New York Times‘ climate change reporter Andrew Revkin is taking a buyout from his employer after a tough year, the Columbia Journalism Review‘s website (12/14/09) reports. Revkin, whom CJR‘s Christine Russell describes as “one of the most influential and respected reporters on the environment,” says that 2009 “has been the hardest year I’ve experienced on this beat”–in part because
Revkin has increasingly found himself–and his paper’s coverage–the target of critics on both the right and the left, particularly in the often vitriolic blogosphere. He described himself as “an advocate for scientific reality,” not for either side of the debate.
“The right,” in this sense, means people who dispute the idea that humans are causing global climate change, whereas “the left” means people who affirm that we are–in other words, people who believe in scientific reality. Revkin’s willingness to pretend that science is not on one side of the debate explains a lot of the criticism he’s taken lately from pro-science bloggers.
I’ve long since given up on the MSM as an authority, and by now I mostly scoff at it, but Revkin just makes me sad.
It was Revkin himself 4-5 years ago who was my first major source on climate change, including specifics on things like how the IPCC report had been watered down for political reasons.
And he had written on this going back to the 80s. He was one of the journalistic pioneers.
And now he’s just thrown it all away, for nothing. He’s an example of Mencken’s lament for anyone who spends his career as a hero and ends it as a buffoon.
So that’s “Fair”? “Right” and “left” were the characterizations used by the CJR reporter, not me. There have been promoters of action on greenhouse gases who have understated the complexity of the scientific picture pointing to risking risk with rising emissions. And there have been heaps of advocates for stasis who have torqued the science in the other direction. I have done my best to characterize the underlying science and how it relates to policy choices. That’s all. Left and right are separate characteristics of some of the parties involved in the fight.
that’s putting an awful lot of spin and interpretation into revkin’s statement. tho ideologically fueled climate ‘contrarians’ do tend to populate the repub ranks, to be fair, science still does not belong to either side of the aisle. to keep things as simplistic as this post does, i would venture that ‘the left’ does not own science any more than ‘the right’ owns matters of faith.
The “debate” about global warming, or health care, or just about anything for that matter, in the United States is hardly about facts or science, it is about creating chaos in any discord by picking on conflicting and irrelevant points and making sure there is no organized discussion that would actually facilitate democracy and reinforce the idea that the people deserve anything but to be herded like cattle and told what to do.
The idea that suddenly the only reason we should not be dumping billions of tons of garbage and poison into the environment is because of global warming or that it might eventually kill the planet off has always been off-base.
It is not that one would not want to avoid suicide by pollution, but that it does not address the practice of what is done wrongly all over the world. There is not just one reason to talk about environmentalism and economic justice. What do we get when we participate in this monolithic militaristic economy, and who has a voice in the tyranny of corporations that is blotting out human beings?
The truth of the matter is this. Climate destruction is happening. There are a lot of inputs into this but man is the primary culprit. If we don’t do anything things will get worse. If we leave it to the “market” the market has already shown us what those that run markets will do to protect profits, position, future positions etc. They will find ways to chisel into whatever agreement exists. The only thing we can be certain of is that the science tells us that doing nothing is catastrophe, doing something that is not enough is still catastrophe and waiting until catastrophe happens is going to create suffering that will make loss of position, profits and future positions look like a cakewalk.
So Mr. Revkin has had a problem laying this out as of late because there is no “other” side. There are those who are clear on “Climate destruction” and those who, for a host of reasons deny the science. They are not equal or competing in a scientific sense, just in the court of public opinion and marketing, which sadly is what public policy is primarily composed of… not what’s best but what can be gotten or stolen or done right now. He could do better but then again our media is so bad if he did he wouldn’t have a job long now would he?
The market leads to disaster, especially if the market, ie. capital is all in the hands of a few, because there is more and more money and power to be had in a disaster. Unregulated free markets are always going to seek situations that make their products and services more valuable.
Is the NYT’s coverage of climate destruction really any different than their terrible biased reporting on dioxin back in the 1990s? Or their reporting on weapons of mass destruction? Not really.
The problem with reporters is that they are often too dumb to know the difference between science and bullsh_t. A student of mine at a major midwestern university once told me, when I asked what major they were in, that they left biology because it was too difficult….so now they were in journalism. nuf said.
For climate change like for other issues, the corporate media pretend to hold the “moderate” position that would be in between that of enviro groups and the denialist right wing. However, climate science is clear: the probability of catastrophic outcome is very high for 100’s of millions of individuals over the course of the 21st century. Various groups or individuals overstating the scientific prognosis do not change the nature of the “moderate” position: immediate and effective reduction of carbon emissions.