Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps?
I give the New York Times a decade if it continues to employ journamalists like William Broad, whose hit piece on Al Gore has attracted some attention:
Letters - New York Times: The National Academy of Sciences, the American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorology Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science have all issued statements stating that climate change is: a) occurring, b) largely caused by humans and c) likely to continue with large negative consequences for natural and human socioeconomic systems unless we rapidly decarbonize our global energy systems. People who have evidence that contradicts these statements can publish their findings in scientific journals, after which the public might expect to see this work discussed in Science Times. In the meantime, if you feel obligated to publish what are simply opinions, please use the opinion pages rather than the science section. James J. McCarthy Cambridge, Mass. The writer is the president-elect of the American Association for the Advancement of Science....
William J. Broad states that the latest I.P.C.C. report has lowered its estimate of future sea level rise, apparently exposing Al Gore as a “shrill alarmist.” This is dead wrong. The reason for the lower estimate is that the I.P.C.C. report now excludes the full effects of ice sheet melting. What they’re saying is not, “Sea level rise is going to be less than we thought.” They’re saying, “We just can’t predict what the ice sheets are going to do.” The article concludes that the I.P.C.C. portrays climate change as a “slow-motion process.” The I.P.C.C. estimates that under a business-as-usual scenario, global temperatures may rise more than 7 degrees by 2100. That’s more than half a degree per decade. Phil Mitchell Seattle....
With “From a Rapt Audience, a Call to Cool the Hype,” The Times missed an excellent opportunity to explore the difficulties of communicating science in a way that is both accurate but understandable. Instead, you advanced the specious criticisms of a few well-known contrarians who wouldn’t have agreed with Al Gore had he read aloud from a textbook. We direct readers to our blog RealClimate (www.realclimate.org) for a scientific review of the movie last May by our colleague Eric Steig, which concludes that Gore on the whole got the science right. Michael E. Mann University Park, Penn. Gavin A. Schmidt New York
