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Green Journalism

Selling carbon offset schemes, promoting enviro-Bibles, and stressing extreme outcomes — all business as usual for the Society of Environmental Journalists.

The Society of Environmental Journalists conducts its annual conference this week in Roanoke, Va., and the best thing that can be said about it is that this bunch won’t be on the beat somewhere trying to report something — especially about global warming.

But then again these journalists couldn’t call it that since the planet’s mean surface temperature has not increased over the last eleven years. Instead they’ve adopted the catchall identifier used by their fellow alarmism activists: “climate change.” It’s all over SEJ’s web page for members, which they call “A guide to the information and disinformation.” This is allegedly where they tell their members how to do a fair and balanced job.

Timothy Wheeler, president of SEJ and a reporter for the Baltimore Sun, not long ago accused me of slandering his organization’s members (scroll down to comments) because I called them objectivity-challenged. His defense:

However, if you care to look further, you will see that we also advise reporters to beware of hype and exaggeration from environmental groups, and to use similar care. And we include a link to activistcash.com, which any reporter so inclined can use to track the funding of environmental groups and others.

I decided to accept Wheeler’s challenge and stroll through SEJ’s online guide to climate change reporting and see if it aligns with his assertions. Won’t you join me?

SEJ’s “simple introductions” section seems a good place to start. One of the half-dozen resources it cites is the “Rough Guide to Climate Change,” written by Robert Henson. SEJ says Henson has “worked hard [I assume it saw the sweat on his brow] to produce a complete, unbiased and understandable approach to the subject.”

But if you click on its link to this resource, the advice is more “rough” than unbiased — toward humans, at least. “Climate change is a serious threat to the ecosystems that humans rely upon,” the Rough Guide website says, “and air travel is the fastest-growing contributor to the problem.” Readers are therefore urged to buy carbon offsets through Rough Guide’s business partner, “Climate Care,” which it admits is a “carbon offsets scheme.” Nothing inspires confidence in balanced journalism like admonitions to buy sponsors’ products, does it?


THE NEXT EXHIBIT worthy of our attention is SEJ’s assertion that the 2001 report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is “the Bible on climate science.” If true, knowing the mainstream media’s understanding of religion, then that would make it more of a Bible than the Bible itself. In that light, we can compare statements of certainty from God’s Word such as Jesus’ claim that “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life” to hedging such as this from the IPCC report:

Well, if the “Bible on climate science” said it, then I believe it, and that settles it!

Let’s sample one more resource from SEJ’s online authority for global warming reporters. How about the cage match between crisis believers and the naysayers? Well, SEJ identifies the alarm-sounders innocuously as “Environmentalist Groups,” while they call their opponents “Skeptics and Contrarians.” Sort of like the popular kids versus the geeks and freaks. SEJ also notes financial and political affiliations of the few climate dissenters they list, but fails to do so in descriptions of environmentalist groups, who are well funded by large foundations with left-wing socialist agendas.

Oh, SEJ does offer a offer a disclaimer about fully trusting these eco-groups, here in part:

stress only the most extreme outcomes

This sounds familiar to me…oh yes, I remember where I’ve seen this practice before — in SEJ President Wheeler’s last article I read in the Baltimore Sun, where he led with this:

Selling carbon offset schemes, promoting enviro-Bibles, and stressing extreme outcomes: How could I ever question the professionalism of the Society of Environmental Journalists and their leader? Take your time in Roanoke, comrades — no need to hurry back.

topics:
Environment, Global Warming

About the Author

Paul Chesser is executive director for the American Tradition Institute and a senior fellow for the Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy Alternatives. The views he expresses do not necessarily reflect the views of these organizations.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (29) |

Robert R Reynolds| 10.18.08 @ 10:22PM

The Earth's temperature has never been even or predictable. Cold spells seem to arrive far more abruptly than warm intervals. Currently our Arctic appears to be warming slightly while the rest of the rest of the Earth has not warmed, or even slightly cooled during the past 11 years. Our Warmists have tried to capitalize on this by declaring the Polar bear an endangered species. My answer to this is how could the Polar bears have survived the Mideval warm period when the Vikings colonized Greenland, raised crops and even wine grapes? Even the northwest passage was ice free 1000 years ago.

Pingback| 4.27.09 @ 4:08PM

Reagan’s Climate Demotion | GlobalWarming.org links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…wrong side of scientific reality (though Newt Gingrich is a close second). Romm goes on to rebuke the “establishment” media who “doesn’t get global warming” (but Joe — they try so hard!). But that’s just Joe being Joe. Meanwhile, take a look again and dare to tell me that Romm and Waxman were not built from the same transparencies in the scaremongering Identikit. « Cooler…

Pingback| 10.9.09 @ 6:19PM

Audio recording: Filmmaker Phelim McAleer's gets his microphone turned off while pres links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…Phelim McAleer, co-director/producer of “Not Evil Just Wrong” and asker of difficult questions, reportedly just had his microphone turned off a little while ago as he queried Al Gore at the Society of Environmental Journalists conference in Madison, Wisc. Possibly Related Posts: Al Gore / AIT Index, Volume 17: Globally averaged temperatures have risen less than 1/10th of 1°F since An Inconvenient Truth was released…

Pingback| 10.15.09 @ 6:39PM

Juliet Eilperin is a Joke | GlobalWarming.org links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…is a Joke by Paul Chesser, Heartland Institute Correspondent October 15, 2009 @ 6:39 pm      PrintThis      EmailThis Yet another template-follower from the Society of Environmentalist Journalists — this time the Washington Post ’s Juiiet Eilperin — today delivered her latest advocacy piece for Red/Green causes. You need not read past her lede to understand where…

Pingback| 10.15.09 @ 7:13PM

Celebrity Paycut - Encouraging celebrities all over the world to save us from global links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…Oct 15, 2009 17:39 Comments: None Tags: climate, climate change, co2, earth, emissions, environment, gas, green, greenhouse gas Juliet Eilperin is a Joke Yet another template-follower from the Society of Environmentalist Journalists — this time the Washington Post’s Juiiet Eilperin — today delivered her latest advocacy piece for Red/Green causes. You need not read past her lede to understand where…

Pingback| 2.5.10 @ 12:44PM

American Enviro-Media Still MIA | GlobalWarming.org links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…‘Expects global temperatures will decrease continuously until 2030′ And that just scratches the surface, as they say. But what do the intrepid Society of Environmentalist Journalist template- followers at USA Today report about today? Butterflies, in another one of those “scientists say” articles: A study of beleaguered butterflies in California provides some of the best clues yet as to how…

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