Fair play to Duncan Stewart. He was in combative form on Saturday’s Marian Finucane Show on RTE radio. The subject of his interview was the one hour documentary film special, ‘A Burning Question’, which airs this Tuesday (29th) at 10.10pm on RTE 1 and featuring many of the great and the good in the field, from the UN’s Ban Ki Moon to Mary Robinson, Prof John Sweeney and economist and late eco-convert David McWilliams (I’m in there somewhere among the interviewees). Click here to view the film online (in two parts).
The documentary promises to take a forensic look at the ever-expanding chasm between what the science of climate change is telling us and how this critical issue is being presented (and misrepresented) via the media. (more…)
Last April, I gave a lecture to the Met Society of Ireland in Glasnevin. A Sunday Times reporter was in the audience, though she did not make herself known to me, ask any questions or attempt to speak to me afterwards. However, five days later I got a call from said reporter, picking up on some choice observations on my part about the, em, quality of journalism on display post-Climategate/Copenhagen and the winter cold snap.
It must have been a veeery slow week, because two days later, a whopper of a ‘news’ article appeared in the ST, covering around two thirds of page 3 (appropriately enough, for a Murdoch title). I covered this incident on this blog back in April.
And now they’re back. From outer space. Those irrepressible Sunday Times hacks, ever eager to please their billionaire publisher, just couldn’t wait for another juicy ‘climate’ scandal story, they just galloped ahead and made up their own! (more…)
From the website of Australian TV network ABC. Click here to view the debate.
Transcript
TONY JONES, PRESENTER: Here is some background notes to tonight’s debate. When Professor Ian Plimer’s outright denial of man-made global warming was championed in the UK Spectator magazine earlier this year after the publication of his book Heaven and Earth in Britain, the magazine’s editor promoted the idea of a great public debate in London between Professor Plimer and the Guardian’s George Monbiot. Monbiot is a renowned champion of climate science. In the end, George Monbiot’s key condition for the debate, that Professor Plimer first answer in writing a series of questions about claims in his book was not met, the debate was cancelled. And tonight, with no preconditions, George Monbiot joins us in Copenhagen and Ian Plimer is here in our Sydney studio.
Oh dear, here we go again. An editorial in the Irish Times yesterday was headlined ‘Global cooling’. It began: “So much for all of that guff about global warming! Are world leaders having the wrong debate? We are experiencing the most prolonged period of icy weather in 40 years and feeling every bit of it”.
In fact, what the above piece illustrates is the hazards of conducting climate science by looking out the window. The good ol’ Daily Express took it a degree or three further yesterday in its screeching front page headline: ‘SNOW CHAOS – And they still claim it’s global warming’.
I could spend another thousand words trying to unpick this silliness, or instead hand over to the excellent Peter Sinclair, who runs an intriguing YouTube channel called ‘Climate Denial Crock of the Week’. The clip below is from Feb 2009, but it perfectly illustrates the recurring problem that as soon as the temperatures plummet, the deniers start banging loudly on their tin drums, and many folks in the media who really ought to know better, just take a peek out through the net curtains, see the snow and experience an almost instantaneous 50-point drop in their IQs.
Over to you, Peter…
An archive of Peter Sinclair’s excellent series can be accessed by clicking here.
I’ve had my say on KennyGate, as have a good many other people (to my new cadre of hate-mailers, sorry for not posting all your anonymous spleen. Life’s a bitch, eh? Give my regards to Elvis). Meanwhile, a regular correspondent, Coilin MacLochlainn, sent in a highly original take , which I hope you’ll enjoy as much as I did. Over to you, Coilin…
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Let’s imagine that Pat Kenny is feeling a bit off colour and decides to visit a psychoanalyst.
Dr Thelme Datruth-Y’Boyo is a bright young thing from Darfur who happens to read a certain column that appears in the Irish Times every Thursday. Her parents and siblings are starving because of drought brought on by climate change and the resulting war in Darfur. She gives John O’Shea of GOAL most of her savings but knows that the war won’t end until the real problem, climate change, is tackled. (more…)
While the mud flies to the left and to the right, now, with just 12 days to the opening of the COP15 climate conference in Copenhagen, looks like it’s all hands on deck, women and children first, etc. etc. as the good ship Hubris stokes up its coal-fired turbines and steams us towards, well, you know…
Heartiest congratulations to all the merry crew of climate deniers and assorted smart alecs and know-alls. We’d never have come so far, so quickly, and been in it quite so deep were it not for your Trojan efforts. Don’t be so modest, you’re the real stars of this Tragedy.
Earlier today, at a very well attended press conference in Leinster House, the all-party Oireachtas Committee on Climate Change and Energy released their report, ‘The case for a climate change law’.
Committee rapporteur, Liz McManus likened the position we now find ourselves in and the scale of what is required to address it as being “like a war effort”. This, from the Opposition, is extremely encouraging. McManus has for the last year or so, given the distinct impression that she realises this is no phoney war. In that regard, she remains in a small minority within Dáil Eireann.
I’d like to believe the numbers are growing, but with the scant, patchy and highly erratic way the media in general continues to cover this issue (with more scare stories about how we “can’t afford” to do anything, or contributions from the it’s-all-a-scam circus) doesn’t lead to any excessive optimism. (more…)
I was in the city centre on Friday night, just as the polls were preparing to close, and happened upon the hugely impressive illuminated Liberty Hall (hard to miss, in fact, and far and away the most dramatic installation the city has seen since poor Lord Nelson got blown off his perch in 1966).
Below is some footage I recorded with my trusty iPhone video:
By 10.30pm on Friday, the bush telegraph was rattling furiously with news from Fine Gael’s exit poll indicating a thumping 2:1 Yes vote. And by the 11am news bulletins on Saturday, it was clear that Lisbon was done and dusted. (more…)
