A press release announcing the University of Hawaii has signed on to The Climate Registry prompted several stories this past week, with the Star-Bulletin and all the local television news broadcasts covering the issue.
Only KHON’s Andrew Pereira also spotlighted a climate change skeptic.
While carbon footprint measurements have become a popular way for governments, companies and other institutions to tout their environmental consciousness, a global warming skeptic says it will do absolutely nothing to reverse climate change.
“Like all the other concerns about CO2 it’s a waste of money,” said Dr. Timothy Ball, a renowned environmental consultant and former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg. “CO2 isn’t a problem,” says Ball. “It’s probably the biggest misdirection in the history of science.”
“Renowned”? Perhaps, but not for his science. Ball is one of those former scientists on retainers from unpopular industries, like the “you still can’t prove which cigarette is going to cause the cancer so let’s not worry about the health risks of smoking” guys.
SourceWatch provides considerable background on Ball, including these documents that were part of a defamation lawsuit by Ball. The suit was eventually withdrawn, but not before claims about Ball’s academic position and qualifications were discredited.
But Pereira went further in questioning global warming, not good for what I think is still the most-watched local news.
Ball is among a growing number of climatologists who question the validity of manmade global warming. “You cannot find a record of any length, of any time period in the history of the earth,” Ball said, “where CO2 causes temperature to increase.”
This drew a strong response from the Sierra Club’s Jeff Mikulina, who e-mailed Pereira:
What? Are you kidding? Do you have ANY evidence to support this unattributed assertion? This is absolutely false, and damagingly so. Viewers of your story may now believe that a growing number of experts
are now questioning manmade global warming when in fact the opposite is true. Your story has erroneously given viewers additional permission to ignore the biggest threat to our planet.…Your spin on this story is not true. It needs to be corrected.
Pereira sent a curt and unsatisfactory reply:
It’s more amazing Jeff how you refer to someone on the other side of the man made global warming debate like Dr. Ball as a denier, as to qualify him with some who denies the holocaust.
I am paid to get both sides of any story and if you have a problem with that, well then I cannot help you.
Mikulina responded by pointing to several sources reflecting the overwhelming scientific consensus regarding global warming, then suggested alternative ways of more accurately reflecting the ongoing debate.
In this story, the “other side” might have been whether or not signing up for the Climate Registry will have any real value in actually reducing emissions, or the difficulty in actually implementing change at an institution like UH, or what have you. But offering up someone with such a sordid history like Ted Ball to make a phony argument against the science is questionable journalism. In the best case it suggests extreme bias. In the worst it confuses the public about the status of knowledge of global climate change, thus delaying effective action to solve the biggest crisis of our time.
What still isn’t clear is whether Pereira’s slant on the story reflects the broader approach taken by the Fox network.
The sunrise this morning was at 5:54 a.m., which is a few minutes before we leave the house. So the sun is quite a ways above the horizon at this time of year when we round the first corner and get a view down to the ocean. No walking in the dark until late in the year.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Andy Parx // May 11, 2008 at 10:08 am
Given the history of Channel 2 News it’s not so surprising that second- rate journalists are all that remain. This is the laziest form of journalism and the most dishonest- digging up paid lobbyists for science deniers because, as Pereira says “I am paid to get both sides of any story and if you have a problem with that, well then I cannot help you.”
No Andrew- you’re paid to have a healthy sense of skepticism and know when it’s raining and when someone’s peeing on your foot. Where’s your documentation for the “growing number of climatologists” claim? Did you check Ball’s ties to corporations who are paying them to say it? I doubt it- at least you didn’t report it. That’s called lazy journalism and is not what people expect you are being paid for. It probably took Ian all of a few minutes to do your job for you.
If that is Pereira’s idea of what he’s paid to do he’s not a journalist but a hack and a shill. The job is to “publish” the “truth” or as close to it as is humanly possible and the skill and art is to recognize total BS when you see it, not to seek out someone to say the opposite of what everyone else is saying.
But sad to say that’s what passes for reporting these days in most corporate newsrooms, which is one of the main reasons why people nowadays distrust the press.
2 ongre08 // May 11, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Damn, I liked Channel 2 news up to now. Of course I don’t watch much of any TV News especially disliking 4 and 9 and 8…
3 kailuahale // May 13, 2008 at 5:53 am
Here’s one of Ball’s (excuse me, Dr. Ball, “scientist”) great quotes:
“A warmer Canada would improve our lives in these and other ways too numerous to list. Global warming? Let’s hope so,” he wrote in June 2006. [8]
Thanks for the sources, Ian. I agree with Jeff: not just false, or lazy as you say. It’s really dangerous journalism.
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