Interesting People mailing list archives

Re From a nyt and long time iper Re New York Times defends hiring extreme climate denier: 'millions agree with him'


From: "Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>
Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2017 13:23:31 -0400




Begin forwarded message:

From: Michael Robertson <mr () michaelrobertson com>
Date: April 22, 2017 at 12:53:43 PM EDT
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Re: [IP] From a nyt and long time iper Re New York Times defends hiring extreme climate denier: 'millions 
agree with him'

Let the record show that some on this list would be branded as "climate deniers" such as myself.

I'd point out that global warmers have largely abandoned that term and adopted the amorphous semantic fraud which is 
"climate change". They regularly promote outlandish climate hysteria in spite of the fact that we now have decades of 
failed dire predictions.

And like the religions of the past, anyone who questions the logic is ostracized as a heretic. 

On Apr 22, 2017 8:42 AM, "Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com> wrote:



Begin forwarded message:

From: "Schwartz, John" <jswatz () nytimes com>
Date: April 22, 2017 at 10:42:19 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] Re New York Times defends hiring extreme climate denier: 'millions agree with him'

Dave,

    However you feel about the hiring of Bret Stephens, it's important to keep in mind that he has been hired as a 
single voice among the opinion columnists at the NYT. His hiring does not change the work being done in the 
newsroom, by reporters, to tell the story of climate change. Nor does it affect the stance of the editorial board, 
which has long aligned itself with the science and has consistently called for action to reduce greenhouse gas 
emissions. 

     I'm a little self interested here, of course, in that I am one of about a dozen journalists at the NYT 
directly involved in reporting on climate change and the environment. The management of the newsroom has built up 
this climate team to bring these stories to the world. And we are--along with much of the rest of the newsroom--as 
you can see by following this link:

https://www.nytimes.com/section/climate

      I'm not commenting on the Stephens hire. But many stories written about the decision to bring him into the 
stable of columnists suggest that it shows The New York Times is not serious about climate change. 

      Nothing could be further from the truth.

      Best,

      John

On Sat, Apr 22, 2017 at 7:46 AM, David Farber <farber () gmail com> wrote:


Begin forwarded message:

From: Hasan Diwan <hasan.diwan () gmail com>
Subject: Re: [IP] Re New York Times defends hiring extreme climate denier: 'millions agree with him'
Date: April 22, 2017 at 7:07:38 AM EDT
To: "dave () farber net" <dave () farber net>

Prof Farber, 
[for IP, should you deem fit]
While I'm sure that one can persuade "millions" to say "I believe the climate is not changing", the more 
important/relevant question to ask is "Assuming the climate is changing, should humans do anything about it?" to 
which the answer that my old Biology professor liked to give was that life will find a way, but maybe without us. 
So, if one doesn't give a toss about one's own species, then sure, deny the need to do anything about climate 
change, as life will find a way to cope, but I, for one, want my descendants to be born and enjoy the same (or 
better) lifestyle than myself. Therefore, I'm firmly in the camp of "something needs to be done about the 
increased frequency of extreme weather on Earth". 

Also, let's be charitable and say that there are 1 and a half million climate change deniers on Earth, out of a 
total population of 7.5 billion is 2%, which is less than the margin of error in most of the polls that pass as 
facts in news broadcasts. -- H

On 20 April 2017 at 17:18, Dave Farber <dave () farber net> wrote:

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Rich Kulawiec <rsk () gsp org>
Date: Thu, Apr 20, 2017 at 8:17 PM
Subject: Re: [IP] New York Times defends hiring extreme climate denier: 'millions agree with him'
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>


(for IP, if you wish)

This is not only incredibly tone-deaf, it's dangerous.  I've been
engaged in climatology self-education for the past 15 years or so,
attempting to leverage my science and engineering background into a
basic understanding of the field via books, papers, IPCC reports, etc.

I've lost count of the number of times a new paper or report shows that
previous ones erred -- and those errors are almost invariably on the
conservative side, i.e., newer work shows that the situation is worse
than previously thought.  The emergence of positive feedback loops
is particularly troubling; it seems like every few months another is
uncovered and found to be contributing to the overall trend.

The more I learn, the more horrified I become.

Albert A. Bartlett wrote that the greatest shortcoming of the human race
is man's inability to understand the exponential function.  We stand at
an inflection point on a curve, staring at the slope rising in front of us,
with limited time and resources to avoid the nearly inevitable...and the
New York Times is pandering to the scientifically illiterate for the sake
of some transient profits.  I would say that the judgment of history
will be harsh -- but I fear that few will be left to write it.

---rsk



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John Schwartz

The New York Times

 jswatz () nytimes com / twitter.com/jswatz

Telephone: 212 556 7353

620 Eighth Avenue, New York, NY 10018

Speaking only for myself since 1957


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