Why do global warming denial hustlers get a green light from newspapers?

Northern Hemisphere warming anomaly, 2009 ( NASA)

Media corporations often exhibit a strange lack of scrutiny when it comes to misleading and outright fraudulent claims by greenwashers and astroturf groups intent on clouding the waters on environmental issues.

Some newspapers are worse than others, I have noticed over decades of (unscientific) analysis. Last week, the Vancouver Sun published a letter from the executive director of an organization calling itself the International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC), another cabal of energy industry lobbyists and charlatans.

This led me, in the following (unpublished) letter, to forward one of my favourite rhetorical questions to the Sun‘s editorial department, headed by Fazil Mihlar, an alumni of Vancouver’s best-known purveyor of global warming denial literature, the Fraser Institute



If I formed an organization—say Scientists For the Preservation of Air—that had as its agenda the promotion of an industry that was depleting atmospheric oxygen levels at a rate threatening life on the planet, I wonder how much scrutiny that group might attract?

Suppose the SFPA created fake “studies” and quoted fraudulent petitions, endorsed by “experts” without knowledge in the field, or even by non-existent signatories.

What if purported experts’ credentials turned out to be nothing more than a background in public relations, in the area of “crisis management?”

How many column-inches should such a blatantly misleading organization be allotted in a respected newspaper?

And yet, when it comes to well-known global warming deniers—“astroturfers,” that anyone with access to Google can debunk—we continue to see the fabrications of such groups appearing in letters, opinion columns and too often quoted as authorities in news reports.

Anyone is entitled to an opinion, though sound judgment should be based on a firm understanding of issues. Cynical propaganda undermines understanding.

Surely, trusted media should try to filter blatantly misleading content, so that debate can at least be based on credible sources.

The Tyee on The Fraser Institute | Sourcewatch ICSC profile