Censoring Science Reprise

Hmmh … . Even though it’s more than four years old, Censoring Science was reviewed just the other day on the Daily Kos. Might have something to do with the fact that this is an election year. And, come to think of it, it might be worthwhile to refresh our memories about the brutal tactics of the last Republican administration, since they will almost certainly return if a Republican wins the election this year. After all, as I show in the book, every Republican administration since 1988, when Jim Hansen turned global warming into a public issue, has censored government scientists who work in this area.

Kudos to Bill Blakemore, too.

While I’m at it, I think I ought to recommend Bill Blakemore, too. His work has defined the cutting edge of accurate, facts-based reporting on global warming since at least 2005. I had the privilege of talking to him a few times as I was writing Censoring Science, and, as I say in the acknowledgments to that book, those interactions were high points of that experience.

Bill not only reports magnificently on the subject, he is also eloquent on the subtleties and responsibilities of reporting on such a complex, ideology-laden issue. Most other journalists could benefit from reading and watching his work.

Here’s an excellent recent piece by Bill on the ABC News Web site.

 

Kudos to Justin Gillis

I’ve been meaning for a while to mention how impressed I am with the new climate science reporter at the New York Times, Justin Gillis. Now, I can’t put it off any longer, since he’s just written a profile of Lonnie Thompson, the protagonist in my first book. Justin did an excellent job, considering how difficult it is to fit as rich a life as Lonnie’s into 3,000 words. He hit just the right tones in his brief encapsulations of the various incidents and scientific matters. I was lucky to have more room when I wrote my book. (Some might argue too much!)

I first noticed a sea-change in the climate science reporting at the Times about two years ago in Justin’s first in-depth piece on climate, a story about the connection between the chaotic weather we’ve been experiencing for the past few years and global warming. The story was wonderfully clear, and reflected current scientific knowledge and uncertainty quite accurately, in my opinion. Justin took a rational approach. He went to the best scientists, used his own intelligence to understand the data and the crux of the matter, and reported his findings simply and straightforwardly. The previous reporter on this beat at the Times (I’m afraid that would be Andy Revkin) had approached the subject as if it were a political issue and he was an investigative reporter. He wasn’t particularly interested in getting to the bottom of scientific issues himself. Instead, he would go out of his way to get the “other side” of the story, which meant that he treated people with little scientific expertise, a history of intellectual dishonesty, or some very obvious bias–propagandists basically–as if they were experts on a par with the world’s leading scientists. As a result, as insightful as his articles could sometimes be, they were generally garbled and delivered mixed and misleading messages. I saw this as a sort of intellectual laziness and shirking of responsibility. Not so with Justin. I know how hard he worked on the Lonnie profile, for example, because he talked with me about it, off and on, for about six months.

I recommend all of Justin’s pieces, and especially his profile of Charles David Keeling. You can find most of them here and here.

And, Justin, please keep up the good work. We need it. It’s helpful.