A new study out of Australia reveals a media conspiracy to hide the climate crisis. So now at least you know why you never heard of global warming. It’s a media plot. You just imagined they keep running one-sided stories hyping it.
We confess to a certain unease about the state of the climate debate ourselves. For instance the speed with which newspapers rush to censor themselves when activists come calling, almost as if they wanted an excuse to substitute propaganda for news, perhaps fearing the heavy hand of the state or, worse, welcoming it. But while you might think our opening line was satire from The Onion or the Babylon Bee, it’s serious. At least sort of.
A person called Wendy Bacon really has “led a team of more than twenty trained volunteers in a mission tracing through decades of Murdoch media headlines, opinion pieces, columns, news articles and letters from across Australia” after which she and two authors in a publication rather unselfconsciously called “Echo” really did complain that “for more than the past two decades, 45 per cent of Murdoch media climate coverage and references have been at least sceptical or at worst outright denial of the phenomenon happening all around us.”
The Echo authors insist that, “it’s no surprise to learn data shows Murdoch media bias”. Data, no less. Or perhaps a bit less because, having apparently failed climate math, we calculate that 55 percent were less than sceptical. Which used to be more than half when we were in school. And her study apparently also found 89 percent of Murdoch papers’ news coverage opining that man-made climate change was real, aka “accepting climate science findings.” Some plot that one is.
It gets worse. “We are not only in a situation of global warming, but we’re in an existential crisis, we’re in an absolutely desperate situation now,” Echo echoed Ms Bacon, adding that Ms Bacon was “referring to a majority of scientists agreeing on key climate change findings.” And yet, Ms Bacon complained, “In the light of that, in the light of those findings, we have a situation in which the most powerful media company in Australia chooses, particularly through its commerce, to deliberately produce doubt in people’s minds” and yet, the Echo continued “The significance of her findings had been undermined, Ms Bacon said, by mainstream media coverage. ‘It’s almost greeted with silence, not a word on the ABC about it, not even the Guardian, and that was disappointing’.”
What can explain the ultra-woke, all-in-on-climate Guardian not reprinting her views? Ah. “I think journalists are intimidated from actually speaking about it because what happens if they take on Murdoch, believe me, they get bullied”. So journalists in Australia are afraid to mention climate change? Well, except for the more than half of stories in Murdoch outlets that endorsed the idea. “‘So I think that has a chilling effect.’ Ms Bacon said she thought the chilling effect meant it was up to ‘community media, all of us’ to get the truth out.”
For instance by giving space to both sides in the debate?
A comment on the Echo article by Wanda, may resonate:
“Non-scientifically trained people can express opinions about society’s response to climate change, but not about the science itself if they are not widely read (in the scientific field) and do not understand the science.”
I replied thus, though I have my doubts about it successfully negotiating moderation.
***
Perhaps one ought to advise Tom Whipple, the supposed science editor of The Times.. In a recent article ‘What is climate change? The causes, effects and solutions explained in charts’ his opening sentence claims:
“If it were not for carbon dioxide, the temperature of the Earth would average minus 18C.”
To say this is misleading is something of an understatement. This is what NASA has to say:
“Without naturally occurring greenhouse gases, Earth’s average temperature would be near 0°F (or -18°C) instead of the much warmer 59°F (15°C).”
With a little bit of due diligence, we can go even further.
Though Eunice Foote’s work predates that of John Tyndall, it’s the latter who’s generally regarded as being the first to demonstrate the ability of certain gases (e.g. CO2, CH4 and N2O) to absorb infra-red radiation. Chief among them, though, is H2O (water vapour), with Tyndall quickly realising that without it, life on Earth could not exist:
“Aqueous vapour [water vapour] is a blanket, more necessary to the vegetable life of England than clothing is to man. Remove for a single summer-night the aqueous vapour from the air which overspreads this country, and you would assuredly destroy every plant capable of being destroyed by a freezing temperature. The warmth of our fields and gardens would pour itself unrequited into space, and the sun would rise upon an island held fast in the iron grip of frost.” – John Tyndall (“Heat: A Mode of Motion”, 1861)
Water vapour is the primary reason for the Earth not being a frozen wasteland not, as Tom Whipple implies, CO2. One doesn’t need a science degree to do a little basic research.
Tom Whipple, by the way, has a degree in mathematics.
***
There is, of course, a further irony insofar as The Times is another Murdoch newspaper.
This is why the skeptic's are not being influenced by the media. They have dropped their panties and assumed the position for elite. It is not misinformation. It is propaganda.
Don’t know much about media in Australia but in the USA all you hear from the mainstream media is climate change is a crisis and we must act now or we’re all doomed. Seems like we’ve heard that before. Lol
@ Bill Miles:
The brainchild of their Magazines Manager, the parent organisation behind by local newspaper, recently embarked upon a new climate campaign: Climate Crisis – Time For Change.
According to said manager:
"With so much disinformation around, it's important that we use our platforms [they have over 150 titles, spanning the length and breadth of the country] to make sure our readers are as informed as possible." That "...as local trusted newspapers we know it's our societal and moral duty to give readers the facts."
The UK Trending Editor further proclaimed that the various titles:
"...will allow the voices of those with the right knowledge to be heard at every opportunity to ensure that the information we share is relevant and correct."
Somewhat concerned, I wrote to my local editor asking who determines which facts are relevant and correct? How does one ensure the commitment "...to bringing an open and honest view of the climate crisis" when comments are not allowed? Will, for example, issues such as the global climate models' failure to reflect reality and the circa 17,500 peer-reviewed studies, which use the wholly unrealistic RCP8.5 climate scenario for their alarmist conclusions, be explored? In short, is the parent company about to follow the dark path pioneered by Google, Facebook, and Twitter and cancel those guilty of wrong-think, regardless of how well supported their arguments might be?
I followed this up with a brief survey of 156 of those titles and found that 43 of them are presently running stories about UK coastal flooding projections. These are based on a 2019 report by Climate Central and an alarmist* paper by Scott A. Kulp and Benjamin H. Strauss – "New elevation data triple estimates of global vulnerability to sea-level rise and coastal flooding."
*See the review by Rud Istvan at WUWT. Search – Sea Level Rise' Alarmist Agitprop' or follow the link:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/11/03/sea-level-rise-alarmist-agitprop/