An article in last week’s British paper, The Telegraph, claimed that the IPCC had made yet another significant mistake – this time overstating the sensitivity of the Amazon rainforest to drought.  It turns out that the article severely misrepresented the state of the science. While that one very dry year did not produce the kind of vegetation changes detectible by satellite imagery, it did, in fact, kill a number of trees, turning the rainforest from a “sink” that absorbed 2 billion tons of CO2, to a “source” of even more CO2 from the resulting number of dead trees. The culpa for an initial post to Desmogblog, taking the IPCC to task, is exclusively mea.  The correct narrative of the rainforest’s vulnerability to severe drought comes courtesy of the scientists at Realclimate.

As many of you know, last night we co-hosted an event with the UBC School of Journalism on the topic of global warming and the state of the media. With over 200 people in attendence and some great panelists, including out of town guests, Chris Mooney and Ross Gelbspan, the event was a huge success.

Thanks to all of you who attended and contrinuted to the great dialogue. And a special thanks goes to Chris Mooney and Ross Gelbspan for taking the time to come out and share their ideas.

On another somewhat related note, I took Chris on a tour of Vancouver's Stanely Park to check out the damage caused recently by some seriously strong winds and here's what he had to say about that.

Hey all you Vancouver DeSmog fans, come join us for  a great panel discussion on global warming and the media.

Special out-of-town guests include Ross Gelbspan, DeSmog writer and author of The Boiling Point and Chris Mooney, author of The Republican War on Science and the soon to be released Storm World.

Other panelists include DeSmog co-founder Jim Hoggan, Hadi Dowlatabadi, UBC Professor at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability and Kirk LaPointe, Managing editor of the Vancouver Sun .

Here's the details of this FREE public event:

Date: Tuesday, March 5, 2007
Time: 6pm to 8pm
Location: UBC Robson Square Theatre, 800 Robson Street, Vancouver

If anyone needs any further information, call me at 778-773-0281

Ross Gelbspan, DeSmog writer who led an editorial team that won a Pulitzer Prize, says journalists have given far too much ink to industry-paid spin doctors out to clobber the scientific consensus around climate change and global warming. Gelbspan will take part in a panel discussion March 6 in Vancouver on media treatment of the issue, when he will point out how reporters have caved-in to the success of ExxonMobil and others in exploiting the traditional journalistic practice of giving balanced coverage.

Ross Gelbspan, a renowned climate-change author and one of the founders of DeSmogBlog, is at the Sundance Film Festival this week as a star in the documentary Everything’s Cool , a “toxic comedy” about global warming coming to America.

A new film, "Out of Balance," documents ExxonMobil's long campaign of climate disinformation. The film, created by film-maker Tom Jackson, features, among others, Michael Oppenheimer, Bill McKibben, Elizabeth Kolbert, Rick Piltz and Ross Gelbspan.