Check out the newly launched "Climate of Smear: Global Warming Misinformation" section on Media Matters website. For the latest outrageous claims made by skeptic favourites such as Fox News pseudo-journalists and Glenn Beck, mediamatters.org is an excellent resource exposing content so blatantly manipulated that it would be funny if it wasn't so scary.
Media Matters is a not for profit watchdog dedicated to "monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media". Distorted truths, misconstrued facts and subversive reporting perpetuated by media outlets who serve the conservative, right-wing agenda are exposed to journalists, activists and the general public by mediamatters.com's team of analysts and advisors.
Democracy is utterly dependent upon an electorate that is accurately informed. In promoting climate change denial (and often denying their responsibility for doing so) industry has done more than endanger the environment. It has undermined democracy.
There is a vast difference between putting forth a point of view, honestly held, and intentionally sowing the seeds of confusion. Free speech does not include the right to deceive. Deception is not a point of view. And the right to disagree does not include a right to intentionally subvert the public awareness.
This post is the second of a two part series. Read the first installment, Unreported Emissions From Natural Gas Blow Up BC's Climate Action Plan.
Methane leaks from British Columbia's natural gas industry are likely at least 7 times greater than official numbers increasing the entire provinces' carbon footprint by nearly 25%. That's like putting 3 million more vehicles on BC's roads.
As...
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Comments
Heavens to Murgatroyd!
Desmogblog getting all worked up about smears? Now that is IRONY in the richest vein.
What about Desmog's own efforts? It tried to claim that NRSP's Tom Harris once worked for big tobacco and sly references to that still appear on the Desmog website.
Desmog likes to imply that big oil funds NRSP despite repeating ad nauseum in every reference to NRSP that the organization refuses to disclose its funding sources.
Glenn Beck, by the way, works for CNN, not Fox -- even a pseudo-journalist would have gotten that fact right.
Harris and tobacco?
Mr. Dowell (if that's not a pseudonym for Mr. Harris): you will find no linkages between the NRSP's Tom Harris and big tobacco on the DeSmogBlog website.
It's true there was a "Tom Harris of APCO-Worldwide" who, on behalf of Philip Morris, helped create The Advancement for Sound Science Coalition, one of the great astroturf organizations of all time. It's true that when we at DeSmogBlog learned that "Tom Harris of APCO-Worldwide" helped launch the climate-change denying Friends of Science, we mistakenly concluded that APCO-Worldwide probably only had one Tom Harris. The coincidence seemed too compelling, especially since "our" Tom Harris uses many of the same "scientific advisors" as the old Tom Harris - people like Fred Singer and Fred Seitz.
We were wrong (there are at least two Tom Harris's who have worked for APCO). And the moment we learned we were wrong, we pulled down the original post; we published a correction and an apology; and I phoned Tom Harris personally to apologize, as well. As Mr. Harris can attest, I have also followed up on his behalf, asking that other websites that picked up our erroneous story remove any such references and (also) apologize.
The Tom Harris who sets up Canadian front groups (Friends of Science; the National Resources Stewardship Project) on behalf of oil and gas firms or energy industry lobby firms has plenty to answer for, but defending big tobacco is not on the list. I'll thank you to keep that in mind and I will continue, in future, to remove any references I see that suggest otherwise.
ps
Thanks for the correction on Beck and CNN; given his really bizarre (FOX) position on climate change, I'm sure you can understand how easy it would have been to make that mistake.
Evidence?
And Glenn Beck.
MediaMatters rocks
Canada doesn't need anything
Canada doesn't need anything similiar to MediaMatters. We have CBC.
good collection
It is too bad that the less-than-serious spammer above continues to try to be funny and cloud the issue, but I guess this is evidence of the tolerance (too much tolerance, I think) of the Desmogblog. Crazy comments like that, tossed into many discussion topics, probably prevent serious comments and debates by more informed people who would like to debate Desmogblog. Who would want to be aligned with that?
by above I mean the JD