Now even the partisan-resistant public must acknowledge what conservatives have known for a long time: that Newsweek is driven by a leftist agenda, even if they won't acknowledge it themselves.
That can't be illustrated more clearly than by the magazine's cover story this week, titled "Global Warming Deniers: A Well-Funded Machine." Science writer Sharon Begley writes proudly and passionately in what she obviously thinks is an eye-opening expose' about the conspiring entities who "deny the science of climate change." Her Woodward and Bernstein-like prose tracks money passages from big energy producers to intellectual skeptics, who exist to undermine what she says is the consensus view: that human-induced worldwide warming is a threat to the planet's existence. Begley bemoans the results of a new Newsweek poll that "finds the influence of the denial machine remains strong," with respondents split about human influence on the greenhouse effect. She blames the "well-coordinated, well-funded campaign by contrarian scientists, free-market think tanks [disclosure: that's me!] and industry" for creating "a paralyzing fog of doubt around climate change."
In other words, those of you still with reservations have been duped. What else could be the explanation, since Begley claims rock-solid resources that uncontrovertibly nailed down the left's climate change dogma?
Upping the ante, Begley also cited the most recent update from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which "was written by more than 800 climate researchers and vetted by 2,500 scientists from 130 nations" and attributed at least part of global warming to human causes. Again, strength in numbers, but what has the IPCC really said? If you haven't read it yourself you don't really know, because Begley doesn't dig into it.
The truth is, read any legitimate scientific study on climate -- including IPCC's -- that suggests human influence is the dominant cause for global warming, and you will discover dozens of qualifiers like "possibly", "potentially," and "may." For all the certainty and consensus that global warming fear-mongers assert, those sound a lot like weasel words.
This story reflects Newsweek's newest paranoia: the "skeptics" are finally getting traction on an issue dear to the hearts of the leftist media. Expect the attacks on the "denial machine" to escalate.
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Posts: 825 | Location: West Virginia | Registered: 27 January 2006
Now even the partisan-resistant public must acknowledge what conservatives have known for a long time: that Newsweek is driven by a leftist agenda, even if they won't acknowledge it themselves.
Hah.
I allowed my Newsweek subscription to lapse, after seeing umpteen cover stories devoted to the latest God news, with a tight focus on the type of God the Christian Right is interested in reading about. I dunno. I like to keep my religion and politics separate, and I figure Newsweek, at least in name, should be about "news."
To get the real deal, really, you need to read the business papers and magazines. Of course, there's the little problem of Rupert Murdoch buying the Wall Street Journal ... wonder how he will sensationalize the nitty gritty facts Business needs to make good strategic decisions.
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Posts: 6804 | Location: usa | Registered: 09 February 2006
Good perspective Kate; and as usual, good eye. What I see is the binary (left/right) focus the exemplary type of writing in the article takes is both a smokescreen to cover what you've brought out about what you are seeing in these various media mechanisms, and a way of herding the thoughts into one of two "available" categories.
My first ironic and wryly felt thought in its first paragraph was: what in the world is this vague contraption I keep hearing about called a "leftist agenda"? Where can I find it and who's driving? If you don't "buy" that squishy assertion -- if you stop for a moment and question, that is, and see what it's doing -- an assertion made in the first paragraph just to clue the careful reader into the mind of the writer, thankfully, what happens to the rest of the ideas in the article? It turns into cardboard images in cartoonish patterns for me, that's what happens. Light a match.
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Posts: 7253 | Location: PORTLAND | Registered: 07 November 2005
the little problem of Rupert Murdoch buying the Wall Street Journal ... wonder how he will sensationalize the nitty gritty facts Business needs to make good strategic decisions.
If he first shorts the market and then publishes only bear news and opinions,.... instead of putting his money where his mouth is,... his 'put' money will be from where his mouth was.
Blaise Pascal Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. Pensees
Posts: 2917 | Location: Sverige | Registered: 21 June 2005
Have there not usually been "deniers" in the scientific community to whatever the popular theory du jour happens to be?
It's really hard to get scientist to agree with much of anything, so that's why when 90% of them agree that global warming is at least in part human caused, it's pretty good evidence that it's the case.
eley
"Sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground"--Sweet Baby James
Posts: 1979 | Location: Texas | Registered: 21 August 2004
If he first shorts the market and then publishes only bear news and opinions,.... instead of putting his money where his mouth is,... his 'put' money will be from where his mouth was.
Scientists do not deny global warming is happening, the argument is over what's causing it. My guess is that "deniers" do not believe that the actions of human beings have much if any impact on the environment?
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Posts: 1855 | Location: here and now | Registered: 22 September 2005
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
Posts: 8264 | Location: Fl | Registered: 05 July 2001
90% is something I heard at a speech by a professor (biological scientists--I believe, but I don't remember for sure) here who was a reviewer of one of the latest IPCC reports.
IPCC is not alone in its conclusions. In recent years, all major scientific bodies in the United States whose members' expertise bears directly on the matter have issued similar statements. For example, the National Academy of Sciences report, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, begins: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise" [p. 1 in (5)]. The report explicitly asks whether the IPCC assessment is a fair summary of professional scientific thinking, and answers yes: "The IPCC's conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue" [p. 3 in (5)].
Others agree. The American Meteorological Society (6), the American Geophysical Union (7), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) all have issued statements in recent years concluding that the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling (8).
The drafting of such reports and statements involves many opportunities for comment, criticism, and revision, and it is not likely that they would diverge greatly from the opinions of the societies' members. Nevertheless, they might downplay legitimate dissenting opinions. That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords "climate change" (9).
The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position.
Admittedly, authors evaluating impacts, developing methods, or studying paleoclimatic change might believe that current climate change is natural. However, none of these papers argued that point.
This analysis shows that scientists publishing in the peer-reviewed literature agree with IPCC, the National Academy of Sciences, and the public statements of their professional societies. Politicians, economists, journalists, and others may have the impression of confusion, disagreement, or discord among climate scientists, but that impression is incorrect.
The scientific consensus might, of course, be wrong. If the history of science teaches anything, it is humility, and no one can be faulted for failing to act on what is not known. But our grandchildren will surely blame us if they find that we understood the reality of anthropogenic climate change and failed to do anything about it.
eley
"Sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground"--Sweet Baby James
Posts: 1979 | Location: Texas | Registered: 21 August 2004
It never ceases to amaze me how the right sees print and broadcast media left-wing when I see them as biased towards the right.
"The Nation", I could understand...but Newsweek??
A moderate republican of the 1960's would be seen as a flaming Liberal by today's conservatives.
A right-winger of today would be seen as a nut by the conservatives of the 1960's.
The country has swung so far to the right, its nearly unrecognizable to me. Left/Right have far different meanings.
I do know this: No country in modern history has ever been able to maintain a conservative government for any length of time without mass poverty developing, or a dictatorship to control a destitute population, or economic collapse. Sometimes, all three.
Conservative governments are often at odds with science.
Retired Monk "Ideology is a disease"
Posts: 3412 | Location: denver co | Registered: 17 April 2007
I agree completely, I mean the last time I attempted to watch the NBC (or was it ABC) national news, I had to turn it off about half way through, it was such a load of garbage. Boy do they ever think Americans are stupid. Its when you are in other countries and read and watch real news that you understand just how bad our media has gotten.
Newsweek- liberal, please that is a joke.
Posts: 176 | Location: Seattle/UK | Registered: 17 March 2007
So....labeling people who don't agree that climate change is being influenced and hastened by humans as DENIARS who obviously have fallen prey to moneyed interests - that's not a liberal perspective?
Originally posted by ProudCon: So....labeling people who don't agree that climate change is being influenced and hastened by humans as DENIARS who obviously have fallen prey to moneyed interests - that's not a liberal perspective?
What is it then, Poly and sleepless?
I'd call it a realistic perspective. Progressives tend to try to figure out what is actually so rather than support an ideological mind set.
Part of global warming is undoubtably caused by huge desertification of the African Sahel. An area that influences the warming of the equitorial wind belt and its expansion. A greater amount of solar heat radiation is being reflected back into the atmosphere. Also man-caused. This has been going on for decades with increasing rapidity.
Destruction of rainforests over areas the size of some U.S. states is another. Plant material aborbs solar radiation and utilizes it as energy for growth. (We eat that energy as calories; a measurement of heat energy). Again, this heat energy isn't being aborbed by plant material for growth, but is instead used utilized to warm the planet.
CO2 isn't the only cause...and multiple causes can be traced to human activity. Most are based on the profit motive. Denying that such changes are occurring tends to be based on ideology, not on what is actually so.
Retired Monk "Ideology is a disease"
Posts: 3412 | Location: denver co | Registered: 17 April 2007
It seems that your timming is a little off Ohio. I suggest you gave up in about sixth or seventh grade. Perhaps sooner. Remember? That point when you gave up thinking those original thoughts and ideas and decided it was easier to just repeat and parrot what the teachers and adults were telling you.
quote:
theres no denying that .
Well, I guess that settles it.
"The moon that I love clears a path through the pines And guides a stream right to the bamboo gate."Poems by Zen Master Hsu Yun: Series I
Posts: 795 | Location: western slope, northern sierra | Registered: 18 April 2003
I am not so much concerned about "Newsweek", or the language of the writer, as to the labeling of opponents of global warming as deniers.
Good observation!
I have to agree 100% and it really makes me wonder about the author, editor and true agenda of the magazine. Could it be that the article is designed to appeal to the reader's devotion to faith? Is this a conservative rag that has suddenly, if you will pardon the expression, got religion on global warming? Consider Rupert Murdoch...
So my guess is, the author is a conservative who still has that nasty, patronizing tone, but has climbed aboard the "Global Warming is real after all" wagon and is writing as though he was a believer all along!
"These things which man purports to admire-the noble, the brilliant, the splendid-these are the very things he cannot tolerate when he finds them."-----Mark Clifton
Posts: 5565 | Location: hoffman estates il | Registered: 01 April 2003
I remember one newspaper account of a report that said there was a 90% certainty that global warming was at least partially human-caused. The 90% could have been generated in someone's climate model or a rough estimate. Many scientists will design studies to test a theory without worrying about their own personal opinion.
I read the Newsweek article online, the discussion on the Newsweek site had many entries similar to proudcon's.
Posts: 5 | Location: Bothell, WA | Registered: 15 August 2007
It never ceases to amaze me how the right sees print and broadcast media left-wing when I see them as biased towards the right.
can you say left Wing controled media.
REsearch shows that most main stream reporters and members of press are liberals theres no denying that .
Depends on who is doing the research. A right wing research group will see middle of the roaders as liberal. A progressive will see them a right wing. Who did the research?
When foreign news sources contradict what I see on American TV, and when facts contradict what U.S. print told me a week ago...who is left and who is right?
Would a progressive still back Bush's war after learning he lied about it? Nope. That was given up years ago...and the press still went along with it. Left, or right? 80% of the media is owned by 6 corporations. I can assure you, they aren't liberally biased when liberals tend to want to limit corporate "personhood", prevent media conglomerates from forming , etc.
Retired Monk "Ideology is a disease"
Posts: 3412 | Location: denver co | Registered: 17 April 2007
This is not about the owners, but about the reporters Why do you think that most reporters are leftists if as you claim the owners are right wing.
I don't. Reporters follow orders...better than the unemployment line. Labels of "left wing media" are an absurdity.
I worked for a newspaper once that was part of the Thompson chain. Everything is edited...even stories off the news wires. Editing and stories published will reflect the ownerships view, not the reporters.
Retired Monk "Ideology is a disease"
Posts: 3412 | Location: denver co | Registered: 17 April 2007
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