Media on geo-engineering and climate
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Emily
Sep 14, 2010, 11:56:59 AM9/14/10
to geo-engineering grp
Subject: geo-engineering and climate
See
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/sep/13/geoengineering-coalition-world-climate
best wishes,
Emily.
Ken Caldeira
Sep 14, 2010, 12:48:13 PM9/14/10
to em...@lewis-brown.net, geo-engineering grp
I should point out that the writer of this piece in the Guardian displays quite a propensity towards conspiratorial fantasy.
First, he apparently is unable to distinguish between people who want to understand consequences of possible actions and people who want to engage in specific actions.
Second, he repeatedly uses terms like "powerful" but I see very little evidence that the people who are promoting a better understanding of environmental consequences of potential interventions in the climate system are particularly powerful.
Third, he engages in "conspiracy theory" speculation without ever having bothered to talk to anybody who he was imagining was engaging in a conspiracy. (How does Clive Hamilton know about the "three private dinners" he whispers about so conspiratorially -- because the journalist Jeff Goodell was there and wrote about it in his book. How secret and conspiratorial is it if you are inviting journalists to participate?)
Fourth, he talks about how "the public has been excluded from the planning" when I have been doing things like creating these email discussion groups, running an open meeting for the National Academies last summer, testifying in Congress, speaking at public fora like the Commonwealth Club, participating in the Royal Society report writing process, speaking with journalists, writing an OpEd for the New York Times, etc, in an effort to generate informed discussion about these proposals. The idea that there is some secret planning process from which the public is being excluded is pure fantasy.
So, in general, Clive Hamilton conducts the kind of bad journalism that pollutes, rather than supports, informed discussion.
First, he apparently is unable to distinguish between people who want to understand consequences of possible actions and people who want to engage in specific actions.
Second, he repeatedly uses terms like "powerful" but I see very little evidence that the people who are promoting a better understanding of environmental consequences of potential interventions in the climate system are particularly powerful.
Third, he engages in "conspiracy theory" speculation without ever having bothered to talk to anybody who he was imagining was engaging in a conspiracy. (How does Clive Hamilton know about the "three private dinners" he whispers about so conspiratorially -- because the journalist Jeff Goodell was there and wrote about it in his book. How secret and conspiratorial is it if you are inviting journalists to participate?)
Fourth, he talks about how "the public has been excluded from the planning" when I have been doing things like creating these email discussion groups, running an open meeting for the National Academies last summer, testifying in Congress, speaking at public fora like the Commonwealth Club, participating in the Royal Society report writing process, speaking with journalists, writing an OpEd for the New York Times, etc, in an effort to generate informed discussion about these proposals. The idea that there is some secret planning process from which the public is being excluded is pure fantasy.
So, in general, Clive Hamilton conducts the kind of bad journalism that pollutes, rather than supports, informed discussion.
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