Bolty Sprung, Part II

MediaWatch is after Andrew Bolt for the garbage he produces regarding climate change and, in particular, his blatant misrepresentation of Jeff Severinghaus' work. Bolty fired off the rage-filled email below. See if you can pick out all the distortions - it's not hard.

Not a day goes by without some journalist grossly exaggerating the perils of man-made global warming, and you say nothing.

Then I pick out 10 of the exaggerations in Al Gore’s propaganda, and Media Watch flies instantly to its defence.

Says it all.

You have given me just 10 minutes to respond to a claim about Peiser of which I knew nothing. That says something, too.

Unable to check for myself what you claim Peiser now says to you, given I am already late for my duties at the school fete, I must simply pass on to you the result of his own review of the scientific literature. See the abstracts he uncovered here.

Whatever nuance you may now have uncovered to criticise this list, the basic fact remains as this reveals: When Gore suggests there is absolutely no scientific debate on man-made global warming he is not telling the truth. Ask, say, Professor Sallie Baliunas, on this point. Or Professors Fred Singer, Willie Soon, Patrick Michaels, Bob Carter and on and on. Consult the Oregon Petition, the House of Lords select committee on economic affairs’ report and more. Got it?

As for Severinghaus, nothing in the research I quoted (or in similar studies of ice cores) refutes the point I make: the Gore deceived viewers in suggesting ice core samples of past ice ages showed increased CO2 caused the world to heat. Severinghaus and others have shown that the world each time started to heat centuries before the CO2 concentrations increased - and that, I said, suggests that it wasn’t CO2 that caused the initial heating.

Severinghaus maintains that there is a later feedback mechanism that makes the CO2 amplify the warming, and so for him this does not challenge global warming. I ran his letter on my blog long ago, along with many other letters making his point - and refuting it. You are weeks late.

I stand by my use of his findings completely, and think it’s absurd for you to somehow suggest we now must ring a scientist for permission to quote from their public papers.

In short, this is a pathetic beat-up, motivated more by an outraged ideology than an outraged journalistic sensitivity.

I can only assume by this quibbling over two of my 10 major objections to Gore’s exaggerations that you couldn’t find a single complaint against the other eight. I hope, then, that you will now go after all the journalists who hailed this film as the true gospel of global warming.

Sic’ em, Monica. You know you can. You just have to want to.