Everybody's a Critic
Climate blogger Joe Romm has published one of his worst misleading opening sentences:
The New York Times has published one of its worst climate science pieces.
Yes, I’m being playful, but also dead serious. Romm’s latest post knocking The New York Times coverage of global warming is about this John Broder article–which itself was about a political hearing in Congress that made climate science the focal point. Eli Kintisch at Science magazine nicely captures the weirdness of the event:
A panel of the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee held an odd hearing today, which was liveblogged by ScienceInsider. The topic was climate science, but the reason for the hearing was a legislative proposal, called House Resolution 910. It would remove the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) authority to regulate greenhouse gases while systematically rolling back a series of steps that EPA has already taken to do so.
So Broder didn’t write a NYT article about climate science per se; rather, he distilled the highlights of the presentations made by the witnesses (nearly all who were climate scientists) and the theatrics of the staged event. So it is inaccurate for Romm to imply that Broder was writing principally about climate science without mentioning the larger political context of the story. After all, the hearing was covered as news because it was supposed to be about a legislative proposal being viewed through a climate science lens.
Instead, as Kintisch noted,
The hearing barely touched on the underlying issue, namely, is it appropriate for Congress to involve itself so deeply into the working of a regulatory agency? Are there precedents? And what are the legal and governance implications of curtailing an agency’s authority in this way?
Now, as it happens, I prefer Kintisch’s story to Broder’s, because it cuts through the BS of the event and calls it for what it is: a reprise of past political hearings on climate science, with no new information coming to light.
Broder, for his part, played it like a straight new story, which irked David Roberts of Grist, who called the NYT story “unforgivable dreck.” (I discuss the Roberts critique here.)
Romm, piling on, calls in his favorite press critic, sociologist Robert Brulle, who tells Romm that the NYT piece
fails to inform the public, and plays into the strategy of the climate denial effort, which is to sow confusion and doubt about the science of climate change.
To back up his claim, Brulle directs Romm to this well known 2004 study that found climate coverage news stories suffering from too much false balance. Apparently, Brulle neglected to mention to Romm that the author of this study has updated his findings more recently, which can be viewed here and here.
So aside from partisans who seem to want their news stories framed a certain way for ideological purposes, what do actual science journalists think of Broder’s NYT story? Charlie Petit, who covers the science and environmental press for the widely respected Science Journalism Tracker, gives his take:
This news story is nicely and rightly even-handed in relaying what happened before the Energy and Commerce Committee’s subcommittee on energy and power.
That’s how it’s taught in journalism 101. If critics have a problem with Broder’s story, then they have a problem with how reporters cover not just congressional hearings, but also everything from school board meetings to political press conferences.
“That’s how it’s taught in journalism 101. If critics have a problem with Broder’s story, then they have a problem with how reporters cover not just congressional hearings, but also everything from school board meetings to political press conferences.”
Precisely. What Romm – and many other journalism critics here on your blog, Keith – is seeking is not journalism, it’s promotion and propaganda.
My criticism of environmental journalism, conversely, is frequently that there is not enough Broder-style reporting. But, additionally, that journalists are too ignorant of the science, too sycophantic of the scientists and too trusting of their motivations. Journalists today are all too frequently devoid of any investigative drive.
Romm’s criticism is that journalists don’t unquestioningly sell the consensus story hard enough, or that they might dare to acknowledge more than a single dimension to the climate debate. To Romm, of course, “balance is bias”.
On Kintisch underlying issue – Congress has oversight authority for all the agencies it creates.
Here, there is a real question as to whether the EPA has gone beyond its enabling legislation.
CO2 is not a pollutant, and the EPA’s decision to treat it as a pollutant is at issue.
I put CO2 into the atmosphere everytime I exhale.
Plants put Oxygen into the atmosphere during their respiration process.
Neither of these processes is within the EPA’s enabling legislation.
Simon,
Your own beefs echo those made by Dorothy Nelkin in this influential 1980s study of science journalism (here’s an LA Times review of the book), but like the incessant cries of false balance from the other side, your criticisms are largely dated, IMO.
@RickA
If you don’t think CO2 is a pollutant I suggest you take it up with the Supreme Court rather than the agency that is simply doing what it legally required to do under the Clean Air Act. The EPA didn’t decide it was a pollutant, the Supreme Court did. Get it?
RickA: <blockquote> Congress has oversight authority for all the agencies it creates</blockquote>RickA nails it. Jot only do they have constitutional authority for oversight of the administration, <a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_oversight”>it’s mandated in the constitution.</a>
Seriously, you really think federal agencies with no check-and-balances running amok? It’s bad enough already without just ceding our freedom to unelected bureaucrats.
(Home Land Security invasive searches, FBI over-stepping during Hoover’s reign are two examples of many when the administrative branch has overreached their authority.)
Marlowe: “The EPA didn’t decide it was a pollutant, the Supreme Court did.”
I didn’t address this problem, but it’s clear that the SCOTUS gave the EPA the authority needed to regulate CO2 emissions. That’s a different argument than whether or not congress has constitutional oversight authority over how the EPA regulates CO2 gases.
For example, it’s totally within the power of congress to disband the EPA, so yeah, constitutionally it’s within their power to restrict what the EPA is doing in regulating this “pollutant”.
“We need not and do not reach the question whether on remand EPA must make an endangerment finding. . . . We hold only that EPA must ground its reasons for actions or inaction in the statute,” Stevens wrote.
is it appropriate for Congress to involve itself so deeply into the working of a regulatory agency?
Wow. Just wow. Troubling. Deeply.
#4 Marlowe Supreme Court Decision
From Petitioner’s (P. 3) of Massachusetts brief)
“Petitioners ask this Court to correct EPA’s legal errors and
to remand the case to the agency with directions to apply the
correct legal standard to this matter; that is all. A judgment in
favor of petitioners will not mandate regulation of air
pollutants associated with climate change, nor will it dictate a
particular answer to the question whether such pollutants are
endangering public health or welfare. It will, however, ensure
that the question whether to regulate these pollutants is
evaluated according to the legal standard set forth in the Clean
Air Act.” See link http://www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2006/2006_05_1120/
The Supreme Court merely said that the EPA had the right to regulate CO2, not that it had to. If you want to see a simple minded decision based on wrong scientific assumptions, I would direct you to read the case. P. 30 deals with what I have discussed. http://docs.justia.com/cases/supreme/slip/549/05-1120/opinion.pdf
Unfortunately, your erroneous comment is another example of an environmentalist assuming that he knows a fact, when he is unfamiliar with the actual facts.
JD
“I didn’t address this problem, but it’s clear that the SCOTUS gave the EPA the authority needed to regulate CO2 emissions.”
I’m confused. Are you a sockpuppet for RickA?
But back to the matter at hand. Disbanding the EPA is certainly within the power of the legislative branch, although if the Republicans actually tried something along those lines, it would probably be a pretty clear case of ‘overreach’. This is the nuclear option.
How the EPA regulates polluants is circumscribed by the Clean Air Act. You might find it useful to familiarize yourself with it. While you’re at it you may want to brush up on the separation of powers and the different roles of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government.
How the EPA regulates polluants is circumscribed by the Clean Air Act congres.
Cross outs just don’t work….
Clean Air Act is legislation. Congress is free to modify or withdraw as they see fit.
The appropriate question is this: ought voters tolerate a congress that relinquishes it’s law making responsibilities to unelected bureacrats.
From your link JD,
“The Court held that if the EPA wishes to continue its inaction on carbon regulation, it is required by the Act to base the decision on a consideration of “whether greenhouse gas emissions contribute to climate change.”
Which essentially means that the EPA is required to regulate GHG emissions doesn’t it? I’m assuming you’re not part of the tinfoil hat club that doesn’t believe that GHGs cause climate change…
Of course there are actions afoot to challenge the EPA’s endangerment finding, but I’d put success on that front somewhere between slim and none.
I remember when I was a young punk rocker I thought the media was crap because in my view Noam Chomsky should be on the evening news every night to tell people how it ‘really’ is. Now I’m older and wiser (but by no stretch wise) and I recognize that people that are heavily invested in a particular world view see bias everywhere outside of themselves and nowhere within themselves and when they say they want “good journalism” they really mean journalism that confirms their pre-existing beliefs. Joe Romm is a partisan pundit and he’s paid to be so, there shouldn’t be any surprise that he thinks “good” journalism would be to preface John Christy’s name with “pro-pollution-denialist-disinformer”.
Marlowe wrote:The EPA didn’t decide it was a pollutant, the Supreme Court did.”
Justice Stevens wrote: “We need not and do not reach the question whether on remand EPA must make an endangerment finding”
hmmmm.
#13 Marlowe
“”The Court held that if the EPA wishes to continue its inaction on carbon regulation, it is required by the Act to base the decision on a consideration of “whether greenhouse gas emissions contribute to climate change.“
Here is what the Supreme Court said on P. 32 where it specifically dealt with the scope of its decision:
“In short, EPA has offered no reasoned explanation for its refusal to decide whether greenhouse gases cause or contribute to climate change. Its action was therefore “arbitrary, capricious, . . . or otherwise not in accordance with law.” 42 U. S. C. §7607(d)(9)(A). We need not and do not reach the question whether on remand EPA must make an endangerment finding, or whether policy con-cerns can inform EPA’s actions in the event that it makes such a finding. Cf. Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Re-sources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 843″“844 (1984). We hold only that EPA must ground its reasons for action or inaction in the statute.”
JD
um exactly. it is not telling the agency how to do its job. it’s telling it to do its job. IOW, the EPA can’t refuse to make a determination one way or another, as GHGs are considered air pollutants under the clean air act.
I can’t help but wonder if you’re being deliberately obtuse. For others, here are the relevant sections of the majority opinion:
“˜”˜[t]he statutory question is whether sufficient information exists to make an endangerment finding”
“While the statute does condition the exercise of EPA’s authority onits formation of a “judgment,” 42 U. S. C. §7521(a)(1), that judgment must relate to whether an air pollutant”cause[s], or contribute[s] to, air pollution which mayreasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare,” ibid.”
“EPA no doubt has significant latitude as to the manner, timing, content, and coordination of its regulations with those of other agencies. But once EPA has responded to a petition for rulemaking, its reasons for action or inaction must conform to the authorizing statute. Under the clear terms of the Clean Air Act, EPA can avoid taking further action only if it determines that greenhouse gases do not contribute toclimate change or if it provides some reasonable explanation as to why it cannot or will not exercise its discretion to determine whether they do.”
And unsurprisingly, the EPA agrees.
#17 Marlowe
“I can’t help but wonder if you’re being deliberately obtuse. For others, here are the relevant sections of the majority opinion…”
I am a lawyer and I know I know a lot more about this than you, so your references to my obtuseness are really funny. Your confusion shows how poorly written the decision is. The references to greenhouse gases are what is called obiter dictum (statements unnecessary to its decision and are not binding.) Also, you are apparently ignoring the last portion of the highlighted language that gives the EPA the chance to not exercise its discretion. (Hint Obama’s EPA will not be in charge forever. A differently staffed EPA can make different decisions.)
For a clue as to what is going on you should look at the brief of the petitioners. Do you think that the Supreme Court would give the petitioners more than they asked for? I will grant that the Supreme Court majority indicated showed that they bought into warmist consensus theory. However, that was before climategate, and nobody can take their statements about the objectivity of the science seriously anymore. In any event, it is clear that as a legal matter (and that is all the Supreme Court does) the Supreme Court clearly did not decide that CO2 was a pollutant, and it is clear that your basic statement was wrong and uninformed.
JD
I think that part of the problem that some of us are having with the “false balance is alive/dead” discussion is that Keith, John Fleck, Seth Borestein, et al. are looking at the problem from an entirely different perspective than others are as non-professional journalists.
The ’04 Boykoff and Boykoff paper documented something that was long decried outside of journalism but (arguably, feel free to disagree with this interpretation) not seen as such a “crime” within journalism itself.
Seth, Keith, John F., Tom, et al. seem to genuinely believe that “the problem was solved years ago”, i.e. the “false balance” narrative has been abandoned by the press. They cite some subsequent studies by Boykoff to this effect (studies that don’t actually provide quite the comprehensive vindication that they’re invoked to from my POV, but stipulated).
People like Romm, MT, myself point out that the false balance narrative is still happening in the prestige press.
Seth, Keith, John F., Tom, et al. object that the example we bring up aren’t systematic/are cherry picked.
I suspect that for Romm, MT, and others (as it does for me) this brings to mind Ken Caldeira’s prescription for how much CO2 should be admitted- the number of false balance stories we should be seeing is the number of old ladies who should be mugged, i.e. zero.
Obviously, in the real world, such a standard is going to be impossible to achieve. But I’m not really sure that this is and the ostensible lack of a continued systematic problem are really as responsive to the complaints as Seth, Keith, John F., Tom, et al. seem to feel.
The balance as bias issue was unquestionably pervasive, and lasted a long time. The idea that ending the systematic bias generally in recent years, while still having some glaring examples of failure, would result in righting the wrong inflicted upon the public seems to me to be naive at best.
I would suspect (and would like to see if anyone has studied this) that it doesn’t take a sustained systematic bias to continue to perpetuate the problem caused by the initial systematic bias. Given human nature and our tendency to seek confirmatory information, I would suspect that in fact all it does take is the few bad apples that Romm, MT, and myself point out to sustain the narrative in the mind of the public.
Again, much (though not all) of this is speculative on my part. I am not claiming it as truth, but rather offering a perspective that I hope might reconcile the views of Seth, Keith, John F., Tom, et al. with the continued criticisms from the “climate concerned”.
This isn’t about laying blame, but about seeing eye to eye. I hope that this might help Seth, Keith, John F., Tom, et al. see where some of us (at least me anyway) are coming from.
“Tom” being Yulsman, I should clarify.
“it is clear that as a legal matter (and that is all the Supreme Court does) the Supreme Court clearly did not decide that CO2 was a pollutant,”
hmmm, now I’m starting to wonder about your reading skills.
“Because EPA believes that Congress did not intend it to regulate substances that contribute to climate change, theagency maintains that carbon dioxide is not an “air pollutant” within the meaning of the provision.
The statutory text forecloses EPA’s reading. The Clean Air Act’s sweeping definition of “air pollutant” includes “any air pollution agent or combination of such agents, including any physical, chemical . . . substance or matter which is emitted into or otherwise enters the ambient air . . . .” §7602(g) (emphasis added). On its face, the definition embraces all airborne compounds of whateverstripe, and underscores that intent through the repeated use of the word “any.”25 Carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and hydrofluorocarbons are without a doubt “physi-cal [and] chemical . . . substance[s] which [are] emittedinto . . . the ambient air.” The statute is unambiguous.26″
and here is what footnote 26 says:
“26In dissent, JUSTICE SCALIA maintains that because greenhouse gases permeate the world’s atmosphere rather than a limited area nearthe earth’s surface, EPA’s exclusion of greenhouse gases from the category of air pollution “agent[s]” is entitled to deference under Chev-ron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. 467 U. S. 837 (1984). See post, at 11″“13. EPA’s distinction, however, finds no support in the text of the statute, which uses the phrase “the ambient air” without distinguishing between atmospheric layers. Moreover, it is a plainly unreasonable reading of a sweeping statutory provision designed to capture “any physical, chemical . . . substance or matterwhich is emitted into or otherwise enters the ambient air.” 42 U. S. C. §7602(g). JUSTICE SCALIA does not (and cannot) explain why Congresswould define “air pollutant” so carefully and so broadly, yet confer on EPA the authority to narrow that definition whenever expedient byasserting that a particular substance is not an “agent.” At any rate, no party to this dispute contests that greenhouse gases both “ente[r] the ambient air” and tend to warm the atmosphere. They are therefore unquestionably “agent[s]” of air pollution.”
#21 Marlowe
Look up Obiter Dictum. That is what you are citing. Even if you assume that what you are citing is not dictum (and it is), at best the Supreme Court decision is internally contradictory.
JD
@19
“Given human nature and our tendency to seek confirmatory information, I would suspect that in fact all it does take is the few bad apples that Romm, MT, and myself point out to sustain the narrative in the mind of the public.”
Are you subject to this tendency?
well JD this sure is fun. And yes btw I do know what obiter dictum means. You, on the other hand, don’t seem to.
The questions presented are:
QUESTIONS PRESENTED:
Section 202(a)(1) of the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. § 7521(a)(1), requires the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA “) to set emission standards for “any air pollutant” from motor vehicles or motor vehicle engines “which in his judgment cause[s], or contribute[s] to, air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.”
1. Whether the EPA Administrator may decline to issue emission standards for motor vehicles based on policy considerations not enumerated in section 202(a)(1).
2. Whether the EPA Administrator has authority to regulate carbon dioxide and other air pollutants associated with climate change under section 202(a)(1).
now how do you square GHGs are an air pollutant under the clean air act with question #2 above with your claim of obiter dictum?
p.s. for those who are too lazy to look it up:
[Latin, By the way.] Words of an opinion entirely unnecessary for the decision of the case. A remark made or opinion expressed by a judge in a decision upon a cause, “by the way”, that is, incidentally or collaterally, and not directly upon the question before the court or upon a point not necessarily involved in the determination of the cause, or introduced by way of illustration, or analogy or argument. Such are not binding as precedent.
@23 Menth:
Are you subject to this tendency?
Yes, I’m human, after all. However, I am at least cognizant of this and do my best to challenge my personal viewpoints by seeking out contradictory points of view on literally a daily basis.
#24 Marlowe “2. Whether the EPA Administrator has authority to regulate carbon dioxide and other air pollutants associated with climate change under section 202(a)(1).
now how do you square GHGs are an air pollutant under the clean air act with question #2 above with your claim of obiter dictum?”
If you could read, you could ascertain was the only issue was whether the EPA had authority to look into the issue. The court said EPA did, but since the factual matter of actual effects of CO2 was not before the court because the EPA had claimed the matter was beyond its statutory mandate, the court did not factually make the actual decision. (See p. 32) The court in dictum speculated what the facts were, but since the EPA never ruled on the facts, there was no factual decision for the court to review. Your own quotation here is self-refuting, and rebuts your argument, but your true believer tunnel vision apparently blocks out the meaning of the words you quoted.
JD
So let’s see if I’ve got this right.
“the only issue was whether the EPA had authority to look into the issue. The court said EPA did”
Funny but I thought there were 2 issues — hence TWO questions 🙄
Now on what basis did the court rule that the EPA had the authority to ‘look into the issue’ as you so slyly put it? Why on whether or not GHGs are considered air pollutants under the Clean Air Act of course!
Now doesn’t this contradict your claims that:
1) the Supreme Court clearly did not decide that CO2 was a pollutant
2) the decision about the status of CO2 under the CAA was obiter dictum
please help me understand where you’re coming from because you’re not making any sense (to me at least). And throw in some more latin while you’re at it 🙂
#27 Marlowe.
You have yet to explain the statement of the Supreme Court at the conclusion of the case. “We hold ONLY [emphasis added by JD] that EPA must ground its reasons for action or INACTION [emphasis by JD] in the statute.” The Supreme Court did not say that it decided as part of its legally enforceable judgment that CO2 was a pollutant.
I am done humoring you. Find a lawyer who will state that the Supreme Court held as part of its decision (not stated in dictum) that CO2 was a pollutant.
JD
Marlowe:
I don’t read the decision as requiring the EPA to regulate CO2.
I read it as requiring the EPA to state whether or not they think they need to regulate CO2.
I think the EPA made the wrong decision – and that CO2 is not a pollutant, as that term is defined in the legislation.
I think Congress could also find that, and amend the legislation to take regulation of CO2 away from the EPA, if they wanted.
After all, my the same reasoning, couldn’t the EPA regulate oxygen or nitrogen?
In my opinion, to be a pollutant, CO2 has to directly cause health harm to humans. Not indirectly, maybe in 1000 years, due to sea rise or climate change – but directly, by breathing it causing me harm.
I don’t think CO2 is a pollutant under that definition.
So I think it appropriate that Congress is looking at this question.
Thingsbreak –
I appreciate the nuance of your argument – that what we are dealing with here is a lingering set of problems that are at least in part residue of past false balance reporting. I think that’s a helpful step forward in the discussion.
My question to you, then, is how we apply that argument every time the Romms of the world trot out 2004 Boykoff data and try to generalize from it and an anecdote to the general situation today? Because that is the standard form of the argument, which inevitably devolves into the same argument we had last year on your blog re the FT/CNN piece. That was, I think, a singularly unproductive exchange in terms of providing guidance to the bulk of journalists working on this today who are not doing false balance. (You saw the same thing on the thread over at Eli’s this week. It’s tiresome.)
Tom Y, John F. KK et al.
I’m curious about the internal policing that is done in the media. Asyou see in science, there is a significant amount of work done to keep bad science out of the peer-reviewed literature, and more done done post publication, just as the normal scientific process plays out. Is there anything like that in the media, or at least can there be on subjects such as this that involve the importance of correct information and correct balance. I’m not saying this is the way it should be, but I’m asking if it is possible and does it happen. An example of what I mean (on a small scale) happened on this blog yesterday.
JD,
The preceding sentence is
“We need not and do not reach the question whether on remand EPA must make an endangerment finding, or whether policy con-cerns can inform EPA’s actions in the event that it makes such a finding. Cf. Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Re-sources Defense”
“”We hold ONLY [emphasis added by JD] that EPA must ground its reasons for action or INACTION [emphasis by JD] in the statute.”
What they are saying in effect is that do not need not reach the question…because the requirements under the Clean Air Act are clear once the anwser to question #2 is clear (i.e. GHGs are a pollutant under section 202a)
Your curious reading of the opinion is amusing but fundamentally wrong.
John,
To be fair, it’s not just the Joe Romms of the world, but also the Chris Mooney’s too. It would seem that he also that he-said, she-said is still a major problem in climate journalism. Over at his site, I asked him for some evidence of this, but their comment software is down, so my question got lost.
@RickA
The court determined that GHGs are a pollutant under the Clean Air Act, not the EPA. see footnote #26 in response to Scalia for details.
Whether or not the CAA is the most appropriate mechanism for addressing GHGs is a different and legitimate question.
grypo,
Isn’t that what the term “correction” is for? I think we see that on the web now, at the bottom or top of stories, noting a particular correction.
Also, I would argue that Curtis Brainard at CJR and Charlie Petit at the Tracker do this routinely at their respective sites—well, they constructively criticize (and praise) published stories in mainstream media.
It happens elsewhere, too, but that’s pretty much how it works. You’ll notice, though, that certain popular blogs get a pass, and hey, who knows, that might be because they’re blogs. That’s where I step in. 🙂
@30 John Fleck:
My question to you, then, is how we apply that argument every time the Romms of the world trot out 2004 Boykoff data and try to generalize from it and an anecdote to the general situation today?
That was, I think, a singularly unproductive exchange in terms of providing guidance to the bulk of journalists working on this today who are not doing false balance.
Agreed. I think that we need a mutual agreement to do the following:
People like Romm, MT, myself, et al. should do a better job recognizing that significant progress has been made since the early to mid 00s. We should recognize that any individual instance of continued false balance reporting is just that unless a legitimate, well-thought out argument is made connecting it to larger communications problems. In the process, we should absolutely not broad-brush paint people who undeniably report well with the same brush as those who don’t, and again not attack the profession as a whole without some sort of serious justification. The climate concern should emphatically recognize that there are limits to what the press can be expected to do in shaping public opinion, even if they cover climate perfectly as defined by the climate concerned.
People like Seth, Keith, yourself, Tom Y., Andy Revkin, et al. should drop the line that false balance “ended 10 years ago”. Even if it’s mostly been addressed, it certainly wasn’t in 2002, and moreover high profile (if fewer and fewer) examples can be found in the prestige press with relative ease. In the same manner that the climate concerned shouldn’t attempt to broad-brush journalists absent compelling evidence, mainstream journalists should avoid doing the same (or uncritically giving a mike to others (e.g. Olsen) who do) with the “scientists are failed communicators” meme.
It should be acknowledged by the press side that the broader public doesn’t discriminate between journalists like you or Seth and George Will when talking about “real journalists”. Apparently neither does Keith! Either the George Will, John Tierney, and Thomas Friedmans of the world need to be held to the same standards as other journalists, or they cease to deserve to be called such. The News Corp empire demands that it be treated as legitimate journalism/media outlet and apparently the other media empires agree (e.g. here). The very existence of this dynamic is itself a continuation of the “balance as bias” and partisan-ization of the science.
I think most importantly, people like Andy Revkin and Keith should drop the pretense that they don’t have an opinion on policy. They quite clearly have bought into the Breakthrough position, and this colors even (especially) their non-policy coverage. There’s nothing wrong with having an opinion. But there is something wrong with having gross double standards for accepting proposals’ or interviewees’ claims without push back.
I think that Seth Borestein’s coverage of the “cooling” meme by having statisticians evaluate the temp data was brilliant. I think it was a shame that he wasn’t given more support somehow even though we were warned that given too many kudos to mainstream reporters would get them labeled as “alarmists”. That’s obviously going to happen anyway, and if the only time the climate concerned weigh in on reporting is to crap on someone, even if they respect that reporter, he or she is going to be pretty sore about it and rightly so.
Let me think some more about a way forward. I’ve lately been thinking a lot about reaching a detente. What comes next is obviously going to be the hard part.
tb – Thanks. This is a great summing up of where we’ve been – incredibly useful, much to agree on here, thought i’m not sure a mutual agreement between you and I gets us very far, given that most of the people involved in these discussions are not you, nor I.
I won’t say false balance ended 10 years ago. check (did I ever say that? I think I’ve always been pretty carefully in my formulation of this – that I don’t see it routinely in what I read, and that every time I try to go out empirically and count, I find little or none of it).
I agree that the op-ed people should be held to the same standards I am in the news pages. But the usual “I don’t speak for my employer” schtick needs to be in all caps next to this one, as I *really* don’t own this problem in my own journalistic work place. check, I guess, sorta.
You’ll have to talk to Andy and Keith about the BTI thing, though I think it’s worth noting that we aren’t really all members of the same coven. That was a joke. 🙂
thingsbreak – excellent summary.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, government funded, has decided that the balance it will provide for news and current affairs is political balance. It regularly features people who have a track record in repeating falsities as contested scientific fact. For example, Andew Bolt, from News Corp, who will quite happily say the world is not warming and regularly does. He habitually misuses statistics to justify his false statements.
Professors gone emeritus, doing pretty much the same thing as Bolt, get to comment on current affairs programs about climate. Professor Bob Carter on the national current affairs program AM commenting on the 2010 WMO roundup was a feature. A genuine expert? Not to be heard. There is a program called Counterbalance that regularly features pseudoscience to counterbalance the Science Show. Boykoff’s balance is not in evidence.
The ABC’s science content is different. There are websites dedicated to exposing the ABC’s bias in their science reporting. Every piece of science summarising climate issues is contested by denialists. The science content of the ABC does reflect Boykoff’s balance, the news and current affairs content does not.
So we have two kinds of balance in the ABC. I can see this more broadly in journalism and reporting. I work with journalists often in my line of research. Science and other serious journalists are great: they fact check and have very high standards. Many are freelancers and work across the science and normal press – staff experts are getting less and less common. They cost too much.
A lot of it, though is rubbish. The pressure to reduce costs, to run a political line, or just churnalism based on recycling reports that ultimately point to a press release somewhere. Newspapers that exhibit the same kind of schizophrenia as the ABC also kid themselves that they provide balance because they have some real science content.
So while John Fleck is right in defending the integrity of individuals and the professional arm of journalism, institutionally the broadcast and print media is going through large changes. Much of the information that people receive from the media is about as reliable as what they would get on the street corner. And some of it is deliberately crafted to mislead with little call to account.
@37 John Fleck:
Not much time now, 1 quick thing-
The ‘balance as bias’ hasn’t been a problem for “ten years” was a quote from Seth Borenstein (via Keith).
Now that we have all decided that journalism is completely innocent and full of virtue (well a slight exaggeration), perhaps we will get off the kick that all scientists need to be sent to communications re-education camp?
Thought so.
Eli’s entire point was that if journalists are the master communicators, they should communicate, and as MT said, the fact that 1/3 to 1/2 the population believes in utter fables is a pretty good indication that something is not working. Moreover, the fact that fantasy rules in just about every area of human endeavor is a pretty good indication that the fault is not with the science part.
One man’s fantasy is another man’s attribution claim.
Eli, elegantly said. All that needs to be added is the “QED”.
But I go on at some greater length here anyway.
The fact that 1/3 to 1/2 the population believes in utter fables and the fact that fantasy rules in just about every area of human endeavor indeed shows that the culprit is not that the science is flawed. But it’s a lot easier to say what it doesn’t show than to say what it does show. It could be due to a widespread communication problem, but whose communication efforts are at fault then? That of scientists? Of journalists? Of school teachers? I find a widespread fault with any of these disciplines, across the whole breath of any one of them, not even a little bit plausible. It still comes down to my rather boring but still true mantra that there are weaknesses in the whole chain. And the receiver of the information is a biggie as well (as Andy had pointed out in another thread):
If large proportions of the public believe demonstrably silly things (such as young earth creationism or that the earth is the centre of the universe or that AGW is not happening), could that not be a sign that there’s something in human nature that makes them prone to believing silly (though comfortable) things? Humans may have big brains, but we’re by and large not very good at intuitively understanding things that we can’t directly observe (that probably wasn’t a highly needed survival skill during our evolution). Or is it something in our culture? Or the education system? Or all of the above?
The problem with many of these complex questions is that the most boring and least useful answer is usually the right one: All of the above”¦
Oh my. I’m glad I wasn’t drinking anything when I read Bart Verheggen’s comment. My keyboard would have suffered:
If large proportions of the public believe demonstrably silly things (such as young earth creationism or that the earth is the centre of the universe or that AGW is not happening)…
The implied equivalency here is incredible.
Bart:
According to this article from Nature, Antarctica has cooled 3-4 C in the last 12,000 years:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v470/n7333/full/470181a.html
Isn’t it possible that the .7 degree C temperature increase we have experienced in the last 150 years is within the bounds of natural variation?
I don’t think questioning AGW is on a par with your other examples, until the temperature increase rises outside natural variation bounds since the last ice age.
Bart:
Another article for you to review:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v471/n7336/full/nature09825.html
The science of AGW is very young.
How do we know our temperature reconstructions are accurate?
It seems like every week we see more scientific information raising questions about one or another temperature proxy.
That is not to say AGW is not happening – but I don’t think you should be so certain in your pronouncements.
It seems that there is still a great deal we do not know about past climate change, and whether what we have experienced since 1850 is really that unusual.
Bart says-
” there’s something in human nature that makes them prone to believing silly (though comfortable) things”
Silly, yes perhaps. But comfortable? Not sure how that squares with the old media adage ‘if it bleeds, it leads’. There’s also the well known belief among contrarians that by acting on AGW, society will destroy itself economically, or atleast cause as much if not more damage than by not acting on climate change… not a very nice or comfortable thought. Certainly it proves a point somewhere that just because some people don’t believe in AGW, doesn’t mean they’ve all retired into a warm and fuzzy belief system. There is alarmism everywhere you look.
Brandon, Rick,
Even though the examples taken as absolutes are rather silly or at least unlikely, I don’t mean to imply absolute equivalence between them.(http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2011/03/14/yes-we-can-communicate/ )
They are of a different order, but the point is that in many scientific arena’s, the public’s perception is vastly different than that of the experts. That is a problem, and it’s interesting and useful to think what’s the reason and how to remedy that situation.
Rick, you may want to slow down in running to conclusions. It’s a fallacy that we can only attribute climate change to human activities is somehow climate change is outside of the bounds that it ever was. We know for sure that the same processes that causes those events are not at play now, eg because of the very different timescales involved.
Just because forest fires have always occurred naturally doesn’t mean that I can’t start on if I wanted to.
We’re also far more effective at putting naturally occurring (eg. lightning-ignited) forest fires out, and limiting their reach, than we ever were.
Just thought I’d weigh in on the EPA vs. Congress aspect here, since I’ve written about it for Skeptical Science. Regardless of the details of the Supreme Court decision, the bottom line is that the EPA evaluated whether GHGs qualify as “air pollutants” under the definition given in the Clean Air Act, they key there being that their emissions must endanger public health or welfare. That is clearly true, which the EPA justified in its endangerment finding.
In short, the EPA is doing its job, protecting public health and welfare. House Republicans don’t want them to do this job, but they’re in a bit of a tough spot, because how do you tell the EPA not to protect public health and welfare without major public backlash? Their solution is simply to tell the EPA not to regulate GHGs in any way, with effectively zero justification. Personally I find that rather disturbing. It’s within Congress’ right to tell the EPA what to do (though I also believe they have to get executive branch agreement), but that they’re placing other interests above public health and welfare concerns me.
Regarding the NY Times story in question, the problem is that the “skeptic” testimony was…how to put it nicely…..garbage. I wrote a rather long article on the errors in Christy’s testimony, and still didn’t cover them all. Romm’s criticism is that the NY Times article was an example of fairly typical mainstream media stenography. For example:
“The Republicans countered with two scientific witnesses who said that while there was strong evidence of a rise in global surface temperatures, the reasons were murky and any response could have adverse unintended effects.”
The article does not assess the validity of these statements. Another example at the end:
“What is the optimum temperature for man?” he asked. “Have we looked at that? These are questions that, believe it or not, I lay awake at night trying to figure out.”
The scientists promised to provide written answers.”
These would have been easy questions for Broder to answer in a few sentences, or to contact a climate scientist to get some quick answers for the benefit of his readers. I think Romm’s characterization of the article is extreme, but his criticisms are valid. It’s very much a ‘he said, she said’ piece with basically no analysis.