Big Ag spent over 160 million last year lobbying congress. Because of that, we get inaction on many things. As a long time westerner I'm very aware of what cattle welfare ranching has done to our public lands and animals. Have you heard of "wildlife services"? Look up how many animals they kill every year. Too many wild horses? Nope, but welfare ranchers always want more lands for their welfare cows. And nothing will change until we get the money out of politicians' hands. Until then, eating meat 5 times a day is healthy, meat alternatives are poison, and big ag is sustainable.
Both the lack of a sense of responsibility to fact-check the deceptive ads these media organizations take money to promote, and how how little money it costs bad-actor businesses to abuse those media entities' positions of influence, are very curious things. One would think these media entities' credibility would be worth more to them. Complicity in confusing the public about climate pollution will eventually hurt their brand image and thus their intrinsic value.
Follow the money. News media are all desperate for AD dollars these days and JBS is all about trying to reverse the bad publicity from few months ago about their polluting and illegal meat packing plants in Brazil. The Americans are so bad, they don't care anymore whether they have any integrity anymore. It's all about the money and impartial journalism and integrity doesn't pay the bills and make the owners rich.
What an alarming situation - spreading misinformation in ads/paid content is just as bad as writing about misinformation in an editorial fashion. Both are detrimental to the news industry.
And that's why we need the visibility of Heated and other institutions of modern journalism like Popular Information from Judd Legum, The Racket from Johnathon M. Katz and work from places like Vote Save America to ring the bells of the true news louder and louder!
Thanks for the great reporting. It appears that entities like the NYT are more interested in ad revenue than in restricting ads that convey misinformation.
I sympathize with news outlets trying to navigate relying on ad revenue to fund their journalism and giving platforms to companies like this, but the line has to be drawn somewhere. It absolutely sucks journalists and editors think HEATED is attacking their reporting because of articles like this, because in practically every article the point is made that there is great journalism at these outlets, and the issue isn't potentially biased reporting because of ads. The issue is giving a platform for companies that are harming the planet.
But one thing I think deserves more discussion is just how many fossil fuel or other polluting companies can be drawn into lawsuits for breaking laws already on the books. Like the big climate lawsuit in California shows, there is nothing "new" in terms of illegality these companies are doing. False advertising, misleading consumers, etc are all already against the law. They just need to be enforced.
From the Politico Vision Statement on their website:
"POLITICO strives to be the dominant source for news on politics and policy in power centers across every continent where access to reliable information, nonpartisan journalism and real-time tools create, inform and engage a global citizenry."
Apparently their vision to provide reliable information and to inform a global citizenry does not extend to their pay-to-access advertising section--a bit of a loophole, don't you think? One that lies below the water line in my mind, threatening to sink the entire operation's credibility.
Thank you for such clear reporting. Your final paragraph boils it down succinctly with this statement:
“Our most reputable news outlets are funding their fact-based journalism by giving polluters a platform to lie. This is eroding public trust in journalism.”
Can’t outlets like NYT, WaPo, and Politico find “good” entities that would give them advertising dollars? Late-stage capitalism sucks, I’m sorry.
Shame on these outlets for claiming HEATED is sowing distrust. They should review their own behavior and ethics- if the platform gives support to ads that spread misinformation they are responsible for spreading that misinformation and any distrust that follows.
Crazy...All this climate legal action is very irresponsible and unlawful, and all it will do is push up the cost of food…
On every metric a warmer planet is good news.
No proof exists unless you believe failed climate models that a naturally warming planet is our fault.
What I hate is unscientific statements with no facts… and that is what the IPCC is doing .
We have contributed to increase in CO2 but it has had a very small impact on temperature…. but it has improved the food supply.
Forget carbon free strategies … it’s a myth pushed by elites to make money.. we will be sticking with Fossil fuels and nuclear…. We will have no choice.
Nice re-set in order to continue to ignore reality, Nigel. Don't think I haven't noticed that instead of choosing to provide a viable, reproducible model(s) for observed data that documents the changing atmospheric chemistry, the well tested physics of heat retention, the well monitored rising sea levels, species range shifts poleward, the increased severity and frequency of extreme weather, increased acidification and heat retention in the oceans and so forth, you've just hit the reset button to clear the screen so you can begin to spew you same old tired misinformation as if none of that exists. No problem. I'll just keep reminding you....
I suggest that reality is on my side on the climate in two ways....
First… using measured data on every metric the naturally warming plant is a good news story with all so called severities being normal or improved.
No increase in rate of slowly rising sea levels and well within adaptive range
Floods and fires diminishing
Habitats improving
Species flourishing
Reefs extending
Extreme weather less than historical levels.
We have contributed to increase in CO2 but it has had a very small impact on temperature…. but it has significantly improved the food supply.
The realization that we are in the 4th warming cycle in the last 5000 years with the last 3 being a benefit to humankind with temperatures higher than now.
On the predictive side of the discussion (other than failed climate models)… we see no science that can provide any argument for a catastrophic climate situation.
We will need the continued and increased use of fossil fuels to both enable prosperity and also support a small amount of adaption in some localized situations, but absolutely no need for the broad NetZero mitigation panic.
Most of the climate emergency industrial complex is self induced madness for some to make money..
The so-called scientific peer review process using traditional institutions are in disarray with many scientists declaring political subjugation of that process with many forming separate and more focused groups to expose the truth.
Many national governments that have fostered the NetZero nonsense will fall in the next election cycle with citizens not prepared to trade prosperity for a dubious and ill conceived save the planet rhetoric and the new governments will move forward in a much more practical manner.
I will leave to you to pursue facts instead of the fiction you have digested.
Spouting misinformation completely unburdened by the facts must be such a liberating experience for you, Nigel; is this why you persist in doing this? You start with a particularly fact-free string at the start of your post--and then have the audacity of using as your only source the writings of a career oil industry consultant with absolutely no credentials in the climatological community: Gregory Wrightstone.
For simplicity's sake, to counter each of these distortions, each of these points can conveniently be countered with vetted responses at three levels: basic, intermediate and advanced at the https://skepticalscience.com/argument.php page, which lists 219 of the most common myths that distort or deny the reality of climate change and its impacts. This rebuttal project is periodically reviewed and updated, so can be a one-stop shop site for addressing most misinformation drivel put out on the web by jokesters like Mr. Wrightstone. If you would like more information about Mr. W's credentials, here is a convenient stopping point to see who butters his toast: https://www.desmog.com/gregory-wrightstone/
Unfortunately your links don’t provide anything to disrupt the data I am using.
The first link is almost propaganda and the last link mentions about Greg W’s first book in glowing terms about how it is accurately using “government sources, peer-reviewed literature or scholarly works”
As I have said already based on past and currently recorded data and facts we are far from a climate emergency.
All that remains is to discuss the so-called future predictions from those that declare a future emergency and I will have great difficulty in agreeing with a climate modeling protocol that is continuously proven wrong.
We now have significant scientific authorities that are now declaring the UN IPCC to be wrong and we need much more education to warn our citizens that we are placing our society and its prosperity in harms way with NetZero for no reason at all.
FYI
2017..The jacket copy for Wrightstone’s newly-released book, titled “Inconvenient Facts: The Science that Al Gore doesn’t want you to know,” promoted the book as a response to Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”:
“Gregory Wrightstone presents the science to assess the basis of the threatened Thermageddon. The book’s 60 “inconvenient facts” come from government sources, peer-reviewed literature or scholarly works, set forth in a way that is lucid and entertaining. The information likely will challenge your current understanding of many apocalyptic predictions about our ever dynamic climate. You will learn that the planet is improving, not in spite of increasing CO2 and rising temperature, but because of it. The very framework of the climate-catastrophe argument will be confronted with scientific fact.”
You say that the links don't provide anything to disrupt the data you are using? Really? Exactly why is that? Maybe because you and your oil executive non-climatologist don't have any data to disrupt?
If you really want to go down this rabbit hole, Nigel, I'll be more than happy to lead you down the path to show exactly and specifically how wrong your "data" is and how thoroughly disrupted it is by real data. I will just take the first three of your assertions, and continue with the next three if you care to, all the way to the bloody end of your misinformation, OK?
1: "First… using measured data on every metric the naturally warming plant is a good news story with all so called severities being normal or improved."
Regarding the issues you have with the data, here is one example of the data that is being used by the climatological community--please show me your "data," what is wrong with the climatological community's data and why yours is superior:
Well …Mis information goes both ways…As you have prepared some material …I will go through these links…. but you should read the book I have suggested …….as the material used is all from sources you would probably accept. And it does not show an emergency…. .far from it..
None of the trends so far are showing cause for concern and I suspect the links you show are predictions .. and so far they have always proved erroneous if they predict level of concern. Bottom line …we have many important things to focus on and climate change (other than some focused adaption) is not one of them…. by a wide margin.
A good summary from many climate realists I am working with is that our climate mastery has far outpaced any new climate challenges. It’s an irrefutable but little-known fact that as the world has warmed 1° C, humans have become safer than ever from climate danger. The rate of climate-related disaster deaths—from storms, floods, temperature extremes, wildfires, and drought—has fallen 98% in the last century. This adaptive capability will demand using fossil fuels.
Nigel, please stop commenting on EVERY. SINGLE. HEATED. ARTICLE. We get it, you refuse to believe actual climate science and want to spew misinformation. This isn't the platform for that. Please stop.
Sorry… But I will comment when this site pushes issues that make no sense for our future prosperity, and will have a negative effect on all on this planet.
It positions attacks on our industrial community and has published mis-leading reports that I feel duty bound to correct.
Everyone needs to be better educated on the truth about climate action and the impact of foolishly following NetZero and associated non-viable solutions.
Big Ag spent over 160 million last year lobbying congress. Because of that, we get inaction on many things. As a long time westerner I'm very aware of what cattle welfare ranching has done to our public lands and animals. Have you heard of "wildlife services"? Look up how many animals they kill every year. Too many wild horses? Nope, but welfare ranchers always want more lands for their welfare cows. And nothing will change until we get the money out of politicians' hands. Until then, eating meat 5 times a day is healthy, meat alternatives are poison, and big ag is sustainable.
Both the lack of a sense of responsibility to fact-check the deceptive ads these media organizations take money to promote, and how how little money it costs bad-actor businesses to abuse those media entities' positions of influence, are very curious things. One would think these media entities' credibility would be worth more to them. Complicity in confusing the public about climate pollution will eventually hurt their brand image and thus their intrinsic value.
Follow the money. News media are all desperate for AD dollars these days and JBS is all about trying to reverse the bad publicity from few months ago about their polluting and illegal meat packing plants in Brazil. The Americans are so bad, they don't care anymore whether they have any integrity anymore. It's all about the money and impartial journalism and integrity doesn't pay the bills and make the owners rich.
What an alarming situation - spreading misinformation in ads/paid content is just as bad as writing about misinformation in an editorial fashion. Both are detrimental to the news industry.
And that's why we need the visibility of Heated and other institutions of modern journalism like Popular Information from Judd Legum, The Racket from Johnathon M. Katz and work from places like Vote Save America to ring the bells of the true news louder and louder!
Thanks for the great reporting. It appears that entities like the NYT are more interested in ad revenue than in restricting ads that convey misinformation.
I sympathize with news outlets trying to navigate relying on ad revenue to fund their journalism and giving platforms to companies like this, but the line has to be drawn somewhere. It absolutely sucks journalists and editors think HEATED is attacking their reporting because of articles like this, because in practically every article the point is made that there is great journalism at these outlets, and the issue isn't potentially biased reporting because of ads. The issue is giving a platform for companies that are harming the planet.
But one thing I think deserves more discussion is just how many fossil fuel or other polluting companies can be drawn into lawsuits for breaking laws already on the books. Like the big climate lawsuit in California shows, there is nothing "new" in terms of illegality these companies are doing. False advertising, misleading consumers, etc are all already against the law. They just need to be enforced.
From the Politico Vision Statement on their website:
"POLITICO strives to be the dominant source for news on politics and policy in power centers across every continent where access to reliable information, nonpartisan journalism and real-time tools create, inform and engage a global citizenry."
Apparently their vision to provide reliable information and to inform a global citizenry does not extend to their pay-to-access advertising section--a bit of a loophole, don't you think? One that lies below the water line in my mind, threatening to sink the entire operation's credibility.
Thank you for such clear reporting. Your final paragraph boils it down succinctly with this statement:
“Our most reputable news outlets are funding their fact-based journalism by giving polluters a platform to lie. This is eroding public trust in journalism.”
Can’t outlets like NYT, WaPo, and Politico find “good” entities that would give them advertising dollars? Late-stage capitalism sucks, I’m sorry.
Shame on these outlets for claiming HEATED is sowing distrust. They should review their own behavior and ethics- if the platform gives support to ads that spread misinformation they are responsible for spreading that misinformation and any distrust that follows.
To answer the question at the start, no. Spreading corporate propaganda undermines a news outlet's credibility. Full stop.
Crazy...All this climate legal action is very irresponsible and unlawful, and all it will do is push up the cost of food…
On every metric a warmer planet is good news.
No proof exists unless you believe failed climate models that a naturally warming planet is our fault.
What I hate is unscientific statements with no facts… and that is what the IPCC is doing .
We have contributed to increase in CO2 but it has had a very small impact on temperature…. but it has improved the food supply.
Forget carbon free strategies … it’s a myth pushed by elites to make money.. we will be sticking with Fossil fuels and nuclear…. We will have no choice.
Nice re-set in order to continue to ignore reality, Nigel. Don't think I haven't noticed that instead of choosing to provide a viable, reproducible model(s) for observed data that documents the changing atmospheric chemistry, the well tested physics of heat retention, the well monitored rising sea levels, species range shifts poleward, the increased severity and frequency of extreme weather, increased acidification and heat retention in the oceans and so forth, you've just hit the reset button to clear the screen so you can begin to spew you same old tired misinformation as if none of that exists. No problem. I'll just keep reminding you....
I suggest that reality is on my side on the climate in two ways....
First… using measured data on every metric the naturally warming plant is a good news story with all so called severities being normal or improved.
No increase in rate of slowly rising sea levels and well within adaptive range
Floods and fires diminishing
Habitats improving
Species flourishing
Reefs extending
Extreme weather less than historical levels.
We have contributed to increase in CO2 but it has had a very small impact on temperature…. but it has significantly improved the food supply.
The realization that we are in the 4th warming cycle in the last 5000 years with the last 3 being a benefit to humankind with temperatures higher than now.
For more read a good book full of facts at..
https://www.amazon.ca/Very-Convenient-Warming-Benefiting-Humanity/dp/1662885857
On the predictive side of the discussion (other than failed climate models)… we see no science that can provide any argument for a catastrophic climate situation.
We will need the continued and increased use of fossil fuels to both enable prosperity and also support a small amount of adaption in some localized situations, but absolutely no need for the broad NetZero mitigation panic.
Most of the climate emergency industrial complex is self induced madness for some to make money..
The so-called scientific peer review process using traditional institutions are in disarray with many scientists declaring political subjugation of that process with many forming separate and more focused groups to expose the truth.
Many national governments that have fostered the NetZero nonsense will fall in the next election cycle with citizens not prepared to trade prosperity for a dubious and ill conceived save the planet rhetoric and the new governments will move forward in a much more practical manner.
I will leave to you to pursue facts instead of the fiction you have digested.
Spouting misinformation completely unburdened by the facts must be such a liberating experience for you, Nigel; is this why you persist in doing this? You start with a particularly fact-free string at the start of your post--and then have the audacity of using as your only source the writings of a career oil industry consultant with absolutely no credentials in the climatological community: Gregory Wrightstone.
For simplicity's sake, to counter each of these distortions, each of these points can conveniently be countered with vetted responses at three levels: basic, intermediate and advanced at the https://skepticalscience.com/argument.php page, which lists 219 of the most common myths that distort or deny the reality of climate change and its impacts. This rebuttal project is periodically reviewed and updated, so can be a one-stop shop site for addressing most misinformation drivel put out on the web by jokesters like Mr. Wrightstone. If you would like more information about Mr. W's credentials, here is a convenient stopping point to see who butters his toast: https://www.desmog.com/gregory-wrightstone/
Unfortunately your links don’t provide anything to disrupt the data I am using.
The first link is almost propaganda and the last link mentions about Greg W’s first book in glowing terms about how it is accurately using “government sources, peer-reviewed literature or scholarly works”
As I have said already based on past and currently recorded data and facts we are far from a climate emergency.
All that remains is to discuss the so-called future predictions from those that declare a future emergency and I will have great difficulty in agreeing with a climate modeling protocol that is continuously proven wrong.
We now have significant scientific authorities that are now declaring the UN IPCC to be wrong and we need much more education to warn our citizens that we are placing our society and its prosperity in harms way with NetZero for no reason at all.
FYI
2017..The jacket copy for Wrightstone’s newly-released book, titled “Inconvenient Facts: The Science that Al Gore doesn’t want you to know,” promoted the book as a response to Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”:
“Gregory Wrightstone presents the science to assess the basis of the threatened Thermageddon. The book’s 60 “inconvenient facts” come from government sources, peer-reviewed literature or scholarly works, set forth in a way that is lucid and entertaining. The information likely will challenge your current understanding of many apocalyptic predictions about our ever dynamic climate. You will learn that the planet is improving, not in spite of increasing CO2 and rising temperature, but because of it. The very framework of the climate-catastrophe argument will be confronted with scientific fact.”
You say that the links don't provide anything to disrupt the data you are using? Really? Exactly why is that? Maybe because you and your oil executive non-climatologist don't have any data to disrupt?
If you really want to go down this rabbit hole, Nigel, I'll be more than happy to lead you down the path to show exactly and specifically how wrong your "data" is and how thoroughly disrupted it is by real data. I will just take the first three of your assertions, and continue with the next three if you care to, all the way to the bloody end of your misinformation, OK?
1: "First… using measured data on every metric the naturally warming plant is a good news story with all so called severities being normal or improved."
Here's the link you overlooked: https://skepticalscience.com/extreme-weather-global-warming-basic.htm
Regarding the issues you have with the data, here is one example of the data that is being used by the climatological community--please show me your "data," what is wrong with the climatological community's data and why yours is superior:
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab7d04
2: "No increase in rate of slowly rising sea levels and well within adaptive range"
Here is the link you apparently missed: https://skepticalscience.com/sea-level-rise.htm
And here is a sample of the dataset refinements and results: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2017JC013090
3: "Floods and fires diminishing"
Here's the data on increasing floods: https://esd.copernicus.org/articles/9/757/2018/
Wrong on fires: https://skepticalscience.com/wildfires-global-warming.htm
Here's the data: https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/7A49785973EC54E41371F6F36D471D94/stamped-9781009325837c4_551-712.pdf/water.pdf
Have a great day, Nigel
Well …Mis information goes both ways…As you have prepared some material …I will go through these links…. but you should read the book I have suggested …….as the material used is all from sources you would probably accept. And it does not show an emergency…. .far from it..
None of the trends so far are showing cause for concern and I suspect the links you show are predictions .. and so far they have always proved erroneous if they predict level of concern. Bottom line …we have many important things to focus on and climate change (other than some focused adaption) is not one of them…. by a wide margin.
A good summary from many climate realists I am working with is that our climate mastery has far outpaced any new climate challenges. It’s an irrefutable but little-known fact that as the world has warmed 1° C, humans have become safer than ever from climate danger. The rate of climate-related disaster deaths—from storms, floods, temperature extremes, wildfires, and drought—has fallen 98% in the last century. This adaptive capability will demand using fossil fuels.
Take your misinformation elsewhere buddy.
Sorry sunshine..... but its the misinformation on this site that needs correcting and I am not going so get over it.
Nigel, please stop commenting on EVERY. SINGLE. HEATED. ARTICLE. We get it, you refuse to believe actual climate science and want to spew misinformation. This isn't the platform for that. Please stop.
Sorry… But I will comment when this site pushes issues that make no sense for our future prosperity, and will have a negative effect on all on this planet.
It positions attacks on our industrial community and has published mis-leading reports that I feel duty bound to correct.
Everyone needs to be better educated on the truth about climate action and the impact of foolishly following NetZero and associated non-viable solutions.