NYT: A River Still Runs Through It — of Denial - Walter Russell Mead's Blog

Posted on February 16th, 2010 NYT: A River Still Runs Through It — of Denial Walter Russell Mead Posted In: Global Warming, Media

I know, I know, it’s a dog bites man story at this point, but today the New York Times came out with its weekly special section devoted to Science. There was a story in there about some schoolchildren and a giant prehistoric frog, a review of some recent developments in Cretan archaelogy, a fascinating story about animals that imitate other animals and plants, and a very short piece about warm sea water melting glaciers in Greenland.

But what, you ask, did the paper of record have to say about the biggest story to hit the world of science in many years — the swirl of conflicting claims, counterclaims and investigations that the rest of the world knows as Climategate? The stunned chaos in the environmental movement as a bewildered and enraged leadership confronts the possible meltdown of its grand international agenda? The fear and loathing in Congress at the prospect of divisive votes on climate change in a dangerous election year? The cascading difficulties of both the IPCC and the East Anglia CRU? The agonized deliberations taking place involving foundations and their clients?

There was, once again, zero. Zip. Nada.

Nothing happening out there, I guess. All quiet on the climate front.

But it was a really cool prehistoric frog. The size of a beachball, honest. The schoolchildren were very impressed.

11 Comments »

[...] RUSSELL MEAD: The New York Times’ river of denial. What’s missing in today’s Science Times? Not much, just, you know, any mention [...]

Pingback by Instapundit » Blog Archive » WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: The New York Times’ river of denial. What’s missing in today’s Science Times?… – February 16, 2010 @ 9:45 am

Hmmm. Walter, did they by chance have a story on how the sea levels were higher by a meter 60,000 years ago or so when CO2 levels were much lower than today?

Comment by CosmicConservative – February 16, 2010 @ 9:49 am

“The cascading difficulties of both the IPCC and the East Anglia CRU?”

Not to mention NASA’s involvement in the manipulation of data. Though, they were actually rewarded for their part in the fraud with a budget increase of hundreds of millions of dollars, specifically to study “global warming.”

Comment by 5th Level Fighter – February 16, 2010 @ 10:01 am

That’s pretty funny, since the frog story originally ran in February of 2008 and was covered by the BBC. It can be found here

Comment by Jimpithecus – February 16, 2010 @ 10:25 am

The descent into irrelevance continues…

Comment by TheGeezer – February 16, 2010 @ 10:38 am

Jimpithecus, I hopped on over to your link and checked it out but are you sure you’re not jumping to the conclusion that the NY Times hasn’t broken some startling new development in the story of a 70 million year old frog. Personally I find the whole topic ribbeting.

Comment by kcom – February 16, 2010 @ 10:42 am

Clearly, reading the NYT leaves you less informed.

Propaganda always does.

Comment by Jack – February 16, 2010 @ 10:49 am

Not since the early 1980s have U.S. print or TV mass media dealt honestly with substantive issues of the day. “Bias” is far too mild a term. Censorship, propaganda, skewed ideological agendas invariably promoting a crypto-fascist Corporate Statism are their stock-in-trade. No-one of decency or common sense, neither a conceited elitist nor a peculating special-interest rentier, has any business crediting these bumwads with any objective rationality whatever.

Comment by John Blake – February 16, 2010 @ 11:20 am

Suprised by no mention of the global warming mess in the NYT? None can be found for the past couple of days in the always relevant
Huffington Post. Tallk about boycotts!

Comment by Ben Blankenship – February 16, 2010 @ 2:13 pm

I gave up on reading the NYT in 1999 – when Clinton’s impeachment was all about the nasty Republican’s moralistic aversion to sex, and yet the Bill of Impeachment never mentioned ‘sex’.

As the old Soviet era joke went (and WRM remembers better than I), there is no Pravda in Isvestia (sp?), no Isvestia in Pavda.

Comment by Orson – February 16, 2010 @ 8:33 pm

The rigors of scientific discipline demand,inter alia,that a theory imply the kind of evidence that would prove it wrong.Predictions based on the theory are checked against the facts.If something occurs that should not have,and vice versa,the theory is discarded.The principal AGW alarmists themselves lament that they cannot explain the lack of warming.Ergo the AGW theory has been discredited.Einstein said that it would not take 100 scientists to prove him wrong.One fact alone would suffice.The defeat of the Emissions Trading Scheme in the Australian Parliament clearly demonstrates that the public has had enough of the lies,cheating,filibuster,spin and obfuscation.

Comment by Con Michael – February 25, 2010 @ 7:53 pm

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