UPDATE: Pielke pretends this argument is about science (Scroll to bottom of post for corrective.)

 

Hurricanes respond to their immediate environment, not a global average increase in heat!

- Roger A. Pielke Sr.

You can tell that science and good judgment are going out the window when writers start throwing exclamation points into their arguments. And Dr. Pielke certainly sacrifices science, objectivity and caution in a recent attack on AP Science writer Seth Borenstein.

The date was January 24, 2008. Four NASA senior brass had just finished delivering a rambling one hour news briefing on their much-maligned Earth sciences program - noteworthy only in that there was no news. No new announcements. No new missions.

Seth Borenstein, the science reporter for Associated Press rose to ask the first question, specifically about why NASA had not launched DSCOVR.

There was a time, Stanford climatologist Stephen Schneider said today, when that appeared to be what American journalists were doing: covering up climate change. Schneider was the lead speaker In an opening plenary of the Society of Environmental Journalists annual conference, entitled "Covering Climate Change," and he began by noting that all too recently, U.S. climate coverage had been dense and uncertain. Peer-reviewed papers endorsed by the best scientists in the world were given the same space and credence as the latest one-off report by the apologists for an oil-industry-funded think tank.

Sitting before 300-plus reporters currently working the environment beat, Schneider quickly added, "It's not that bad any more."