CBC’s
continuing denial of the climate science debate
Like the network itself, The Fifth Estate
has violated its own mandate with ‘The Denial Machine’
November 16, 2007
By Dr. Tim Ball and Tom Harris
The CBC television programme, “The Fifth Estate,” describes
its raison d’ être as follows:
“to challenge assumptions and question conventional
wisdom, and most importantly to give voice to victims
of injustice who deserve to be heard but have been silenced.”
But what if The Fifth Estate itself is the perpetrator
of the injustice? What if it is their own network that
has ignored and mistreated those who disagree with “conventional
wisdom” on an issue of national importance? Will the programme
then “challenge assumptions” on which fashionable views
are based? Or will they simply parrot political correctness,
carefully ignoring, or denigrating the opinions of those
who spend their lives studying the field?
If the past year’s repeated broadcasts of The
Denial Machine (aired for at least the 15th time
on October 28th on CBC TV) is any indication, then the
answer to these questions are obvious – when it comes
to climate change, the Fifth Estate is not even remotely
interested in questioning conventional wisdom or even
following basic journalistic ethics. They are climate
campaigners – state-funded propagandists, pure and simple.
And, as is usually the case with partisan activists, the
ends apparently justifies the means in their eyes, no
matter how disreputable.
My (Tim Ball’s) own experience with Fifth Estate staff
is a case in point.
We at NRSP had heard from our American friends who had
already been interviewed for The Fifth Estate programme
in mid-2006 that it was clearly being designed to malign
scientists who dared speak out against the politically
correct, but scientifically-flawed hypothesis that human
emissions of carbon dioxide were causing a ‘climate crisis’.
U.S. scientists complained to us that Fifth Estate staff
were more interested in creating controversy about alleged
funding sources of their work than in listening to anything
they had to say about scientific research. Recognizing
the CBC show as a ‘hatchet job’ in the making, we refused
the Fifth Estate’s dogged requests for interviews, e-mailing
them (Tom Harris) “based on your past coverage of the
issue and our feedback from people you have already interviewed,
or tried to interview, we did not believe the upcoming
show would cover the issue in a fair and balanced fashion.”
We (Tim Ball) even told the CBC via e-mail, “I have now
decided not to participate in your program and ask that
you not use this or any previous communications in the
programme.” We also relayed the comments of our US friends
to our scientist contacts in Canada and other countries
who likewise refused to be interviewed by the Fifth Estate
for the show. This is why none of the many Canadian and
other non-American climate scientists who question the
nonsensical assertions of Al Gore and David Suzuki appear
in The Denial Machine - except me (Tim Ball),
that is.
So, how did I (Tim Ball) end up ‘starring’ in the Fifth
Estate’s slick ‘docu-ganda’ despite having totally refused
to participate?
On the morning of October 5, 2006 I was setting up my
Power Point slides for a breakfast presentation I was
giving at a conference in Dawson Creek, B.C. when a reporter
with a camera and sound man approached me. He asked if
he could interview me. I asked who he represented. He
replied “CBC News”. I said, “you are not the Fifth Estate
are you because I have declined to be interviewed by them.”
He said no, he was CBC News. I replied that I didn't have
time for an interview as I had a seven hour drive ahead
of me right after the talk as I was to present again that
evening in La Crete. The reporter said he wanted to talk
about funding and I asked why funding from one source
was considered acceptable and agenda-less while funding
from those on the other side was considered suspect (with
only a few brave exceptions, few dare question, for example,
the David Suzuki Foundation (DSF), about their funding
sources even though they list
oil and gas companies and foreign foundations among their
donors. John Oakley on AM640 radio is one of the exceptions
– listen here;
David Suzuki’s errors are outlined here).
While I spoke with the ‘CBC News’ reporter, I noticed
the cameraman busy doing something with his equipment
but since I had said no to an interview, I assumed his
camera was off. The reporter then asked if they could
follow me to La Crete. I said he could do what he wanted.
He left the stage only to come back a few minutes later
saying the crew thought it a waste to travel seven hours
for a ten minute interview and could I agree to a brief
interview after my talk? I consented.
After my presentation, I went to the back of the hall
where the CBC team had two opposing chairs, the cameraman,
lights and sound man set up. I sat down and they put the
microphone on me, then the interviewer said, I think I
should tell you that this is for The Fifth Estate, what
do you want to do? I stood up, took the microphone off
and said, "I'm out of here." He asked if we
could discuss it and admitted that his confession as to
representing the programme was done at the urging of his
technicians. I replied to the reporter, "I don't
talk to liars", and left. I would swear I saw a distinct
‘good for you’ look on the camera and sound men's faces.
That, so I thought, was that. Little did I know however,
that without my knowledge or consent, the Fifth Estate
cameraman had in fact secretly filmed my conversation
with the reporter before the talk. A good portion of that
discussion appears starting at about the ½ hour
mark in the many airings of The Denial Machine.
My specific request that they not use “any previous communications
in the programme” had fallen on deaf ears. While this
sort of thing goes on among some of the less scrupulous
media every day, it is a disgrace that our national broadcaster
stoops so low. I am planning on registering a formal complaint
with the network’s Ombudsman.
Programme’s mistakes left in even after warnings
Since the CBC first broadcast The
Denial Machine in November 2006, both the show’s producers
and the network’s Ombudsman have been informed about numerous
scientific and other errors in the programme. There are
too many to list them all here but some samples that were
left in the programme, even after its most recent edit,
are as follows:
1. The Fifth Estate commentator asserts, “The Denial
Machine investigates the roots of the campaign to negate
the science and the threat of global warming.” The programme
does not address the roots of the issue at all. Had they
done so, they would have discovered that many of the scientists
who disagree with climate alarmism have been working in
this field for decades and their published papers contesting
the politically correct view date from the early 80’s.
If some American climate experts who refute the
human-caused climate change hypothesis now receive support
from fossil fuel companies, then it is clearly as a result
of the scientists’ already well-established record of
outstanding research in the field. In other words, the
Fifth Estate have cause and effect backwards – support
from industry would obviously be a result of, not a cause
of, the work of skeptical scientists.
The issue of possible industry funding is mostly moot
anyways since very little (completely none in Canada)
of the funding for research into the causes of global
climate change comes from industry of any kind – it is
essentially all tax-payer funded. Should the results of
tax-payer funded research be hidden from the tax-payer?
Like many in the CBC, The Fifth Estate and the network’s
Ombudsman apparently think so.
The Fifth Estate’s use of the phrase “negates the science”
is obviously misleading editorializing since scientists
who oppose the views of Suzuki, Gore et al are in fact
doing what scientists are always supposed to do – probe,
enquire, test, and, in this case, advancing a viewpoint
of the science independent of political or corporate expedience.
This promotes real science and the scientific method,
and in no way ‘negates’ it.
2. Next the Fifth Estate tell us, “Tonight, we’ll show
you how a relatively small group of scientists and corporations
has managed to create a stand-off that could undermine
the international cooperation many believe is our climate’s
best hope.”
Both the network and the programme have been shown repeatedly
that there is a very large group of climate scientists
who have long opposed ‘environmental correctness’ on this
issue. Whether it was the 8,000 scientists who work in
areas related to climate change who signed the Oregon
Petition opposing climate hysteria, or other open
letters (sample)
and statements from climate experts, the network must
understand by now that there is anything but a consensus
in the field. In reality, debate rages behind the scenes
in the climate science community, as evidenced by the
thousands of scientific papers published in the field
every year. Were the science ‘settled’ as the programme
implies, then the situation would be more akin to that
in the field of plate tectonics where the science is rarely
a topic of peer-reviewed scientific papers since the science
is settled.
The lack of any clear scientific consensus in the field
is an important issue and the CBC’s response to a challenge
to show why they believe such a consensus exists is illuminating
– see Note
1 after this article.
3. Immediately after the first broadcast of The Denial
Machine in November 2006, Terrance Corcoran of the National
Post wrote
about how the Fifth Estate had failed to inform viewers
about the affiliations of one of their prime witnesses
against scientists on our side of the debate, James Hoggan,
President of James
Hoggan and Associates, a leading Vancouver-based PR
firm. Corcoran pointed out the strong connections between
Hoggan and the David Suzuki Foundation (namely, sitting
on its board. He is also a donor) and alternative energy
companies, clients who would benefit from climate alarmism.
Since then, Hoggan has taken the reins from David Suzuki
and now sits
as the Chair of the Board of the David Suzuki Foundation.
Yet, instead of identifying the deepening connection
between Hoggan and climate activists, not to mention alternative
energy interests (far closer than any ‘skeptical’ scientist
has with fossil fuel interests), the Fifth Estate still
identified Hoggan only as “Vancouver PR man”. This clearly
violates the CBC’s “Journalistic Standards and Practices”
which states
(Production Standards, section B: 1.3):
“Any relevant aspects of a commentator's credentials
must be clearly summarized so that the audience may
have a perspective from which to appraise the speaker's
view. For example, the position and affiliation of a
journalist or the particular qualifications of an academic
or any other type of speaker should be stated.”
Given this obvious breach of the network’s own policies,
will the CBC Ombudsman rule against the show’s producers?
Based on the response from the Ombudsman’s office concerning
past complaints about the CBC’s biased coverage of climate
change (see Note
1 below), don’t count on it.
Samples of the other oversights and errors on
the part of Fifth Estate Programme
Although it is not yet possible to review all the complaints
registered by Canadians about The Denial Machine over
the past year (see Note
2), many of the programme’s errors and oversights
are obvious.
1. The Fifth Estate identifies the Web site James Hoggan
and Associates is contracted to operate to oppose scientists
who disagree with David Suzuki, Al Gore, the IPCC, etc.
on climate change, as merely being funded by a “grant
from someone in the environmental movement”. If this is
all they were able to uncover in their research, then
one truly wonders about the Fifth Estate’s ‘investigative
reporting’ capabilities. Hoggan’s staff clearly identify
John Lefebvre (who is also a major David Suzuki Foundation
donor)
as their funder, writing on their Web site, “The DeSmogBlog
team is especially grateful to our benefactor John Lefebvre,
a lawyer, internet entrepreneur and past-president of
NETeller …” . A quick media search reveals that Lefebvre
has been having legal difficulties of late and now faces
the possibility of up to five years in prison and millions
of dollars in fines in conjunction with his arrested in
Malibu, California by the FBI in January. According to
USA Today (August 15, 2007), John Lefebvre “… pleaded
guilty to a charge of conspiracy to transfer funds with
the intent to promote illegal gambling.”
We do not pretend to know more about this case than what
is being written in main stream media, but provide Note
3 below to illustrate the sort of coverage that other
media have given this situation, information easily available
to Fifth Estate producers about the funder of Hoggan’s
climate change Web site.
Some
media have referred to the American Internet gambling
law as “hypocritical” on the part of the U.S government.
However, as described in Note
4 below, it is apparent many Americans do not feel
this way and have treated the issue very seriously over
the past ten years.
2. The Fifth Estate completely misrepresents the way
in which the Friends
of Science Society (FoS) was initiated. I (Dr. Ball)
had been interacting with geo-scientist Albert Jacobs,
now a past director of FoS, since the late 1990’s when
Mr. Jacobs was making regular public presentations on
climate science. In subsequent years Mr. Jacobs and some
of his earth science colleagues discussed the formation
of a group like FoS and the Society was finally launched
in early 2002. I (Dr Ball) became an advisor to FoS later
that year. Until October 2006, when I withdrew from FoS
to dedicate myself to the group I now chair, the Natural
Resources Stewardship Project (NRSP.com),
I acted as a primary science advisor to FoS and was very
pleased to be associated with this outstanding group of
individuals. Contrary to the claims of the Fifth Estate,
FoS was in no way involved in the press conference I took
part in in Ottawa in 2002. Fifth Estate reporters could
have discovered this easily with a brief phone call to
any of the current directors of FoS.
3. The Fifth Estate tell its audience that President
Bush pulled “the U.S. out of the Kyoto agreement designed
to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” What they neglect
to mention is the U.S. was never really ‘in’ Kyoto because
they never ratified it. This had nothing to do with Bush.
On July 25, 1997, the U.S. Senate passed Resolution
98, also known as the “Byrd-Hagel Resolution,” which
advised President Clinton not to sign the Protocol. The
Senate vote was 95 – 0 and the resolution’s passage occurred
almost five months before Kyoto was created. The resolution
stated clearly that the US should not sign on to any international
greenhouse gas control treaty that does not include meaningful
targets for developing nations (which they expected would
have greater greenhouse gas emissions than developed nations
by 2015 – in fact 2004 marked the first time in history
that carbon dioxide emissions from the non-OECD exceeded
those from the OECD countries – ref.).
Also, the Senate “strongly” believed that “serious harm
to the United States economy…” could result if the U.S.
did join.
In a presentation to the National Geographic Society
on October 22, 1997, President Clinton asserted
“both industrialized and developing countries must participate
in meeting the challenge of climate change. The industrialized
world must lead, but developing countries also must be
engaged. The United States will not assume binding obligations
unless key developing nations meaningfully participate
in this effort. … If the entire industrialized world reduces
emissions over the next several decades, but emissions
from the developing world continue to grow at their current
pace, concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere
will continue to climb.”
Despite these warning from the United States, the UN
proceeded to finalize the Kyoto Protocol in December 1997,
in which they assigned no greenhouse gas emission reduction
targets to developing nations. Not surprisingly, in February,
1998, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in their
hearing Implications of the Kyoto Protocol on Climate
Change included testimony that the Protocol as adopted
the previous December “fails—to meet either of the requirements
of Senate Resolution 98.” It is therefore also not surprising
that neither the Clinton nor the Bush Administration sent
the Protocol to the Senate for ratification. Blaming the
Bush administration for the lack of American participation
in Kyoto may be fashionable these days in much of the
media, but the facts tell a different story. How did the
Fifth Estate miss this in their months of research for
the programme?
From basic statistics mistakes to subliminal
language tricks, The Denial Machine disgraces
the CBC
Fifth Estate errors even extend to simple statistical
mistakes. They say, “But don’t bother doing the math.
All you really need to know is that, even if the US did
cut greenhouse gas intensity by 18%, the absolute amount
of carbon dioxide being pumped into the atmosphere could
go still up and up, which is precisely what’s happening.”
They reinforced this assertion by uncritically including
the comment of Philip Clapp of the National Environmental
Trust that, “US emissions have done nothing but go straight
up.”
This is quite wrong. As can be seen in the following
graph from the U.S. Energy
Information Administration, absolute emissions dropped
1.3% in 2006, 1.7% in 2001 and 1% in 1991. Even the Washington
Post got that one right when they wrote:
“U.S. carbon dioxide emissions dropped slightly last year
even as the economy grew.”
In 2006, “energy intensity (energy consumed per $ real
GDP) fell by over 4%, as total energy demand declined
0.9% while the economy grew by 3.3%. The 2006 decline
in carbon intensity is the largest since 1990 and the
4th largest since 1949” (ref.),
hardly a catastrophe in the making as the Fifth Estate
would have us believe.
Perhaps the most egregious misrepresentation of The
Denial Machine is the general connection they attempt
to establish between scientists who contested the relationship
between cigarette smoking and cancer and those who now
contest global warming alarmism. After identifying a grand
total of one climate scientist (three individuals in all)
who the Fifth Estate implies were “veterans of the tobacco
wars”, now engaged “on the front lines of the global warming
battle”, they uncritically accepted the assertion from
a Greenpeace representative that “there are a lot of characters
who were in that debate as well who shifted from being
tobacco denialists to being climate denialists.” Did the
CBC interviewer ask who this “lot of characters” included?
Not a chance. After all, this was a connection the Fifth
Estate were doing their best to establish as well. Unless,
programme producers can present a significant list of
such “characters”, climate scientists specifically, then
the charge is clearly spurious and should be immediately
withdrawn from future airings or other distributions of
the programme.
Language and other subliminal tricks employed
by the Fifth Estate
The Denial Machine frequently uses language and other
tricks to sway viewers against scientists who contest
climate alarmism, for example making statements that appear
at first glance to be significant, but are actually meaningless.
Some samples from the programme:
- “Global warming is real and we must do something
about it.”
- “most scientists believed that global warming was
real and had potentially catastrophic consequences.”
- “After all, global warming is widely accepted around
the world as scientific fact.”
Yes, global warming is “real” in some time periods in
the 20th century and in fact throughout the long history
of our planet – no one doubts that; so was global cooling
“real” in other time frames, such as after World War II
when carbon dioxide levels were rising at a faster rate
than at any time in human history. Gravity, sunrise and
super novas in distant galaxies are also all “real”. That
doesn’t mean we are causing these phenomena. After all,
warming is apparently now happening
on Mars, Jupiter, Pluto and other bodies in the Solar
System – are human greenhouse gas emissions causing those
temperature changes as well? Or is there a common denominator
to these occurrences, such as a brighter Sun than at any
time in the past 8,000 years (ref.
- describes new findings about the Sun’s influence), a
far more meaningful correlation the Fifth Estate appears
uninterested in investigating. Of course we “must do something
about” climate change – learn to adapt to it, as humans
always have in the face of environmental change. But trying
to ‘stop climate change’ makes about as much sense as
engaging in rain dances or burning witches to bring back
good weather.
Other ludicrous and misleading statements abound in The
Denial Machine – here is just one more from the programme’s
web
page: “some scientists still insist that climate change,
if it is happening at all, could be a good thing.” There
are no reputable scientists who contest whether climate
change “is happening at all”. As Carleton University paleo-climatologist
told
a commons committee in 2005, “The only constant about
climate is change; it changes continually.” And it is
certainly a good thing that climate changed 10,000 years
ago or Canada would still be covered in glaciers. It is
certainly a good thing that, starting in the 1800’s, climate
changed and we began to come out of Little Ice Age, a
period that caused untold suffering and hardship for hundreds
of millions. Regardless, why does the Fifth Estate apparently
believe today’s climate is optimal?
Subliminal tricks used to discredit skeptical
scientists
The most obvious subliminal trick used by The Denial
Machine is the disparaging reference to scientists
who question current climate concerns as being climate
change “deniers”. This is both ridiculous and offensive
- ridiculous, for reasons just mentioned; offensive, since
the label is intended to equate disagreement with future
forecasts of primitive computer climate models with Holocaust
denial. Many of those alive today who personally experienced
the Holocaust, one of the most evil episodes in human
history, are scandalized that this horrific tragedy is
being compared to a hypothetical forecast of events that
may or may not happen.
Another less severe, though still significant subliminal
trick used by the Fifth Estate is the way they identify
scientists on each side of the debate:
Climate alarmist Dr. Andrew Weaver is identified as a
“climatologist” at the University of Victoria and “one
of the authors of that definitive international report.”
‘Climate skeptics’ are ascribed lesser credentials. I
(Tim Ball) am just “a retired University of Winnipeg Professor”,
a “so-called expert” “who hasn’t published original research
in years”. In fact, my most recent paper was published
earlier in 2007 in the scientific journal, Ecological
Complexity. It is entitled Polar bears of western
Hudson Bay and climate change: Are warming spring air
temperatures the “ultimate” survival control factor?
and was co-authored with Baliunas, Dyck, Soon, Baydack,
Legates, and Hancock. I was also the co-author of the
book Eighteenth Century Naturalists of Hudson Bay
(2004 - McGill/Queens University Press) with Dr. Stuart
Houston, one of the World’s leading authorities on arctic
birds.
Dr. Willie Soon, a Harvard University researcher who
is a leader in the study of the Sun’s influence on climate
is not identified at all when he speaks in The Denial
Machine. Instead, just as Dr. Soon comes on, the
Fifth Estate commentator sarcastically remarks, “Call
them deniers, debunkers, or skeptics, they style themselves
as ‘keepers of the truth’ about global warming, disputing
the consensus that climate change is caused by humans.”
Dr. Patrick Michaels is also left unidentified when he
first speaks and it is only later in the programme when
some of his credentials are listed by conservative talk
show host Shawn Hannity but with no reference to his climatology
background (Michaels is a past president of the American
Association of State Climatologists, was program chair
for the Committee on Applied Climatology of the American
Meteorological Society and is a contributing author and
reviewer of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change).
The Fifth Estate’s main target, Dr. Fred Singer, is merely
identified as being “of George Mason University in Virginia”.
In fact, Singer is an atmospheric physicist, Distinguished
Research Professor at George Mason University and Professor
Emeritus of environmental science at University of Virginia.
He was the first director of the U.S. National Weather
Satellite Service and served five years as vice chairman
of the U.S. National Advisory Committee on Oceans and
Atmospheres. But to the Fifth Estate, he is just another
‘denier’ to be discredited, a group that according to
the CBC “represent only a fraction of academic thought
on the subject”.
This misrepresentation of scientists who oppose the point
of view the Fifth Estate is trying to promote is another
clear violation of the CBC’s “Journalistic Standards and
Practices, Production Standards, section B: 1.3” detailed
previously. The Singer interview also obviously breaks
another CBC rule, found in their Production Standards
section B: 1.1 in which it states:
“Hosts and interviewers must treat their guests
fairly. They should not be critical or demanding of
some, while conciliatory and sympathetic to others.”
Had the Fifth Estate followed this policy, they would
have asked Greenpeace, Hoggan and others who support climate
change alarmism tough questions such as the identities
of their funders.
And so it continues, mistake after mistake, misrepresentation
after misrepresentation – not only did the Fifth Estate
misrepresent the conclusions of IPCC scientists but they
even mis-reported the climate section of the recent throne
speech in which the government said,
“Canada’s emissions cannot be brought to the level required
under the Kyoto Protocol within the compliance period,”
The throne speech did not “promise is to abandon Canada’s
commitment to reduce greenhouse gases under the Kyoto
agreement.” as the Fifth Estate asserted. In fact, the
federal government has stated clearly that Canada will
not be quitting Kyoto (as we legally can, and should,
in February 2008) and will continue to work within its
framework. How Canada can do that while not meeting its
most important components is another question but the
Fifth Estate’s fabrication of throne speech contents is
just more of the sort of thing we have been detailing
in this article.
Viewer’s guide to rooting out propaganda in future
CBC climate coverage
In the CBC’s handbook
of Journalistic Standards and Practices, outgoing
network President and CEO, Robert Rabinovitch asserts,
“The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation occupies
a unique position of trust. … it is funded, through
Parliament, by the people of Canada. CBC therefore considers
it a duty to provide consistent, high-quality information
upon which all citizens may rely. … CBC is and must
remain properly accountable to the public it serves.
The Corporation is proud to declare its journalistic
values for all to see and understand.”
We have explained how the Fifth Estate programme, The
Denial Machine, grossly betrays the fundamentals
of honest and professional journalism that the CBC tells
Canadians they follow. Will the network, of its own accord,
now launch a formal review of a programme that clearly
violates its own stated “journalistic values”? Or will
the incoming president, Montreal lawyer Hubert Lacroix,
simply sweep the issue under the rug as did Rabinovitch
when this sort of problem was brought to his attention
in 2002? Only time will tell.
In the meantime, CBC viewers need self-defense strategies
to protect themselves from the sort of propaganda we witnessed
in The Denial Machine and other CBC News programmes
that deal with the immensely complex and controversial
field of climate change science.
The most reliable tool is simple skepticism, standard
operating procedure in science untainted by politics.
‘I don’t believe you; prove it!’ is an appropriate response
to the assertions of David Suzuki and the newly minted
Al
Gore-trained climate campaigners now criss-crossing
North America. But such a charge, while normal among real
scientists, is politically incorrect when applied to climate
change so most people need something more passive, a climate
change propaganda detector.
Here are eight basic journalistic blunders that will
cause alarm bells to ring on a properly tuned detector:
1. Reporters stating, or implying, that natural events
are unnatural, or normal events abnormal. This guarantees
that assertions that we are seeing more extreme events
are always right. The “warmest/wettest/driest/snowiest/windiest”
actually means the most extreme in the official record
which for most of the world is less than 50 years. Such
a short time interval guarantees records will be set
all the time.
2. Speculation and exaggeration presented by journalists
and guests as unbiased fact. The Fifth Estates uncritical
inclusion of the comments of Dr. Andrew Weaver that,
“We have warming. It’s because of humans and the cause
is fossil fuel combustion.” is a good example. Weaver’s
remarks are the sort of wild leap in faith that has
become all too common in the computer climate modeling
community (see Note
5 below for more on the problem with models). The
public must take such overconfident proclamations with
a very large grain of salt.
It is revealing to compare UN and other political pronouncements
about climate with the original scientific research
that supposedly backs them. Conditional words - “could”,
“may”, “possibly” or “it appears” – that appear in the
science papers vanish when the issues become political
and make their way into the press. UN Secretary General
Ban Ki-moon’s assertions before the 15th Session of
the Commission on Sustainable Development in May is
classic, “The recent report of the UN's Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) emphasizes that the science
on climate change is very clear, that the warming of
the climate system is unequivocal, and that this is
happening because of human activities.” Of course
IPCC scientists concluded no such thing but the Secretary
General’s exaggerations generate exciting headlines
and draw more attention to his cause.
3. Reporters making assertions about their being a
consensus in the scientific community about the causes
of climate change while not citing any polls that show
such a consensus exists. Or saying "Scientists
believe ..." when in fact it should be "Some
scientists believe...". One of the most common
mis-representations by CBC reporters is that “2,500
scientists of the UN IPCC agree _______ “, with the
commentator filling in the blank with some sort of apocalyptic
proclamation – more on this is discussed at the end
of Note
1 below.
4. Not balancing the time given alarmists and skeptics.
If someone from the David Suzuki Foundation is given
ten seconds to expound their views, viewers should complain
if someone from the skeptics' side is not given an equal
amount of time in that broadcast, or at least another
broadcast of equal importance on a nearby day. Viewers
should also be alert to determine if programmes are
dedicated to exploring alternative viewpoints in a balanced
fashion. If The Nature of Things highlights the alarmist
side of the climate change debate (as it always does),
is an equally well known show such as W5 devoted to
an uncritical exposé of the skeptics' view?
5. Exploitation of basic fears; Michael Crichton wrote
effectively on the use of fear by environmental groups
and the media, a common practice also well documented
by Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore. Humans are naturally
fearful of the environment because they know it can
kill them. Animism, the earliest form of religion, revolved
around worshipping and placating nature, even at the
expense of human well-being. Much of today’s environmentalism
takes exactly the same tack.
6. Taking advantage of public ignorance about science.
Mislabeling carbon dioxide as pollution is standard
practice for many campaigners and politicians – Senator
Barbara Boxer’s (D-California) “Global Warming Pollution
Reduction Act” is riddled with this fundamental deception
and Gore often refers to CO2 as pollution. “Climate
change is real!”, “The science is settled” and other
meaningless but loaded assertions are frequently used
to manipulate public opinion by communications consultants,
many media and political operatives unconcerned with
reality (climate has, and always will change and the
science is never settled).
7. Continuously shifting goalposts. Initially, global
warming fears dominated public consciousness. Then,
starting in 1998, temperatures dropped and then stabilized
while atmospheric CO2 continued to rise in complete
contradiction to the theory. So the mantra became ‘climate
change’ and any and all variations could then be attributed
to human activities. To avoid addressing the fact that
climate change is a natural occurrence on all planets
(a number of which are now warming, undoubtedly due
to increases in solar energy) a new goal post shift
is occurring; now the phraseology is the ‘climate crisis’,
or even ‘dealing with climate chaos’.
8. Reacting to growing pressure to defend the indefensible
by simply ‘upping the ante’, making statements that
everyone, regardless of fear or lack of knowledge, eventually
understands to be ridiculous. John Ritch, Director General
of the London-based World Nuclear Association provided
a perfect example in his June speech to the American
Nuclear Society in Boston, “…greenhouse gas emissions,
if continued at the present massive scale, will yield
consequences that are - quite literally – apocalyptic
:.. If these predictions hold true, the combined effect
would be the death of not just millions but of billions
of people - and the destruction of much of civilization
on all continents.”
Countering today’s hysteria is a huge well of common
sense in people. This was apparent even in the Fifth Estate’s
own discussion
group. While seven of the first ten comments from
the public supported The Denial Machine, support dropped
quickly among the 40 comments that came in until only
two of the last ten comments supported the programme.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the CBC then quickly closed
the discussion group, blocking any further contributions
from the public even though the show had last been broadcast
the night before and the discussion board had been open
only eight days (other programme discussions have been
left open for months on Fifth Estate Web pages). Even
the postings that were allowed by the network clearly
demonstrated a growing trend in Canada – the public are
becoming suspicions that they are being duped as science
increasingly demonstrates that the thesis of human-caused
climate catastrophe is simply wrong. A 2006 Ipsos-Reid
poll supported this when it revealed
that fully 39% of Canadians believe recent climate change
is natural.
The Denial Machine does fulfill one useful purpose, however
- it can be used as a bad example. Since its biases are
so easily rooted out, it is an exceptionally useful educational
tool for universities, colleges and senior high schools
as a demonstration of ‘yellow journalism’. Wikipedia includes
the following definition of this despicable practice,
“Yellow journalism is a pejorative reference to journalism
that features scandal-mongering, sensationalism, jingoism
or other unethical or unprofessional practices by news
media organizations or journalists.” The Denial Machine
is a perfect fit.
Dr. Timothy Ball, Chairman of the Natural Resources
Stewardship Project (NRSP.com),
is a Victoria, British Columbia-based environmental consultant
and former climatology professor at the University of
Winnipeg. Tom Harris is an Ottawa-based mechanical engineer
and NRSP Executive Director.
Note 1: Concerning the
CBC’s assertion that a ‘consensus’ exists among climate
scientists about the causes of climate change
For a number of years, the CBC has maintained that there
is a consensus in the climate science community about
the causes of climate change. Indeed, they have repeatedly
used the supposed existence of such a consensus as their
rationale for rarely covering the alternative point of
view on the science. In 2000, I (Tom Harris) challenged
the network to show that such a consensus exists. Finally,
on January 8, 2002, I e-mailed the Ombudsman:
“Today, 49 weeks after you explained that programmers
were to respond within four weeks and 62 weeks after
you said that you wanted to wait for a management review,
the best you can say is "Your complaint is among
those currently under review." … The National is
clearly violating your own CBC policies which require
you to give fair and balanced coverage on controversial
issues such as this one, yet no one at the CBC is prepared
to even address the issue seriously.”
By this time, I was openly Cc’ing many interested parties
on my communications with the network and, perhaps for
that reason, the Ombudsman responded in detail ten days
later. His 10-page response contains text that is worth
including here since many of the same points are being
made today when corresponding with the CBC on this issue
– here are some excerpts from the Ombudsman’s January
18, 2002 e-mail response to my complaint initially registered
in 2000:
“While CBC's Journalistic Standards and Practices
instructs public broadcasters to give voice to the widest
possible range of views, the journalism policy also
imposes upon CBC's journalists another editorial responsibility,
notably the requirement to take proper account of the
weight of opinion behind a point of view. So, to achieve
balance and fairness, it's not simply a matter of stating
'some say this and others say that; there's also a responsibility
hereabouts to determine what opinions are relevant,
to identify and to reflect what forces are driving any
given development. In other words, CBC's journalists
have a responsibility to exercise their editorial judgment.
As the policy book says, the CBC
"must supplement the exposition of one
point of view with an equitable treatment of other
relevant points of view. Equitable in this context
means fair and reasonable, taking into consideration
the weight of opinion behind a point of view, as
well as its significance or potential significance."”
And then later in the Ombudsman’s 2002 letter:
“… it seems to me, you are overstating both the
nature and the extent of the controversy in the science
that's been driving the international movement to curtail
the emission of greenhouse gases. You portray the state
of climate science as a sort of evenly balanced dispute
between some scientists who say we are causing climate
change and some others who say we are not.”
The Ombudsman then proceeded to describe in detail how
climate change science was being in covered in other media
- in particular, The Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail
and The New York Times – as well as by politicians, specifically
Presidents Clinton and Bush. Besides highlighting the
[very rare] coverage the network had given to our side
of the science, the Ombudsman concluded this section of
his review by stating:
“In a sense you are not on the same page as the
mainstream news Media… the CBC, in its decision making
process, is entitled to make its own editorial determination
about what opinions are in the mainstream, and need
to be reflected, and what opinions are on the margins,
and can be given the editorial hook they so often deserve…
Generally your other remarks ignore the strong consensus
in the scientific community that the greenhouse effect
is real, and that we humans are contributing to the
concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.”
I responded immediately to the Ombudsman:
“the fact that most of the world's media and political
leaders are convinced of the issue is not the point
here. The CBC must be held to a higher standard than
other media or politicians due to the network's status
as a taxpayer funded institution. I believe that The
National should be required to do sufficient research
so that they are able to disseminate information based
on what scientists currently active in the field are
actually saying …”
I concluded:
“you say, "... the CBC, in its decision making
process, is entitled to make its own editorial determination
about what opinions are in the mainstream, and need
to be reflected, and what opinions are on the margins,
and can be given the editorial hook they so often deserve."
As Cynthia Kinch [Executive Producer of The National]
implied, the fact that an idea is "in the mainstream"
and is therefore considered politically correct and
so "safe" in no way indicates that it is correct.
I side with Ms. Kinch on this one (even though I don't
believe she is actually directing The National to employ
this philosophy when reporting on the climate change
issue) when she says, "Skepticism and challenges
to accepted beliefs are an inherent part of journalism".
If the CBC is merely going to determine "what opinions
are in the mainstream, and need to be reflected",
then what are Canadians paying $750 million a year for?
We can get the news from the mainstream for free.”
The issue was eventually referred to the CBC President
who said he was satisfied with the Ombudsman’s response.
The President completely ignored my contention that the
network had failed to demonstrate a scientific consensus
and instead had only shown evidence that a consensus existed
in the media and among politicians.
Today, the same unsubstantiated claim of ‘consensus in
the scientific community’ is repeatedly used as a reason
for the CBC’s dogged refusal to cover both sides of the
issue (with the noted exception of Rex Murphy and, at
times, CBC TV Ottawa). In response to the same sort of
complaints concerning bias in The Denial Machine, David
Studer, Executive Producer of The Fifth Estate wrote:
“… our program was fair and balanced. … We're not
obliged, by policy or normal journalistic practice or
indeed by logic, to equate a preponderant and accepted
view with minority arguments that are at odds with the
facts as we have found them.”
Of course NRSP could challenge Studer to demonstrate
that a “preponderant and accepted view” within the scientific
community exists and the only a “minority” of scientists
“are at odds with the facts as [they] have found them.”
But the outcome of the same challenge to the network between
2000-2002 suggests that, in the final analysis, the network
is not concerned with what is real in this issue, only
what is widely thought to be real in the media. In that
way, the Fifth Estate is no different to many of the politicians
they so harshly criticize.
To learn more about the lack of any known consensus in
the scientific community about the causes of the past
centuries modest warming and forecasts for the future,
readers may read
a paper prepared by the authors as well as the PowerPoint
slides that accompanied the presentation of this paper.
Note 2: Complaints from Canadians
not yet visible on CBC Web site even after a year of broadcasting
The Denial Machine
When asked how one could view complaints from the public,
the Ombudsman responded (e-mail, 25/10/07) that the network
“had to overcome some internal "challenges"
to our ability to get material up on the website in a
timely manner”. He also indicated that the reviews of
viewers comments “will be posted on our website in the
coming days” – nothing is there as of this writing.
Note 3: Media reports on
recent legal difficulties of DeSmogBlog funder, John Lefebvre:
1 - According to by Michael Garcia, U.S. Attorney for
the southern district of New York, as quoted in a press
release issued on January 16, 2007, Lefebvre’s arrest
was “in connection with the creation of an Internet payment
services company that facilitated the transfer of billions
of dollars of illegal gambling proceeds from United States
citizens to the owners of various Internet gambling companies
located overseas".
2 - Calgary
Herald (October 26, 2007): “Manhattan-based U.S. Magistrate
Judge Gabriel Gorenstein confirmed the original [Lefebvre]
bail decision--$5 million in cash; passport confiscated;
confined to the central district of California, except
to fly to New York for interviews with U.S. attorneys
and FBI agents.” The Herald also reports that Garcia said,
"At the time that the defendants took Neteller public,
... the company's directors ... conceded that they were
risking prosecution by the government of the United States
under existing or future federal laws."
3 - Mail on Sunday (London), August 12, 2007: “… John
Lefebvre, were arrested and the company's office in Calgary,
Canada, was raided by a team of forensic accountants.
Neteller paid $136 million to the US government and returned
$94 million to American customers, while both men [Lefebvre
and his original Neteller partner] pleaded guilty to criminal
conspiracy.”
4 - Calgary
Herald (October 26, 2007): “On July 10, Judge Kevin
Castel in New York accepted Lefebvre's guilty plea. The
DoJ press release said, in part, "During the course
of the plea allocution, Lefebvre admitted that, during
the time he operated the Neteller Group, he learned that
laws in the United States prohibited certain funds transfers
for the purpose of promoting gambling, and as a result,
he knew his conduct was wrong. … The DoJ [Department of
Justice] has demanded that he be partially responsible
for paying $100 million US in restitution. It has also
recommended a jail sentence of up to five years, which
is the maximum term specified in the law.”
Note 4: American concerns
about Internet gambling
In 1996, President Clinton authorized the creation of
the National
Gambling Impact Study Commission. Their report was
issued
in 1999 and in it they paid special attention to the impact
of Internet gambling (“Internet betting, a $4 billion
industry that is illegal in the United States” – reference).
Although they focused on a number of problems with Internet
gambling – 24 hour access for pathological gamblers [“The
director of the Harvard Medical School’s Division on Addiction
Studies, Dr. Howard J. Shaffer, likened the Internet to
new delivery forms for addictive narcotics.”], the potential
for criminal activities as a result of gambling operations
being physically located offshore, etc. – the most worrisome
concerns centre around the involvement of minors. The
commission concluded, “Because the Internet can be used
anonymously, the danger exists that access to Internet
gambling will be abused by underage gamblers. In most
instances, a would-be gambler merely has to fill out a
registration form in order to play. Most sites rely on
the registrant to disclose his or her correct age and
make little or no attempt to verify the accuracy of the
information. Underage gamblers can use their parents’
credit cards or even their own credit and debit cards
to register and set up accounts for use at Internet gambling
sites.”
As a result of this study several laws were proposed
to restrict Internet gambling and, eventually, on October
13, 2006, President Bush signed the Unlawful Internet
Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 into law, as part of
a larger bill that focused on port security measures.
As described here,
“Though the final legislation was tacked on to an unrelated
bill, the text of the bill represents the culmination
of ten years of Federal Congressional efforts, five bills
that passed either the House of Representatives or Senate,
and countless committee hearings and markups. The new
law has had an immediate impact on the online gambling
industry, causing their stocks to lose 50% of their value
in a single day, and many operators have already withdrawn
from the U.S. market [see here
for the beginnings of this in 2003]. This Federal law
struck a blow against illegal online gambling by cutting
off its payment mechanisms … The original impetus for
this bill was a request from State Attorneys General,
who wanted Federal assistance for enforcing State laws
against online gambling.” A graphic display of those supporting
the bill may be seen here.
Note 5: It is crucially
important for viewers to try to discern if the information
being presented is the output from a computer climate
model. If it is, ignore it. All 'predictions' and rates
of temperature and climate change are the products of
computer models and they produce essentially meaningless
results. As Professor David Deming wrote
when discussing sea level changes, "Projections
of sea-level rise are based on projections of future warming,
fifty or a hundred years hence. And these projections
are based on speculative computer models that have numerous
uncertainties … These models cannot even be tested; their
validity is completely unknown. In short, predictions
of future sea-level rise are nothing but sheer speculation."
NRSP science advisor and official IPCC Reviewer Dr. Vincent
Gray of New Zealand summarizes the models used by the
UN, “All [the UN IPCC does] is make ‘projections’
and ‘estimates’. No climate model has ever been properly
tested, … and their ‘projections’ are nothing more than
the opinions of ‘experts’ with a conflict of interest,
because they are paid to produce the models. …There is
no actual scientific evidence for all these ‘projections’
and ‘estimates’.”
Boston-based NRSP science advisor Dr Sallie Baliunas,
an expert at understanding the Sun’s impact on climate,
summed up the situation well when she said
that models are, "not reliable as tools for explaining
past climate or making projections for future trends."
Click here
for more on models.
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