Tag: climate change

Posted on By Patrick Maines

Free Speech and the Academy

So here we are as a nation, at the intersection of fear and despair, and what do we get?  A blessing on the activities of the latter-day Hitler Youth among the nations “progressive” collegians!  This, courtesy of a piece written by one Lucia Graves, as published in National Journal.

Under the title “The Case for Protesting Your Commencement Speaker,” Graves manages to assemble, in the fewest number of words, more non sequiturs, straw men, and fallacies than should be permitted any professional journalist.

Of course some might argue that Graves is neither professional nor a journalist.  Having formerly written for the Huffington Post about energy matters, where she demonstrated the same facility for agitprop that she displays in the NJ piece, Graves more closely resembles a wannabe editorialist or MSNBC commentator than a journalist or reporter.

For those who get the picture already, and would rather not inflict on themselves the whole of Graves’s opus, it’s perhaps enough just to know the subtitle of her piece: “These students aren’t silencing debate.  They’re creating it.”

That statement sums up nicely the quality of what Graves has to say about the recent travesties at Rutgers, Haverford, Smith, and numerous other colleges, where students and faculty have succeeded in shouting down, or otherwise causing the cancellation of appearances at campus events, of speakers who have said or done something that gives offense to the PC police and student/faculty progressives.

Graves’s argument is reminiscent of one made by a protester at Brown University who, fresh off a successful shout down of the New York City chief of police, averred that the affair “was a powerful demonstration of free speech.”  As written at the time, the Brown case was a powerful demonstration of free speech in the same way that a mugging is a powerful demonstration of free will.

Similarly, the protesters of which Graves speaks “created debate” only in the sense that, by their actions, they have demonstrated the peril in the growth and nurturing of a mindset and a movement that are, at bottom, fascistic.

Given her inconsequence and modest ability, one might wonder about the need to criticize Graves at all.  Indeed, the criticism here is pretty tame compared to the kind she gets in the (highly recommended) comments her piece attracted in NJ itself.  Moreover, one should hasten to commend (even as Graves objects to) a number of liberal outlets, including Slate, Vox, the Nation, and the Daily Beast, which have roundly criticized the campus thuggery.

Even so, there remain reasons to criticize Graves, most notably because she’s far from alone, and the disease of which she’s a carrier is found not just on campus but off campus as well.

Witness, for instance, the latest chapter in the ongoing attempt by “climate change” activists to isolate and censor climate scientists who say or do things that indicate any degree of skepticism about the subject.

As reported, Swedish climate scientist Lennart Bengtsson’s scholarly paper was rejected for publication by a leading scientific journal after one reviewer criticized it on the grounds that it would provide fodder for climate change skeptics.  Bengtsson’s crime?  He and his four co-authors suggested that climate is less sensitive to greenhouse gases than has been reported by the UN’s IPCC.

When, as now, too many people believe that the ends justify the means, even the most basic of human rights, like freedom of speech, can be targeted by propagandists.

The opinions expressed above are those of the writer and not of The Media Institute, its Board, contributors, or advisory councils.

Posted on By Patrick Maines

Global Warming and the Chilling of Free Speech

One of the most important, if underreported, defamation cases in recent memory is being mounted by Prof. Michael Mann.  The creator of the controversial “Hockey Stick” graph, Mann is a leading figure among “global warming” scientists, and the targets of his lawsuit are prominent conservatives – the writer Mark Steyn, National Review magazine, the public policy outfit Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), and a person who wrote for a CEI publication.

The gravamen of Mann’s suit is that the defendants defamed him by their published comments.  As an example, CEI stated in its initial blog post that Mann “has molested and tortured data in the service of politicized science,” while National Review said that “Mann was the man behind the fraudulent climate-change ‘hockey-stick’ graph, the very ringmaster of the tree-ring circus.”  Mann further argues that the defendants’ global warming skepticism derives from their financial and political interests.

Successful defamation suits, particularly for a “public person” in a place like Washington, D.C., are very hard to win.  In part, this is because the District of Columbia (along with 28 states) has enacted an anti-SLAPP law that is intended to discourage “strategic lawsuits against public participation,” where the goal of the plaintiff isn’t to win but to intimidate and burden  defendants with the cost of their legal defense.

The other reason such suits are hard to win is because of the substantial and vital editorial latitude given the media, courtesy of the First Amendment.  This explains why the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP), joined by 18 other media organizations, including such as Politico, the Washington Post, Dow Jones & Co., and the National Press Club, early on filed an amicus brief in support of the defendants.

For what should have been a relatively simple case, quickly yielding a dismissal of Mann’s suit, Mann vs. Steyn, et al., has been dragging on since fall of 2012.  In part, this is because of appeals of earlier procedural rulings, and also because Mann had to file an amended complaint.  Bottom line: It’s not clear even now if the case will get to the trial stage.  In fact it’s not even clear which court will act next in this case – could be the trial court or the D.C. Court of Appeals.

Adding to the confusion is Mark Steyn’s unhappiness with National Review’s legal strategy, such that he has now dropped out of participation with NR’s lawyers, and is currently representing himself.

So this is a snapshot in time of the murky legal case: Considerably less murky, however, is the larger picture – the one that is painted outside the courtroom, and that has implications not just for the plaintiff and defendants in this case, but for everyone who values freedom of speech.

There is perhaps no issue today that is more hotly debated than global warming, and contrary to Mann’s opinion, this debate rages on not because of the ideological or financial interests of some of the skeptics.  The debate rages on because of so many unanswered questions.

There’s been no global warming for at least 15 years.  Why is that?  Some suggest the heat is hiding at the bottom of oceans.  But whether it’s “hiding” there, or in Al Gore’s house, doesn’t that fact, by itself, prove that the computer models said to predict specific warming timelines are unreliable?

Then there are the vital related questions – beyond the expertise of climate scientists – like the economic impacts of global warming, and its prospective amelioration.  What do climate scientists know about engineering, economics, agronomy, or scores of other disciplines of the sort needed to recommend specific energy policies?

Let’s assume, just for the sake of argument, that Mann and the warming prophets are right: that anthropogenic warming is occurring; that its net results demand action; that we know what that action should be, and that whatever we did would provide societal results that, on balance, were preferable to doing nothing.

In that case, wouldn’t it be a good idea for climate scientists to attempt at all costs to persuade the public and policymakers to their point of view?  Wouldn’t it seem that defamation suits against people who disagree with you is counterproductive?

Whatever the facts of “climate change,” there’s evidence that few people take global warming seriously. Witness, for instance, the recent WSJ/NBC News poll, which found that, of 13 issues people were asked to rank by priority, “addressing climate change” was dead last.

Writing a comment in reply to a predictable global warming rant in Britain’s Guardian newspaper, one reader volunteered this:

It isn’t the big corporations or dissident scientists that are the problem, it’s the pesky public.  They simply don’t believe the climate change bandwagon.

Why?  Well, one of the biggest reasons is the zealotry of climate change supporters. Arguments that should be factual, with room for disagreement, have become intolerant slanging sessions, with insult and invective traded in place of reason. Even the phrase “deniers” is redolent of a religious movement more than scientific debate….

If climate change believers want to win more support, then it’s time to step back from the barricades and engage with the average man on the street.  Win the argument through persuasion, not rant. We’ve all had enough of that.

                                               

Patrick Maines is president of The Media Institute, and a former assistant publisher of National Review. The opinions expressed above are those of the writer and not of The Media Institute, its Board, contributors, or advisory councils.

Posted on By Patrick Maines

The American Samizdat

Back in the bad old days, “samizdat” was the name given to that body of politically forbidden literature that was clandestinely published and circulated in the Soviet Union.  In 2010, the Internet serves as an American samizdat, to the advantage of conservatives of one shade or another.

The Internet advantages “conservatives” more than “liberals” not because there are more or better conservative websites, but because of (1) the larger numbers of conservatives; and (2) the failure of the legacy media to portray conservative views and concerns.

No issue better illustrates this phenomenon than the extraordinary revelations of fraud and abuse in the “global warming” debate.  Despite the steadily growing number of Internet stories challenging the findings and practices of such as the IPCC and the East Anglia CRU, the mainstream U.S. media (the broadcast networks, newsweeklies, wire services, the Washington Post and New York Times) have shown little or no interest in these stories.

Instead, most of these news outlets continue to print or broadcast reports that are oblivious to the damage done in recent weeks to the claim of anthropogenic global warming (AGW).  And even where they have made mention of this development, they’ve often done so in a way that’s calculated to minimize the impact of the exposes.

A good example is the story published in the Washington Post by Julia Eilperin and David Farenthold.  Under the headline “Series of missteps by climate scientists threatens climate-change agenda,” the authors offer a perfunctory rundown of the many allegations that have recently been made against AGW literature, while repeating, mantra-like and in virtually every other paragraph, some variation on the claim of a scientific consensus that “climate change is happening.”

The contrast between this kind of coverage, or non-coverage, by the MSM, and the multitude of critical stories available on the Internet, many of them links to articles published in major British newspapers, is startling.  But news aggregators like the Drudge Report aren’t the only example of the way the Internet is empowering conservative voices re this and other issues.

The online comments sections of the MSM themselves are proving to be fertile soil for conservative opinion.  In fact, one sometimes wonders what the MSM’s reporters make of the comments that follow publication of their pieces online.  As of the time this piece is being written, for instance, the Eilperin/Farenthold story has attracted about 200 comments, perhaps 70 percent of them critical of the reporters for whitewashing, or failing to mention in sufficient detail, the “Climategate” revelations.

Other examples of the ways in which the American samizdat is facilitating right-of-center news and opinion can be seen in the widespread circulation of important stories similarly ignored until late in the news cycle, like the Acorn scandal, and more recently of exposes of the role of public employee unions in the deteriorating financial condition of so many states and municipalities.

There was a time, not so long ago, when news coverage by the MSM could set the agenda, and prosper, whatever its slant.  No more.  The issue today is how much longer the MSM will continue to practice center-left journalism in a center-right country.  At a time when their business models are in disarray, and the economy on its uppers, how long before the MSM come to believe that this is just bad business?