PrintFebruary 23, 2010
Sail on, Oh Newsweek...
Wow, when even the diehard lefties manning the bridge at Newsweek begin to worry that there may be icebergs ahead in those swiftly rising seas, you have to wonder if the global ardor for global warming isn't cooling more than just a bit. But in what can only be described as a modified limited hangout, Newsweek reluctantly acknowledges in a lame, excusatory manner, that maybe, just maybe, this whole global warming thingy might have been conducted a bit more scientifically.
Newsweek simply can't bring itself to admit that whoever it was who hacked the East Anglia computers actually did the entire world a favor by exposing the bogus science that was being used to justify this whole counterfeit concept. Nope, those thieving culprits are repeatedly characterized negatively:
What went wrong? Part of the blame lies, of course, with those who obstructed the efforts of the IPCC and the individual scientists, including bloggers who tried to sandbag scientists with spurious FOIA requests, and the perpetrators (as yet unknown) of the hack at the Climatic Research Unit.
Spurious requests? Science depends on open inquiry, with critics able to access the underlying basic data, a principal of science violated by ignoring the FOIA requests. But wonder of wonders, Newsweek then goes on with this grudging concession:
Part of the blame also falls on the climate scientists themselves. Many of them-including perhaps Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC head-may have stepped too far over the line from science to advocacy, undermining their own credibility.
Perhaps? Perhaps? A global con job is being engineered by an Indian railroad engineer, a U.N. bureaucrat who has cushy consulting gigs around the globe, where financial success is dependent upon proving the anthropogenic component of global warming; by a man who is liberally enriching himself by giving the U.N.'s imprimatur to a series of supposedly scientific studies that we are now finding to be more a series of opinions from some very opinionated environmentalists; and Newsweek gives this turkey the benefit of a Perhaps? He's no engineer he's a conductor.
But staying firmly in its modified limited hangout mode, Newsweek, in describing the tsunami of recent revelations threatening to submerge their favorite global disaster, says mildly:
Recently there have been several minor revelations of sloppiness.
Well perhaps they are minor, but if you consider that such sloppiness was being employed to construct global treaties that would negatively impact the world's largest economies for decades, perhaps they rise above the level of minor, hmmm? When constructing computer models, the phrase "Garbage in, garbage out" is the most basic scientific truth.
And the modified limited hangout just goes on and on:
Rather than shun the amateurs, climate scientists might find that giving them access to their data goes a long way to building trust. It might even lead to better science.
And this:
Another way to build trust might be to toughen up standards on the science itself.
Man, those tough lefties at Newsweek know how to take a principled stand with a modifier, don't they? When the world economy hangs in the balance, its fate to be determined by a series of scientific studies on whether or not our climate is warming and whether that warming is anthropogenic in nature, those heroes at Newsweek have no problem in taking a firm stand and shouting that it might be a good idea to toughen up our scientific standards for those studies.
We are humbled in the face of such journalistic courage. Sail on you captains of the Titanic mainstream media.
