stick" is completely debunked and widely disbelieved within the scientific community. This is not the case.
Interested readers may wish to read the report in brief and summary of the US National Academies report on temperature reconstructions for the last 2,000 years, which is online at http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11676
Marc Hendrickx
(Geologist)
Interested readers might also look at the paper:
A STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF MULTIPLE TEMPERATURE PROXIES: ARE RECONSTRUCTIONS OF SURFACE TEMPERATURES OVER THE LAST 1000 YEARS RELIABLE? BY BLAKELEY B. MCSHANE AND ABRAHAM J. WYNER
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1104/1104.4002v1.pdf
Odd that given the newsworthiness of the hockey stick study ABC did not cover this.
Michael J. I. Brown
(ARC Future Fellow and Senior Lecturer at Monash University)
Marc Hendrickx may be illustrating one of the most common myths that propagates through the media - that a single paper can instantly overturn established science. This myth leads to the confusing array of contradictory science (and particularly medical) stories that appear in the media from week to week.
While a single paper can overturn established science, its results need to be confirmed by independent researchers before this can happen. This is often ignored in media reporting of science.
Given McShane & Wyner only appeared on arXiv in April, it is too early to tell if its results will be confirmed or (like many controversial papers) not.
Marc Hendrickx
(Geologist)
I mentioned this paper for a number of reasons. Firstly it directly deals with the Hockey Stick study confirming the results of McIntyre and McKitrick. Secondly it represents a clear example of selective reporting on climate change by the ABC.
Michael, I completely agree with your assessment on the impact of individual papers. ABC ignore this. You may recall ABC covered the paper by Steig et al on Antarctic temperatures. However they ignored the paper by O'Donnell et al published in the Journal of climate that refuted this work. If you rely on the ABC as a sole source of news you would have missed this.
Steve McIntyre, someone who appears to be persona non grata at the ABC, summaries the work in this on his blog...
http://climateaudit.org/2010/12/02/odonnell-et-al-2010-refutes-steig-et-al-2009/.
Seems the ABC is not as pure as some here believe, and a varied diet of news sources is required to avoid bias from any particular media organisation.
Michael J. I. Brown
(ARC Future Fellow and Senior Lecturer at Monash University)
For better and worse, the media can only provide coverage of a tiny fraction of the scientific papers that are published each year.
For example, every year roughly 10,000 scientific papers are published in astrophysics alone, so only a tiny percentage of these papers (even the significant papers) get meaningful media coverage. The same is true for other fields of science.
The ABC does cover some papers that sceptics get excited about. The ABC covered the Kaufmann PNAS paper on sulphur dioxide pollution mitigating temperature rises (although it is true that skeptics only got excited about this paper prior to reading it in full).
John Nicol
(logged in via Facebook)
The main "excitement" about this paper was that for the very first time, a reveired "peer reviewed" paper was admitting what we have been saying for a number of years - there was no warming between 1998 and 2008. The rest of the paper is pure speculation on something that "might be masking the warming". They draw a pretty long bow in trying to claim convenient increases in aerosols for which they provide no definitive evidence.
John Nicol
Michael J. I. Brown
(ARC Future Fellow and Senior Lecturer at Monash University)
Readers may be interested in http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-cooling-intermediate.htm and which puts some of the discussion of "stagnation" and "cooling" over the past decade in context.
The fact that sceptics and elements of the media (e.g., Spooner in The Age) jumped onto a single paper that suggested a modest departure from global warming is fascinating. It is also interesting that they chose this one element of the paper, while ignoring the conclusion that sulphur dioxide from Chinese pollution would only temporarily mitigate global warming.
Derek Bolton
Retired s/w engineer (logged in via email @gmail.com)
In 2008/2009, the mantra was "no warming in the last ten years". OK, that was cherry-picking really, but ten years was such a nice round number, and coming up to the present didn't sound that selective, so it had some impact. Given subsequent events, it has had to be reworded as "no warming 1998 to 2008". Loses something, no? And given the well-known fact that 1998 was a strong El Nino, you might as well point out there was no warming between 2pm and 10pm yesterday.
Mark Matthews
General Manager (logged in via email @gmail.com)
"there was no warming between 1998 and 2008." ?????
1. 2010 and 2005 were both hotter than 1998 globally.
2. Are you sure you want to continue to argue against the affect CO2 has on the climate? This seems to be a stance taken by those who are either ignorant of the insurmountable evidence, or just plain terrified of the inevitable government intervention into carbon polluting activities.
John Nicol
(logged in via Facebook)
Whose figures have you been looking at Mark? Please give us a reference or find the official NASA, GISS, and HADCRUT3, data for me. Thanks.
John
Mark Matthews
General Manager (logged in via email @gmail.com)
LOL - ask The Australian
"Overall, 2010 and 2005 were 0.62C degrees above the 20th-century average, it said. Those two years were also the highest in temperature since record-keeping began in 1880."
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/warmest-year-on-record/story-e6frg6so-1225987372032
Or from NASA if you like
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2010-warmest-year.html
I don't have the data, but I am sure NASA would be happy to oblige.
John Nicol
(logged in via Facebook)
Mark, As even the IPCC says, the analysis which is of interest is about trends, not absolute values. Sure 2005 and 2010 were warmer than earlier temperatures following 1880. However, the historical data from a large amount of very consistent geological data which has been under analysis for a very long time, gives a clear picture of much warmer periods within historical records such as the Medieval Warm Period and the known social consequences of that are consistent with that scientific data, just…
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Michael Burrows
Mr (logged in via email @gmail.com)
I am increasingly perturbed by the media attempting to make a story as opposed to reporting the facts. Especially when 'it is given credential' via a Newspoll (never how many, who, when, etc. sampled)
The economy doesn't happen overnight nor does the weather, yet we experience both everyday; please, please, please give us the facts to relay onward to our physical and mental senses. Some decision making surrounding the aforementioned 'events' can be also deemed cyclical and if pertaining to my health, that of others, my crop or vegie garden, finances, sport and the like. I do not want political spin, emotive persuasion in the public domain: facts first please! Then should I care to investigate further suggest 'for and against experts' or other useful tools.
John Hannon
(logged in via Facebook)
Media, like mining, is a huge enterprise. Good news never sells but lies and misinformation is fantastic. Big businesses support each other so of course the media takes on the 'no such thing as climate change' or 'carbon tax will cost you your jobs' attitudes as like the mining etc, the could not care about the planet that we leave for our children and their children, just a quick profit is all that motivates them, media is right wing so the truth will never be exposed!