Denial or seeking to deny man-made global warming

[izabsmiling]

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 Australian newspapers, like Fairfax, publish opinion pieces that deny or seek to cast doubt on man-made global warming

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.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/southern-crossroads/2014/jan/04/climate-change-climate-change...

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:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/southern-crossroads/2014/jan/04/climate-change-climate-change...

How does publication of  such fit with Australian Journalists Code of Ethics ?

Should we follow the lead of other Countries ?

nb please feel free to expand on this title and opening post in the manner which is the norm with general discussions.

[izabsmiling]

I think we all need to be aware of the skeptics with ulterior motives

[chuk_77]

who are the skeptics with ulterior motives and what are they?

[izabsmiling]

for starters anyone trying to help our PM remove the carbon tax as promised ...if we follow our leaders Climate change is **bleep** attitude it will be easier to do ...and will please the 'fat cats' of this world.

We the little people and generations to come and our and their environment ...matter not as much as the big bucks

[chuk_77]

i thought this was about papers and reporting?

Now its about politics?.. 

[freakiness]

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@catsnknots wrote:

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@izabsmiling wrote:

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@chuk_77 wrote:

example of fact not always being fact...

for decades there were 9  planets in our solar system. Turns out that was not a fact after all now there are no longer 9 so for all that time it was not a fact as it was incorrect yes?

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It was the scientific consensus of the time .

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Exactly... that is why you must ALWAYS question the facts. 

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I don't think anyone is suggesting we don't question facts. The argument is abouot scientific debate vs non scientific debate.

[izabsmiling]

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@chuk_77 wrote:

i thought this was about papers and reporting?

Now its about politics?

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 it is about both and much more than that Chuk 

[chuk_77]

im out, topic keeps changing, makes it too hard to keep up and to easy to be reported for off topic

[cherry*135]

This is about should a newspaper publish opinion pieces, letters to the editor that claim there is no human influence on climate change. Right?

Not who is right or wrong (scientists or skeptics) nor about media moguls or political parties.

Now that the majority of posters have expressed their opinion that newspapers should post climate change skeptics opinions if they want to..the topic is being expanded into other areas? Why I wonder?

While the op states they don't mind if this discussion going off into other areas, what about the other posters who do want to continue the discussion on the topic in the opinion piece quoted in the OP?

[cherry*135]

Should Australian newspapers publish climate change denialist opinion pieces?

This is what I thought the discussion is about.

[izabsmiling]

Dollars, documents and denial: a tangled web16 FEBRUARY 2012

Heartland also claims that one of the documents, a "confidential memo" outlining their climate strategy, "is a total fake". This document was the only one of the nine which was obviously a scanned copy.

For background here, as a free-market think-tank, Heartland would ultimately like to see little to no legislation limiting greenhouse gases. This is their ideological position.

The Australian academic in question is Professor Bob Carter, an adjunct (unpaid) research fellow at James Cook University and a long-time denier of the risks of human-caused climate change.

Professor Carter has also been a speaker at six of Heartland's climate change conferences.

The documents state that Professor Carter will receive $1,667 per month from Heartland in 2012 to work on a project called the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change.

I asked Professor Carter if he was aware of the leak. He claimed he wasn't, but then told me.

"Heartland is one of a number of think-tanks and institutions that I work with. Sometimes I'm paid an honorarium, sometimes expenses and sometimes I do it pro-bono."

Professor Carter is certainly correct here. He is indeed an advisor on a number of "think-tanks" and groups. In addition to Heartland, Professor Carter is an advisor to the Institute for Public Affairs (Aus), The Galileo Movement (Aus), the Science and Public Policy Institute (US), the International Climate Science Coalition (US/Canada), the Australian Climate Science Coalition, the Global Warming Policy Foundation (UK) and Repeal the Act (UK). He was a founding advisor to the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition.

All of these groups promote the same contrarian views on human-caused climate change that are not backed by any national science academy of note anywhere on the planet. Few, if any, reveal their funders.

Professor Carter added: "The details of any of these payments are private to me. I can't imagine that Heartland has released this document - so the question is, how this document was released."

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3834220.html

Australian Climate Science Coalition (mentioned in the opening post )