Last week German fundamentalist-green (now-confirmed) Die Zeit came out with a comprehensive 3-page broadsheet portrayal of the climate skeptic movement, which, not surprisingly, was unflattering. It’s a perception that the German greens are trying to infuse in it’s readers – the truth as they want to see it, but sadly for them it’s totally remote from reality.
Image source: http://www.eike–klima–energie.eu/-die-klimakrieger/
What follow are reactions from some leading German skeptics (and others), who kindly provided their comments:
Dr. Sebastian Lüning
Geologist, co-author of “Die kalte Sonne“:
Lüning commented (by e-mail) on Die Zeit‘s claim the book “had been ripped apart by experts” and the 40% CO2 increase:
We’ve debunked the critiques on our blog in the ‘medienecho‘ section and have demonstrated that there was a lot of wishful thinking and bandwagon mentality. CO2 40% up: Well, that might be numerically true, if one takes 280 ppm to 390 ppm. But more important is the real CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, which has gone up by 0.0110% = 110 ppm in real money. Sounds much less dramatic and is therefore not worded in this way.”
(Much more on Lüning‘s and Vahrenholt’s reaction later this week.)
Dr. Hans Labohm (Holland)
Journalist at Der Standaard: (left a reader comment)
As a Dutchman I’ve always thought ‘Die Zeit’ was a quality newspaper. Now I have to correct that impression. The article in question testifies of shoddy if not malicious journalism.
In the Netherlands the relationship between AGW protagonists and antagonists has markedly improved over the last few years. A broad majority of political parties in Parliament, including the Labour Party, has requested the government to include climate sceptics in the scientific debate. They would never have done so if they would have believed the story by Kohlenberg and Blasberg was a truthful reflection of reality. The dialogue is now going on. One of the most visible manifestations to date is climatedialogue.org, which is run by a mixed group of scientists, including both AGW adherents and climate sceptics. It is sponsored by the government.
It shows that it can be done without polarization. Just follow the rules of sound scientific practice, including an open dialogue.”
Also read Dr. Labohm’s story here.
Prof. Fred Singer (USA)
(No introduction needed) sent by e-mail:
The old, well-worn lie: ‘Singer is in the pay of the oil industry’ – copied, no doubt, from such discredited sources as desmogblog. AGAIN –just for the record – I am not supported by any energy company – or by any industry for that matter.
My payments from Heartland are book royalties. Heartland has published three of my NIPCC books in the past 4 years. And we expect to do two more books in 2013. BTW, all my book royalties go to SEPP — not to me personally.
The scandalmongers from DIE ZEIT could have gotten all this info from me in the interview. All they had to do was ask me. Obviously, they were afraid of learning the truth.”
Amazing investigative journalism – they never even bothered to ask Singer about his funding!
Dr. Holger Thuß
President, EIKE (by e-mail):
I find it remarkable that there was no word about the scientific criticism on the hockey stick graph (which was completely discredited to its core by scientific circles). Quotes were taken out of context.
Much paper was wasted chewing and chewing on nonsense put out by climate extremist Wikipedia and bloggers. I find this outrageous.
The subliminal criticism on the anti-communist view of climate skeptics, some of them children of Holocaust survivors, is a slap in the face to victims of dictatorships and an embarrassment for German journalism.”
Note: Fred Singer, for example, actually fled the Nazis.
Michael Limburg
Vice President, EIKE:
It’s obvious that the hot scenarios coming from the computer models have not generated enough panic up to now. Therefore it is necessary in addition to unleash top investigative journalists in order to expose those who oppose the panic-mongering, the so-called “well-paid mercenaries”, and to disarm them.
Regarding the hundreds of millions of dollars that climate deniers supposedly received from evil industry, the authors happened to forget the sources of this funding. In the spirit of ‘good and investigative journalism’ The authors just claim the climate deniers simply received it.
Only blind journalists and those who are unwilling to see the truth are good journalists at Die Zeit. A classic example for Orwellian rhetoric.”
That’s some of the reaction so far to the drive-by smear of climate science skepticism in Germany. More is sure to come.
Die Zeit is a social democrat organ. German social democracy was founded by one August Bebel. To understand the approach of Die Zeit, it is helpful to dust up the biography of Bebel. Nuff said, more will not get through the filter.
Thanks for having provided this update, and thanks for the good work you do.
Good news – Obama says ‘no’ to kooks…. http://apps.facebook.com/thehillsocial/content/269603
He doesn’t want the EU to rob US airlines. He wants to rob them himself.
Climate skeptics are so honest they are poor!
Die Zeit spielgel – ing climate nonsense again.
Inference being, Rahmstorf and Schellnhuber speak loads of common sense and elicit climate truth and utter trustworthy opinions.
Oh that’s so not very funny.
If a leftist paper dies in the woods, does it make a sound?
Frankfurter Rundschau declares insolvency and nobody noticed.
http://www.fr-online.de/frankfurter-rundschau-insolvenz/20879710,20879710.html
They should have taken Die Zeit’s advice on “how to succeed.” Die Zeit thinks it’s God’s gift to to the media.
Meanwhile, here in the UK two reports are to be made to Parliament today.
One has the Press screaming that their right to publish the truth is about to be curtailed through legislation and the other, very much of secondary reportage, is the new energy bill which will enhance the wind turbine segment of production and raise bills cosiderably for every household in the land.
Tha sad thing is that the British Press has NEVER had freedom to report on Green energy matters, as successive governments have used consumers money to advertise “The Carbon Trust”, blatant green codswallop copiously served out for years at our expence to buy the silence of a financially faltering anachronism which long since gave up on crusading and investigative journalism.
Another five years and hopefully they will all be consigned to history.
Hans Labohm: a climate negotiation sponsored by the Dutch government? Come on, we both know that the Dutch a fond of negotiations. We even could negotiate that a fire burns on a mixture of oxygen and phlogiston. Science is not a matter of negatiotion. The Dutch government should apologize to Hendrik Tennekes, former research director of KNMI, who had te leave because of his AGW skepticism. That’s what a goverment should do. AGW is swindle, no negatiation needed.
Fred Singer’s comment in the blog deserves additional attention because of the media’s repeating pattern of failing to talk directly to skeptics over the accusation they are corrupt. Consider a very recent Washington Post article http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/climate-skeptic-group-works-to-reverse-renewable-energy-mandates/2012/11/24/124faaa0-3517-11e2-9cfa-e41bac906cc9_story.html which was forced to place a correction at the top about a mistake in the amount of funding that was received by the Heartland Institute – a mistake that could have been avoided had the article writer Juliet Eilperin bothered to talk to Heartland directly FIRST.
Regarding Dr Singer, this failure to ask him about his alleged “corruption” by the fossil fuel industry goes all the way back to 1997 – see this blog of his http://web.archive.org/web/19980710220020/http://sepp.org/controv/gelbspan.html about US anti-skeptic book author Ross Gelbspan: “We have yet to catch a glimpse of Gelbspan here at SEPP. In gathering material for his book, he never visited our offices, spoke to no one on staff, and never contacted Fred Singer for an interview to cover point-by-point the claims he later made in his book. He has had no contact with the Project whatsoever…..”