This expose is one of the most important articles you’ve published Emily. Bari Weiss is a very dangerous character precisely because as you say she claims to represent courageous and unorthodox ideas but a close read will see that she almost never criticizes the horror of what Donald Trump and his minions are doing to this country.
The article that the Press published by Zion Light on XR would be better appreciated if it were paired with an article refuting many of her conclusions particularly about Roger Hallam.
This is my favorite kind of journalism! Although I wish I could say I was surprised by what you found. Even if we take the Free Press editorial team at face value that they're committed to "honesty" and "fierce independence," it's clear that they're chasing clicks with these types of articles rather than trying to inform their readers.
The question for me is if they're being fed these fossil fuel talking points by a specific actor, or if the misinformation is so deeply ingrained that they don't even realize whose arguments they're parroting.
Those of us who stay up to speed on global warming all know where this is coming from. The drive to put money in someone's pocket instead of telling the truth. Follow the money. I am constantly repeating this because that is what is driving all of this B.S. Meanwhile, some of the world's leading climate researchers are screaming into the void that what we used to know about the climate warming acceleration is now out of date. 3C will likely be upon us by 2050 now, or sooner. By 2075, my grandchildren will be trying to find shelter (if they're still alive) from 4C, which is existential for most life on the planet. But you can't tell these short-sighted power hungry humans that. For them, it's all about how much money someone will pay them today to say something, anything that is in vogue right now. And in the Trump regime, fossil fuel promotion is the vogue topic worth a lot of money to these people, until it isn't and they move on to something else that's controversial that will make them more money. Getting rich is all that matters now.
The Petro-Chemical industries’ long time presumptions are worthy of criticism. The century + encouraged theme of the industry is to burn up all their product as fast as possible as it there could not be any essential needs for those resources by our descendants, say seven generations out in the future. Yes there is a plastics industry but it tends to stick to single use throw-away (where to, no-one explains) products, usually packaging. Then there are the pesticides, herbicides the mustard gas and phosgene used against troops in the Great War.
Maybe folk in the future will make positive economic use of vast ~ miles in diameter space ships constructed of fossil oil derived plastic type materials. Who can possibly know, but the fossil “fuel” industry has money to make in the now, screw the future and the needs then.
Nice phrase, horrifying that CBS News is to be led by this person. Even more horrifying that CNN might become another Larry Ellison subsidiary and so end up using this framing. I could go on but I'm going to go look at a 100 MW solar farm in front of a soon-to-be-defunct coal mine.
The "Bari Weiss vs. climate change" piece was very thoughtful and balanced, imo. Unfortunately, I share Emily's fear that Weiss may use The Free Press' approach to climate reporting as the new model for CBS to follow. Capitulation indeed.
I think it is clear CBS will basically follow what you linked here with basically pro fossil fuel reporting. And then if Ellison buys CNN from Warner Brothers? Just a disaster.
If I could defend Gates a bit, I think the Guardian article is a bit of a strawman, while ironically claiming he is strawmanning the climate position and I think the New Republic one is pretty unfair.
I think some important context to this is the gutting of USAID which Gates was clearly upset about with his comments at the time. We have always been but even more now live in a world where less and less funding is going to extreme poverty prevention and climate action. I don't think Gates is claiming scientific climate reports are saying humanity is going to end. It's just that around climate activists circles there is a degree of "the world is ending rhetoric".
And maybe that's unfair and can be seen as an attack on scientists like Hayhoe who arent saying that. But as the main article points out, and in Gates memo it is even in bold, Gates doesn't dispute that every tenth degree matters. So I don't know why it is brought up as something he disagrees with isn't aware of.
Also it is strange to me to bring up air conditioning as though that isnt Gates main argument? "Though “everyone deserves air conditioning”, the reality is that many parts of the world do not have it, Swain said."
I don't know what the right answer is if there is a limited pool of funds and we had to decide between a solar farm or air conditioning for a poor town for example. I think reasonable people can disagree about it and I think Gates is just laying out his argument about it even if one doesn't like the "humanity is not doomed" beginning.
Also I think Gates is a smart guy, clearly is involved in extreme poverty reduction and thinks about it a lot and is doing what we ask billionaires to do. Put their billions to solving the world's problems. I agree his isn't a climate expert but I do take his opinion on extreme global poverty seriously. So I don't think it's fair to put him in a Musk category of "they are just so disconnected from everything and will have their bunkers so why listen to them" kind of tone the New Republic article has. Yeah it is dumb that if a billionaire writes something it becomes an immediate headline but I don't think that is fair to Gates personally even if he is a billionare.
I thought the memo was a good argument and having one of the priorities at the end about having countries at COP specify how they are addressing the green premium of things like steel is worthwhile.
Thank you for your listing of some level-headed climate articles by Bari Weiss.
When you think the world only has a single problem that deserves all attention, it must be frustrating to see that people in the center will not bow to the extremist streaks of the climate industrial complex.
Your characterization of Dr. Koonin gives away that you cannot handle common sense from the middle. Besides the “BP Scientist”, he was trained as a theoretical physicists, was the Undersecretary of Science at the Obama Administration DOE, and a Provost at CalTech. Why don’t you mention any of these credentials?
Have you read what climatologists have to say about Koonin's work? Have you seen the devastating critiques of the error-ridden Dept. of Energy report he had a big hand in writing that downplays the climate crisis?
Koonin claims human impact on the greenhouse effect is tiny. What does he have to say about the well-established fact that eliminating all atmospheric CO2 would reduce the Earth’s average surface temperature to below freezing? Doubling CO2 concentration could similarly be expected to influence the climate ... in the opposite direction.
At this point, it seems like Bari Weiss vs. objective reality, including but not limited to the climate crisis. Appalling that she was tapped to be editor-in-chief, esp. given that she's not an actual journalist.
This expose is one of the most important articles you’ve published Emily. Bari Weiss is a very dangerous character precisely because as you say she claims to represent courageous and unorthodox ideas but a close read will see that she almost never criticizes the horror of what Donald Trump and his minions are doing to this country.
The article that the Press published by Zion Light on XR would be better appreciated if it were paired with an article refuting many of her conclusions particularly about Roger Hallam.
This is my favorite kind of journalism! Although I wish I could say I was surprised by what you found. Even if we take the Free Press editorial team at face value that they're committed to "honesty" and "fierce independence," it's clear that they're chasing clicks with these types of articles rather than trying to inform their readers.
The question for me is if they're being fed these fossil fuel talking points by a specific actor, or if the misinformation is so deeply ingrained that they don't even realize whose arguments they're parroting.
Those of us who stay up to speed on global warming all know where this is coming from. The drive to put money in someone's pocket instead of telling the truth. Follow the money. I am constantly repeating this because that is what is driving all of this B.S. Meanwhile, some of the world's leading climate researchers are screaming into the void that what we used to know about the climate warming acceleration is now out of date. 3C will likely be upon us by 2050 now, or sooner. By 2075, my grandchildren will be trying to find shelter (if they're still alive) from 4C, which is existential for most life on the planet. But you can't tell these short-sighted power hungry humans that. For them, it's all about how much money someone will pay them today to say something, anything that is in vogue right now. And in the Trump regime, fossil fuel promotion is the vogue topic worth a lot of money to these people, until it isn't and they move on to something else that's controversial that will make them more money. Getting rich is all that matters now.
The Petro-Chemical industries’ long time presumptions are worthy of criticism. The century + encouraged theme of the industry is to burn up all their product as fast as possible as it there could not be any essential needs for those resources by our descendants, say seven generations out in the future. Yes there is a plastics industry but it tends to stick to single use throw-away (where to, no-one explains) products, usually packaging. Then there are the pesticides, herbicides the mustard gas and phosgene used against troops in the Great War.
Maybe folk in the future will make positive economic use of vast ~ miles in diameter space ships constructed of fossil oil derived plastic type materials. Who can possibly know, but the fossil “fuel” industry has money to make in the now, screw the future and the needs then.
"spun like a basketball on Big Oil’s finger"
Nice phrase, horrifying that CBS News is to be led by this person. Even more horrifying that CNN might become another Larry Ellison subsidiary and so end up using this framing. I could go on but I'm going to go look at a 100 MW solar farm in front of a soon-to-be-defunct coal mine.
Solar Farms Are Farms!
The "Bari Weiss vs. climate change" piece was very thoughtful and balanced, imo. Unfortunately, I share Emily's fear that Weiss may use The Free Press' approach to climate reporting as the new model for CBS to follow. Capitulation indeed.
I think it is clear CBS will basically follow what you linked here with basically pro fossil fuel reporting. And then if Ellison buys CNN from Warner Brothers? Just a disaster.
If I could defend Gates a bit, I think the Guardian article is a bit of a strawman, while ironically claiming he is strawmanning the climate position and I think the New Republic one is pretty unfair.
I think some important context to this is the gutting of USAID which Gates was clearly upset about with his comments at the time. We have always been but even more now live in a world where less and less funding is going to extreme poverty prevention and climate action. I don't think Gates is claiming scientific climate reports are saying humanity is going to end. It's just that around climate activists circles there is a degree of "the world is ending rhetoric".
And maybe that's unfair and can be seen as an attack on scientists like Hayhoe who arent saying that. But as the main article points out, and in Gates memo it is even in bold, Gates doesn't dispute that every tenth degree matters. So I don't know why it is brought up as something he disagrees with isn't aware of.
Also it is strange to me to bring up air conditioning as though that isnt Gates main argument? "Though “everyone deserves air conditioning”, the reality is that many parts of the world do not have it, Swain said."
I don't know what the right answer is if there is a limited pool of funds and we had to decide between a solar farm or air conditioning for a poor town for example. I think reasonable people can disagree about it and I think Gates is just laying out his argument about it even if one doesn't like the "humanity is not doomed" beginning.
Also I think Gates is a smart guy, clearly is involved in extreme poverty reduction and thinks about it a lot and is doing what we ask billionaires to do. Put their billions to solving the world's problems. I agree his isn't a climate expert but I do take his opinion on extreme global poverty seriously. So I don't think it's fair to put him in a Musk category of "they are just so disconnected from everything and will have their bunkers so why listen to them" kind of tone the New Republic article has. Yeah it is dumb that if a billionaire writes something it becomes an immediate headline but I don't think that is fair to Gates personally even if he is a billionare.
I thought the memo was a good argument and having one of the priorities at the end about having countries at COP specify how they are addressing the green premium of things like steel is worthwhile.
Very late to this, but just wanted to say three hurrahs to your Free Press analysis.
Thank you for your listing of some level-headed climate articles by Bari Weiss.
When you think the world only has a single problem that deserves all attention, it must be frustrating to see that people in the center will not bow to the extremist streaks of the climate industrial complex.
Your characterization of Dr. Koonin gives away that you cannot handle common sense from the middle. Besides the “BP Scientist”, he was trained as a theoretical physicists, was the Undersecretary of Science at the Obama Administration DOE, and a Provost at CalTech. Why don’t you mention any of these credentials?
Have you read what climatologists have to say about Koonin's work? Have you seen the devastating critiques of the error-ridden Dept. of Energy report he had a big hand in writing that downplays the climate crisis?
Koonin claims human impact on the greenhouse effect is tiny. What does he have to say about the well-established fact that eliminating all atmospheric CO2 would reduce the Earth’s average surface temperature to below freezing? Doubling CO2 concentration could similarly be expected to influence the climate ... in the opposite direction.
At this point, it seems like Bari Weiss vs. objective reality, including but not limited to the climate crisis. Appalling that she was tapped to be editor-in-chief, esp. given that she's not an actual journalist.