That provocative question forms the central tenet of a comment from a former Reuters' Science and Technology correspondent, Neil Winton, on the failure of the media to examine the AGW doctrine with more vigor. In examining climate change, Winton summarizes that:
- ...any rational, sane or fair person examining the evidence linking humans to climate change would be amazed by the thinness, the inconclusiveness, of the evidence. Reporters...know that the balance of evidence points to there being no link between climate change and human activity.
Sadly, all too often the MSM do not use that balance in their reporting, preferring the news "value" of alarmism, over insight or reflection.
Winton's comments also are consistent with events in Poland at the latest in the never ending merry go round that constitutes the circus of climate policy making. As Phillip Stott writes:
- Let's be blunt: the Poznan Meeting was a disgrace. After two weeks, more than 10,000 delegates and 145 ministers could produce absolutely nothing except the release of some money (peanuts by comparison to credit crunch figures) to aid poorer countries with climate adaptation. Even I can go along with that. They are all waiting for some fairy tale solution to appear in Copenhagen next year, for their ugly duckling to turn into a swan. There will be no fairy tale; indeed, their ugly duckling could well drown in the economic floods.
- So do not be fooled by uncritical BBC reports and newspaper stories. 'Global warming' is truly on the wane.
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Indeed, we are at a somewhat surreal moment. There they were, those 10,000 delegates in Poland, discussing 'global warming', precisely as we in the UK are experiencing the coldest beginning to December for over thirty years.
Freedom of the press is one of the most significant aspects of democracy. Sadly, too many within the media appear bent on proving Kierkegaard right when he wrote: People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they never use.
