Bishop Hill Appalling disinformation in Irish Times
Jan 20, 2012 Climate: WG2 The Irish Times has the most appalling piece by an environmental writer called John Gibbons. This is how the article begins:
GLOBALLY, 2010 was a year of weather-related disasters on an almost unprecedented scale. Last year was worse, with a record $380 billion in economic losses attributed to “natural” disasters, many climate-related, according to insurance giant Munich Re.
Few experts expect to see any break in this upward trend this year, or any time soon. Instead, as record emissions of greenhouse gases continue unabated, the climate system is now behaving precisely as scientists have been projecting for decades. The rapid build-up of energy in the system is the “engine” that is fuelling extremes, from storms and floods to severe droughts.
Here's Scientific American's take on the same report.
Natural disasters around the world last year caused a record $380 billion in economic losses. That's more than twice the tally for 2010, and about $115 billion more than in the previous record year of 2005, according to a report from Munich Re, a reinsurance group in Germany. But other work emphasizes that it is too soon to blame the economic devastation on climate change.
Almost two-thirds of 2011's exceptionally high costs are attributable to two disasters unrelated to climate and weather: the magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan in March, and February's comparatively small but unusually destructive magnitude-6.3 quake in New Zealand.
Quite, quite extraordinary.
Bishop Hill
Shub in the comments points out that John Vidal at the Guardian has the same problem.
Reader Comments (58)
@michel
Agreed that Grauniad article on Glyndebourne is cringeworthy on some many levels.
This is one:
There were cheers from the crowd, which included many local residents, easily drowning out the swoosh and the low whine as the giant blades began to turn
and the other is Attenborough's smug grin.
Oh well, I guess as long as the locals continue to whoop and holler 24x7 they'll drown out the low frequency hum from the newly installed turbine.
andy scrase
They would do better to sing very loudly. This is Glyndebourne after all.
A bit of Verdi might do it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tjL29fLcc0
Don Pablo:
Definition of opinion: "a view or judgement formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge." Gibbons' piece is not an opinion, it is a deliberate distortion of the facts, it is disinformation. Ergo, it is not an opinion and the IT should not have published it as such.
Don Pablo de la Sierra,
I think you are parsing the term 'article' to a more limited definition than the Bish has used.
If you have a look at John Gibbons' twitter feed he posted the following on 19th January:
Which takes you to the same opinion piece.
Jan 20, 2012 at 9:07 PM | andy scrase
Having just got back from visiting NZ and going down to Christchurch to visit a cousin who has also had his house condemned, the scale of the rebuilding operations is immense. The seismic "event" still continues (and they worry if there aren't the continuing shocks as this may signal a build up to a bigger quake) and one wonders when rebuilding will ever start. It's not just houses, but roads and other infrastructure that needs rebuilding. Roads are wierd - undulating and cracked. There are piles of dried up liquifaction waiting to be moved - wierd stuff; really fine, like china clay.
Much of the centre of the City is closed off, but I was so impressed with the container centre that has been created for shops and the cafe opposite the department store and the positive attitude, certainly from all the family down there.
Back home again, and wrestling with the usual problems of a rural area with little or no employment opportunities for young people, I am going to urge them to learn a building trade and get down to Christchurch to help rebuild it, earn a living and live in a gloriously uncrowded country.
Start using the expression CLIMATE PORN
Anytime theres a climate change Exaggerated scare story
In the comments section just say
"More climate Porn "
They hate it
Try to get the term "Climate Porn" into the modern vernacular
Guardian reporter John Vidal has done the same thing.
" The rapid build-up of energy in the system is the “engine” that is fuelling extremes, from storms and floods to severe droughts."
Sounds like BBD physics.
Jan 20, 2012 at 1:29 PM | Shub
Yes, I remember that post where our new age physicist, BBD, rebuked another commenter for implying that CO2 re-radiation and emissivity were co-related.
I await the publication of his thesis for this new branch of thermodynamics with baited breadth.
His grasp of climate science seems to be to repeat, parrot like and uncritically, what he reads in abstracts he's been directed to by his like minded chums.
Munich Re cannot be trusted..I have observed its attendance at every Climate Change meeting since the late 1980s. Its interest is clear, it stands to benefit from disasters and hence neds to know about them; before and after. Insurance is against future damage, the more the better.
All 'actors' / participant institutions in climate debates or policy-making need to be analysed for 'interest', financial, ideological or simply political.