15-03-2014 12:43 PM - edited 15-03-2014 12:45 PM
Aptly enough imo Prince Charles refered to climate change deniers as the headless chicken brigade .
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Should Australian newspapers publish climate change denialist opinion pieces?
Should Fairfax — or other media publishers — give a platform for climate change denialist opinion pieces?
The most recent example is Fairfax publishing a piece by John McLean, a member of the International Climate Science Coalition.
In the opinion piece, McLean repeats various lines designed to create uncertainty about the recent report by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and to impute a sinister motive on IPCC members of political and scientific deception.
When Fairfax saw mining billionaire Gina Rinehart buy a large stake in the company, the chairman Roger Corbett upheld the board's support for the charter of editorial independence. This was opposed at the time by Rinehart, although Rinehart board appointee Jack Cowin signed it.
Coincidentally, Rinehart is a big supporter of ICSC policy advisor Christopher Monckton and in a 2011 interview expressed her disbeliefthat "a small amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere" could lead to global warming.
The Rinehart shareholding controversy even saw Fairfax mastheadslaunch a new slogan "Independent. Always."
A part of the charter is that editors behave according to the Australian Journalist Association's code of ethics, the first standard being that journalists:
Report and interpret honestly, striving for accuracy, fairness and disclosure of all essential facts. Do not suppress relevant available facts, or give distorting emphasis.
At the same time that Reddit /r/science decided to ban climate denialism, the L.A. Times also decided to introduce an editorial policy for its letters pages. Editor Paul Thornton wrote:
Solved! Go to Solution.
on 16-03-2014 08:55 PM
Silverfaun wrote: This is the op and it hasn't once been addressed even though the MAJORITY of answers say "YES" all sides of an argument should be openly and freely discussed and published".
What the original post is suggesting is that sceptics should not be heard or published and even jailed for criminal intent even when all the science is not, I repeat not in, so why should debate be shut down? Why should part of the community be told to shut it.
Silverfaun wrote:
he thing that alarms me is none of you see the danger in gagging a particular group. You support the disgraceful stance o fairfax only printing what they see as relevant to their beliefs and leaning and to shut up the rest.
Gagging any section of the community in a democracy leads to the death of democracy and the rise of totalitarianism. Do I hear the death rattle of that here?.
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So you claim that the majority say yes ? and ? ....do you wish to gag a particular group/section of the community yourself ?
Can you please provide the section of the original post from which you make your claim ...
the OP suggests sceptics should not be heard or published and even jailed for criminal intent even when all the science is not, I repeat not in, so why should debate be shut down? Why should part of the community be told to shut it.
regardless of what may be debated elsewhere is a Newspaper obligated to publish the truth ,not mislead or ignore/misrepresent facts ?
on 16-03-2014 09:06 PM
The article in the opening post doesn't only mention Fairfax
Fairfax — or other media publishers
on 16-03-2014 11:01 PM
on 17-03-2014 06:47 AM
I thought you might like to read this quote OP.......
"Yeah, somebody pushed my button
.When politicians and scientists started calling people like me “deniers”, they crossed the line. They are still doing it.
They indirectly equate (1) the skeptics’ view that global warming is not necessarily all manmade nor a serious problem, with (2) the
denial that the Nazi’s extermination of millions of Jews ever happened.Too many of us for too long have ignored the repulsive,
extremist nature of the comparison. It’s time to push back.I’m now going to start calling these people “global warming Nazis”.
The
pseudo-scientific ramblings by their leaders have falsely warned of mass starvation, ecological collapse, agricultural collapse,
overpopulation…all so that the masses would support their radical policies. Policies that would not voluntarily be supported by a
majority of freedom-loving people.They are just as guilty as the person who cries “fire!” in a crowded theater when no fire exists.
Except they threaten the lives of millions of people in the process.Like the Nazis, they advocate the supreme authority of the state
(fascism), which in turn supports their scientific research to support their cause (in the 1930s, it was superiority of the white
race).Dissenting scientific views are now jack-booted through tactics like pressuring scientific journals to not publish papers with
which they disagree…even getting journal editors to resign.Like the Nazis, they are anti-capitalist. They are willing to sacrifice millions
of lives of poor people at the altar of radical environmentalism, advocating expensive energy policies that increase poverty. And if
there is a historically demonstrable threat to humanity, it is poverty.I’m not talking about those who think we should be working
toward new forms of energy to eventually displace our dependence of fossil fuels. Even I believe in that; after all, fossil fuels are a
finite resource.I’m instead talking about the extremists. They are the ones who are sure they are right, and who are bent on forcing
their views upon everyone else. Unfortunately, the extremists are usually the only ones you hear from in the media, because they
scream the loudest and make the most outrageous claims.They invoke “consensus”, which results from only like-minded scientists
who band together to support a common cause.This authoritarianism tends to happen with an over-educated elite class…I have read
that Nazi Germany had more PhDs per capita than any other country. I’m not against education, but it seems like some of the
stupidest people are also the most educated.So, as long as they continue to call people like me “deniers”, I will call them “global
warming Nazis”.I didn’t start this fight…they did. Yeah, somebody pushed my button."..Dr Roy Spencer..20.02.2014.
Are you a Global Warming Nazi?
on 17-03-2014 07:03 AM
on 17-03-2014 07:43 AM
This is what I have put here over and over but it gets ignored.
The headless chicken brigade which the op also agrees is OK to brand a group with.
Deniers is offensive no matter what context it's put and the clamouring to shut them up and "deny" them a voice is what this whole thing is about.
Whether you "believe" or not is immaterial, its the jackboot mentality of the warmists that is offensive and the alacrity of others to defend this type of thing.
on 17-03-2014 10:41 AM
Deniers is just a word ....applied to people who deny something
Skeptics a word for people who are skeptical about something.
If the words are offensive to anyone ...the acts themselves should be too ,shouldn't they ?
A denier is different than a skeptic .Skeptics question and it is human nature to question..but questioning without being able to applying reasoning to the answers just seems pointless to me...deniers well they say NO don't they ?
Is it that some people expect science to provide proof without any grey areas ?
Do some have fixed thinking that can't be changed ..no matter what evidence they are presented with ?
That would of course be the case with the skeptics and deniers with self motivated reasons for their expressed public views .
When it's a scientifc finding supported by 97% of the scientific community ..which shows risk of harm
why would anyone expect that others should be OK to ignore it and take the consequences of ignoring it ?
It affects us all
17-03-2014 10:45 AM - edited 17-03-2014 10:46 AM
Silverfaun, do you think it OK for a newspaper to publish "there is no evidence that smoking is bad for your health " ?
do you think they should be accountable for any damages caused by those messages if they do ?
on 17-03-2014 10:52 AM
Siggie, too much use of the emotive and offensive in that article for me to even read it let alone give it any credit.
on 17-03-2014 10:57 AM
Nothing to do with the opoening post re should "deniers be heard or published? ", to ignore that, I can't understand why. I will finish now with this thread as it's not addressing the original op and I have given my opinion ad infinitum along with others.
Bye.