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<font size="+2"><font face="Calibri"><i><b>June</b></i></font></font><font
size="+2" face="Calibri"><i><b> 1, 2023</b></i></font><font
face="Calibri"><br>
</font> <font face="Calibri"> </font> <br>
<font face="Calibri"><i>[ We must weather the climate ]</i></font><br>
<font face="Calibri"><b>A big El Niño is looming. Here’s what it
means for our weather.</b></font><br>
<font face="Calibri">How warm water in the Pacific shapes storms,
droughts, and record heat around the world.</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">By Umair Irfan May 30, 2023, </font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">El Niño is the warm phase of the Pacific
Ocean’s temperature cycle, and this year’s El Niño is poised to be
a big one, sending shock waves into weather patterns around the
world. It’s likely to set new heat records, energize rainfall in
South America, fuel drought in Africa, and disrupt the global
economy. It may already have helped fuel early-season heat waves
in Asia this year...</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">- -</font><br>
<font face="Calibri"><b>What can we expect this year?</b></font><br>
<font face="Calibri">El Niño typically picks up over the summer and
shows its strongest effects over the winter in the Northern
Hemisphere. Right now, forecasts drawing on ocean buoys, sensors,
satellite measurements, and computer models show that a strong one
is brewing as the eastern Pacific Ocean steadily warms up just
below its surface.</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">“The vast majority ... are assuming that we’re
going to have a big El Niño this winter,” said Amaya. “I think
we’re definitely expecting to break global temperature records
this year.”</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">Part of what’s making this so jarring is that
ENSO is coming out of an unusually long La Niña phase. They
typically last one to two years, but the world has been in one
since 2020. “There’s only been three triple-dip La Niñas in the
last 50 years: One in 1973 to 76, one from 1998 to 2001, and then
this one,” said McPhaden. That has allowed more heat energy to
accumulate in the ocean and may have helped cushion some of the
warming due to climate change. However, the World Meteorological
Organization noted that the past eight years were still the
hottest on record.</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">So the warming water detected in the equatorial
Pacific and the rebound from La Niña point toward a strong El
Niño. “All the ingredients are in place and the soup is cooking,”
McPhaden said. “The ocean is uncorked. All that heat that was
stored below the surface of the ocean is going to come out.”..</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">The other big factor is that the planet itself
is heating up. El Niño is part of a natural cycle. Human activity
is amplifying some aspects of it, but not always in a
straightforward way. Researchers expect that climate change will
increase the chances of strong El Niño and La Niña events, but are
still chalking out how they will manifest. Exactly how that extra
heat is distributed across the ocean and the atmosphere will alter
which regions see more rain, which ones will suffer drought, and
where the biggest storms will land.</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">And while the rising El Niño this year will
eventually cycle back to its cool phase, it won’t be enough to
offset humanity’s consumption of fossil fuels. “What really
matters from the long-term point of view is this relentless rise
in greenhouse gas concentrations,” McPhaden said. “You cannot
escape that there will be continued warming because of that.”</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">These forecasts, however, buy precious time to
prepare. While El Niño can push some disasters to greater
extremes, tools like early warning systems, disaster shelters,
evacuations, and climate-resilient building codes can keep the
human toll in check. It’s going to be a hot summer, but it doesn’t
have to be a deadly one.</font><br>
<font face="Calibri"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.vox.com/climate/23738846/el-nino-2023-weather-heat-wave-climate-change-disaster-flood-rain">https://www.vox.com/climate/23738846/el-nino-2023-weather-heat-wave-climate-change-disaster-flood-rain</a></font>
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<font face="Calibri"><i>[ Airline flights deliver the very worst
impacts of green house gases ]</i></font><br>
<b>Delta Air Lines faces lawsuit over $1bn carbon neutrality claim</b><br>
<font face="Calibri">Patrick Greenfield<br>
Tue 30 May 2023<br>
</font><br>
US airline pledged to go carbon neutral but plaintiffs say it is
relying on offsets that do almost nothing to mitigate global heating<br>
In February 2020, the US airline announced plans to go carbon
neutral, pledging $1bn to mitigate all greenhouse gas emissions from
its business worldwide over the next decade. It included plans to
purchase carbon credits generated from conserving rainforest,
wetlands and grasslands along with decreasing the use of jet fuel
and increasing plane efficiency.<br>
<br>
The new legal action, filed in California on Tuesday, targets
Delta’s statement that it is “the world’s first carbon-neutral
airline”, a claim it has made in adverts, LinkedIn posts, in-flight
napkins and comments by company executives, according to the
lawsuit...<br>
- -<br>
The class-action lawsuit says Delta’s carbon neutrality claim is
demonstrably false as it heavily relies on junk offsets that do
nothing to counteract the climate crisis. It alleges that customers
would have purchased Delta tickets believing they had no impact on
the environment and many would not have bought them without the
carbon neutrality claim.<br>
<br>
A Delta spokesperson said: “This lawsuit is without legal merit.
Delta is a vigorous advocate for more sustainable aviation, adopting
industry-leading climate goals as we work towards achieving net-zero
carbon emissions by 2050. Delta committed to carbon neutrality in
March 2020, and since 31 March 2022, has fully transitioned its
focus away from carbon offsets toward decarbonisation of our
operations, focusing our efforts on investing in sustainable
aviation fuel, renewing our fleet for more fuel-efficient aircraft
and implementing operational efficiencies.”...<br>
- -<br>
“This is more than a climate change case. This is also a business
case. People are paying more for these greener products. If a
company like Delta is raking that premium in by claiming they do it
first and then doing a huge advertising blitz to try to get people
flying again, we think that’s unfair to other companies that are
buying higher-quality offsets or doing far better sustainability.
And frankly, unfair to consumers.”<br>
<br>
At the time Delta launched its plans to go carbon neutral in 2020,
its chief executive, Ed Bastian, said: “There’s no challenge we face
that is in greater need of innovation than environmental
sustainability, and we know there is no single solution. We are
digging deep into the issues, examining every corner of our
business, engaging experts, building coalitions, fostering
partnerships and driving innovation.”<br>
<br>
The new lawsuit comes amid a wider regulatory crackdown on green
claims in the UK and Europe. In New York, Evian is being sued over
its carbon neutrality claim which relies on offsets. Danone, who own
the water brand, has argued it should be thrown out and say the case
“defies science and common sense”.<br>
<br>
A judge will now decide whether or not to progress the case.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/30/delta-air-lines-lawsuit-carbon-neutrality-aoe">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/30/delta-air-lines-lawsuit-carbon-neutrality-aoe</a>
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<i>[ Use the courts ]</i><br>
<b>More than two dozen cities and states are suing Big Oil over
climate change – they just got a boost from the US Supreme Court</b><br>
Published: May 23, 2023<br>
Patrick Parenteau, Professor of Law Emeritus, Vermont Law &
Graduate School<br>
John Dernbach, Professor of Law, Widener University<br>
Honolulu has lost more than 5 miles of its famous beaches to sea
level rise and storm surges. Sunny-day flooding during high tides
makes many city roads impassable, and water mains for the public
drinking water system are corroding from saltwater because of sea
level rise.<br>
<br>
The damage has left the city and county spending millions of dollars
on repairs and infrastructure to try to adapt to the rising risks.<br>
<br>
Future costs will almost certainly be higher. More than US$19
billion in property value, at today’s dollars, is at risk by 2100
from projected sea level rise, driven by greenhouse gas emissions
largely from the burning of fossil fuels. Elsewhere in Honolulu
County, which covers all of Oahu, many coastal communities will be
cut off or uninhabitable.<br>
<br>
Unwilling to have their taxpayers bear the full brunt of these
costs, the city and county sued Sunoco LP, Exxon Mobil Corp. and
other big oil companies in 2020.<br>
<br>
Their case – one of more than two dozen involving U.S. cities,
counties and states suing the oil industry over climate change –
just got a break from the U.S. Supreme Court. That has significantly
increased their odds of succeeding.<br>
<br>
Suing over the cost of climate change<br>
At stake in all of these cases is who pays for the staggering cost
of a changing climate.<br>
Local and state governments that are suing want to hold the major
oil companies responsible for the costs of responding to disasters
that scientists are increasingly able to attribute to climate
disruption and tie back to the fossil fuel industry. Several of the
plaintiffs accuse the companies of lying to the public about their
products’ risks in violation of state or local consumer protection
laws that prohibit false advertising...<br>
- -<br>
The governments in the Honolulu case allege that the oil companies
“are directly responsible” for a substantial rise in carbon dioxide
emissions that have been driving climate change. They say the
companies should contribute their fair share to defray some of the
costs.<br>
<br>
The gist of Honolulu’s complaint is that the big oil companies have
known for decades that their products cause climate change, yet
their public statements continued to sow doubts about what was
known, and they failed to warn their customers, investors and the
public about the dangers posed by their products.<br>
<br>
Were it not for this deception, the lawsuit says, the city and
county would not be facing mounting costs of abating the damage from
climate change.<br>
<br>
Importantly, the complaint is based on state – not federal – law. It
alleges that the defendants have violated established common law
rules long recognized by the courts involving nuisance, failure to
warn and trespass...<br>
- - <br>
<b>What happens next?</b><br>
The Honolulu case leads the pack at this point.<br>
<br>
In 2022, the 1st Circuit Court in Hawaii denied the oil companies’
motion to dismiss the case based on the argument that the Clean Air
Act also preempts state common law. This could open the door for
discovery to begin sometime this year.<br>
<br>
In discovery, senior corporate officers – perhaps including former
Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson, who was secretary of state under
Donald Trump – will be required to answer questions under oath about
what the companies knew about climate change versus what they
disclosed to the public..<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://theconversation.com/more-than-two-dozen-cities-and-states-are-suing-big-oil-over-climate-change-they-just-got-a-boost-from-the-us-supreme-court-205009">https://theconversation.com/more-than-two-dozen-cities-and-states-are-suing-big-oil-over-climate-change-they-just-got-a-boost-from-the-us-supreme-court-205009</a><br>
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<i> </i><font face="Calibri"><i> [ AI helps research ]</i></font><br>
<font face="Calibri"> </font> <font face="Calibri"><b>Halting
generative AI advancements may slow down progress in climate
research</b><br>
Francesca Larosa, Sergio Hoyas, Javier García-Martínez, J. Alberto
Conejero, Francesco Fuso Nerini & Ricardo Vinuesa <br>
Nature Climate Change (2023)Cite this article<br>
</font><font face="Calibri">Published: 29 May 2023</font><font
face="Calibri"> Altmetric<br>
<br>
Metricsdetails<br>
<br>
Large language models offer an opportunity to advance climate and
sustainability research. We believe that a focus on regulation and
validation of generative artificial intelligence models would
provide more benefits to society than a halt in development.<br>
<br>
Opening the World Economic Forum in Davos this year, the United
Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres delivered a
sobering message that “we are flirting with climate disaster”, and
that “every week brings a new climate horror story”. The data
justify these statements: in 2022, global losses due to natural
disasters amounted to US$270 billion1, and the costs to adapt to
current and projected changes are already estimated to be around
US$300 billion a year by 2030 (ref. 2). To limit global warming to
1.5–2 °C above pre-industrial levels as decreed by the IPCC and
agreed at COP21 in 2015, rapid decarbonization must start
immediately. Scientists are calling for a narrative shift: it is a
matter of urgency, and further delay is not a viable option3.
There is a pressing need to halt greenhouse gas emissions and to
invest in adaptation plans, and the climate emergency requires
three simultaneous and fast actions to succeed: to operationalize
research, to democratize knowledge and to develop holistic
policies. These three actions can all benefit from the
development, deployment and scale up of well-regulated artificial
intelligence (AI) tools. The recent calls to pause progress in AI
models that are more powerful than GPT-4 (ref. 4) and actions to
stop their use5, as well as ongoing policy discussion, stimulate
reflections about the impacts of these warnings and demand higher
problematization — especially considering their applications to
solve grand societal challenges such as climate change.<br>
<br>
The research and practice AI community has animated a lively
debate around the moratorium request that was published in March
2023 to pause the training of very large AI systems4. Although we
share some of the concerns that the signatories rightfully flag,
we feel that the letter’s proposed solution to pause progress can
be misunderstood to imply a broader halt on AI development by the
policy community. Furthermore, the letter does not open a holistic
debate about implications of this temporary halt for other
scientific communities. We believe that the risk is that some
countries, not aware of the full picture of this debate, may halt
developments in AI altogether. As a result, research on key areas
could be slowed down by a moratorium that limits a tool that has
become essential to advance knowledge on complex problems with
hidden interactions, such as climate change.<br>
<br>
<b>AI can operationalize, democratize and develop</b><br>
The science is clear: the impacts of global warming, rainfall
changes, sea-level rise and extreme events will cascade across all
sectors of society2. Biodiversity loss leads to direct human
health impacts, as ecosystem services are altered in their
functions and provisions6. Reduced ecosystem functionalities also
affect the income and livelihoods of people around the world6. The
inability to adapt to new climate conditions has serious societal
implications in terms of mortality, labour supply, energy demand
and economic productivity7, exacerbating tensions and conflicts8
and forcing millions into migration9. The failure to mitigate
climate change with credible and timely policies triggers
geopolitical tensions as energy security becomes a primary concern
in a fossil-fuel-dependent world.<br>
<br>
AI has become a powerful resource for the 17 Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) of the UN10. In particular, the use of
natural language processing (NLP) to tackle climate change
research is promising11. For example, big-data analysis of the
literature complements the IPCC assessment reports. It provides a
cost-efficient method to update priorities in climate-change
adaptation12 and to increase understanding of climate
attribution2, leading to more timely identification of the inner
complexities behind the climate–human interaction.<br>
<br>
Beyond assessing, NLP can be used for the development of novel,
shared and collective knowledge thanks to the potentialities of
generative models. This feature does not come without
controversies, however, and surely requires regulations. When
large language models (LLMs) are pretrained on sentences and
portions of texts produced by humans, they may generate
conceptually new insights by combining single texts. Two important
aspects of the AI models that are more powerful than GPT-4, which
would be affected by the research halt, are the ‘context window’
and vision. The former enables analysis of much longer documents,
facilitating the establishment of complex connections among
different written sources. The latter allows analysis of images,
which are essential in the type of documents that could be
analysed using NLP. The AI systems targeted by the proposed
moratorium are therefore precisely those that promise the best
opportunity to find new solutions to research-related climate
challenges. The produced outputs can be studied and complemented
with two features that AI lacks: experience and factuality. This
means that, rather than becoming “nonhuman minds that might
eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete and replace us”4, the AI
models can offer support to human reasoning and human-informed
judgements.<br>
<br>
Moreover, NLP and LLMs also have the potential to support policy
design. As inequality in both knowledge production and access is
one of the biggest societal challenges of this era13, the
development and deployment of AI tools contributes to
democratizing information by collecting insights from non-obvious
or unstructured data sources, such as policy reports, working
documents and grey literature. As agents with bounded rationality,
humans have a limited or partial understanding of the world. More
importantly, humans lack access to the full set of possible
alternatives and related consequences. This is particularly
relevant as climate policies and strategies produce both
spillovers and tradeoffs, leaving decision-makers exposed to
unintended consequences. AI can support a more holistic
understanding of the landscape in which decisions are taken10.
First, NLP enables the identification of conflicting priorities
that threaten the achievement of the SDGs14,15. Second, NLP
methods contribute to assessing the alignment between nationally
determined contributions and other sustainability goals16.<br>
<br>
<b>Towards empowering regulation to master AI</b><br>
The above-mentioned promising avenues do not come without
challenges. First, LLM training has both environmental and
monetary costs. Estimates of the AI contribution to greenhouse gas
emissions are controversial and recent assessments suggest that
while helping the environment, AI also harms it: training GPT-3
(trained on 175 billion parameters) corresponds to 188 times the
carbon emissions of a one-way air trip from New York to San
Francisco17. At the same time, AI models help optimize energy
consumption and increase efficiency in high-emitting sectors,
leaving the accounting of net gains and damages an open question.
Moreover, AI applications are widespread in several sectors,
including those with limited, absent or opposite environmental
benefits17. As the international community questions the use of
these models, it is worth defining how AI can contribute to the
public good.<br>
<br>
Second, despite being misleadingly compared to human capabilities,
generative AI and LLMs are not equivalent. As they do not have
human-comparable experiences, these models ingest inputs as they
encounter them, exposing users to potentially harmful or incorrect
content. In the climate domain, these concerns are important — as
climate misinformation threatens action and grows at an alarming
rate18. Although the concerns around biases, mistakes and
misinformation should not be overlooked, the refinement and
continuous research, development and deployment of these resources
contribute to the inclusion of new and diverse users and avoid
relegating climate knowledge to an elite circle of (mostly)
western-educated scientists. NLP and LLMs should not pose
questions about what is ‘good’ or ‘fair’, which are highly
subjective and embedded in local cultures. Instead, the focus
should be on how AI enables or hampers power shifts19. In the
climate domain, this is a crucial question and can guide the
provision of climate finance, the discussions around loss and
damage, and the negotiations on carbon pricing and carbon taxes.
To answer the question of whether these models are spreading
conceptual views that reflect the values and practices of certain
groups and areas of the world, we need to validate, and not halt,
these claims as in any trial-and-error scientific process.<br>
<br>
Such improvements require engagement. Calls to regulate, rather
than halt, AI technologies and their use have already resonated
within and beyond the academic community20. Existing and
legitimate concerns should not be turned into fears. Instead, they
should be acknowledged and addressed — knowing the biases and
limitations of the models will unleash the opportunities that come
with them. The advocated six-month pause is not long enough to
fully grasp how AI tools operate, but it could shed light on the
risks and opportunities of AI. For instance, a key request that we
support is that AI models should not be ‘black boxes’ but instead
be open, transparent and verifiable. This is a prerequisite in
order for AI to be trusted and to be improved by the research
community. As in other historical, controversial cases (such as
genetic technology, which also caused division), the international
community is being called upon to participate in the debate on AI
and climate change; climate research offers a great case study of
how AI can be used to support societal progress. Advancements in
LLMs and NLP can accelerate and scale up ‘urgent’ and ‘near-term
integrated’ climate actions2. It is important to decide on the
appropriate rules and procedures to regulate AI technologies. We
call for a broader, science-based and holistic debate: a pause
will just postpone it, and the root causes of the justified
concerns won’t be addressed.<br>
</font><font face="Calibri"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01686-5">https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01686-5</a><br>
</font>
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<p><font face="Calibri"><i>[ Arnold wants attention, but may be
missing the point ]</i><br>
</font><font face="Calibri"><b>Arnold Schwarzenegger: ‘No one
gives a s--- about’ climate change — this is what it should be
called instead</b><br>
MAY 30 <br>
</font>
</p>
<blockquote><font face="Calibri">KEY POINTS</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">-- “As long as they keep talking about global
climate change, they are not gonna go anywhere. ‘Cause no one
gives a s--- about that,” Arnold Schwarzenegger said in an
interview on CBS’ “Sunday Morning.”</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">-- “We’re talking about pollution. Pollution
creates climate change, and pollution kills,” he said.</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">-- While global investment in clean tech is
increasing, so too are greenhouse gas emissions. And while
concern among Democrats is rising, only 23% of Republicans say
climate change is a major threat to the country’s well-being,
according to the Pew Research Center.</font><br>
</blockquote>
<font face="Calibri">Arnold Schwarzenegger says the global effort to
mitigate the effects of climate change is being crippled by its
fundamental communication problem.<br>
<br>
“As long as they keep talking about global climate change, they
are not gonna go anywhere. ‘Cause no one gives a s--- about that,”
Schwarzenegger told CBS’ “Sunday Morning” correspondent Tracy
Smith in a profile that aired Sunday. <br>
<br>
“So my thing is, let’s go and rephrase this and communicate
differently about it and really tell people — we’re talking about
pollution. Pollution creates climate change, and pollution kills,”
Schwarzenegger said.<br>
<br>
The 75-year-old bodybuilder, actor, and former governor of
California has become a public voice about climate change through
his role as the host of the Austrian World Summit, a global
climate change conference.<br>
<br>
“I’m on a mission to go and reduce greenhouse gases worldwide,”
Schwarzenegger told CBS, “because I’m into having a healthy body
and a healthy Earth. That’s what I’m fighting for. And that’s my
crusade.”<br>
<br>
Anthropogenic global warming is caused by an increase of
greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, in the atmosphere.
Carbon dioxide is released when fossil fuels such as coal and oil
are burned...<br>
</font> <font face="Calibri"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/30/schwarzenegger-no-one-gives-a-s-about-climate-change-rebrand-it.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/30/schwarzenegger-no-one-gives-a-s-about-climate-change-rebrand-it.html</a></font>
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<font face="Calibri"> <br>
</font><font face="Calibri"> <i>[The news archive - looking back
disinformation battles]</i></font><br>
<font face="Calibri"> <font size="+2"><i><b>June 1, 2004 </b></i></font>
</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">June 1, 2004: The Boston Phoenix's Dan Kennedy
calls out the Boston Globe for running an op-ed by Jim Taylor of
the Heartland Institute attacking the film "The Day After
Tomorrow" without disclosing that the Heartland Institute is a
front group for the fossil-fuel industry.</font><br>
<blockquote><font face="Calibri"><b>Boston Phoenix • Media Log
Archives</b></font><br>
<font face="Calibri">Dan Kennedy's blog on media and politics •
published by the Boston Phoenix from 2002 to 2005</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">TUESDAY, JUNE 1, 2004</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">AND NOW, THE REST OF THE STORY. The Boston
Globe recently announced that it will begin accepting ads on the
op-ed page. A column today that attempts to debunk concerns
about global warming, by one James M. Taylor, would appear to
fall into that category. Unfortunately, the Globe presents it
not as a paid ad but, rather, as an earnest opinion piece by
someone who is identified only by the respectable-sounding title
of "managing editor of Environment & Climate News."</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">More about that in a moment. First, though, a
few words about Taylor's wacky column, written ostensibly to
make fun of the movie The Day After Tomorrow, a global-warming
nightmare thriller. At first I figured Taylor would simply point
out that the various global-warming scenarios are more
complicated and less spectacular than Hollywood would have it.
Within a few paragraphs, though, Taylor was espousing the most
extreme views held by industry and its right-wing supporters. To
wit: that if there is any global warming taking place at all, it
is slight, and in any case will take place at night, while
you're sleeping; and that the concomitant rise in carbon-dioxide
levels is good for you. Taylor writes:</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">Most recent and unbiased scientific research
indicates that temperature change caused by rising
concentrations of greenhouse gases will be moderate, perhaps 1
degree Celsius in the next century; most of the warming will
occur at night and during the winter; and higher concentrations
of atmospheric carbon dioxide (which plant life needs to thrive
and survive) will lead to a greening of the planet that will
enhance global food production.<br>
<br>
</font><font face="Calibri">Now, in fact, the case for
human-caused global warming is a bit more complicated than
environmentalists would have you believe, which I discovered
when I dipped my toe into this turbulent water nearly three
years ago. But the overwhelming consensus of scientific opinion
is definitely not on Taylor's side. The simple-minded virulence
of Taylor's screed should have set off alarm bells when it
arrived at the Globe. It certainly set off Media Log's alarms.
And it took me no more than a few minutes on Google to learn
that Taylor's piece never should have seen the light of day -
except in one of those new op-ads.</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">Environment & Climate News, as it turns
out, is a publication of the Chicago-based Heartland Institute,
a right-wing organization founded in 1984 that is "devoted to
turning ideas into social movements that empower people." How
nice. Scroll down its home page, and you will see that it
promotes relatively benign, conservative-oriented causes such as
school choice - and some truly out-there ideas, such as the
notion that genetically modified crops are necessary to preserve
water resources, that new air-pollution standards "will do
significant economic harm but little environmental good," that
the government should do nothing about the obesity epidemic, and
that second-hand cigarette smoke is harmless.</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">It gets better. According to
Disinfopedia.com, the Heartland Institute's directors include
current and retired officials of ExxonMobil, Amaco, General
Motors, and Philip Morris. Its funding comes from ExxonMobil and
a number of right-wing foundations, including the notorious John
M. Olin Foundation and the Scaife Foundations. (As in Richard
Melon Scaife, who reportedly once told a journalist attempting
to ask him a question, "You fucking communist cunt, get out of
here.") In addition, Heartland co-founder David Padden is a
right-wing activist long involved in such organizations as the
Cato Institute and the Center for Libertarian Studies.</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">According to Bill Berkowitz, writing for
WorkingForChange.com, "The Heartland Institute ... is one of the
foremost right-wing purveyors of the carbon dioxide is good for
you theory."</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">Op-ed pages are where newspapers publish
opinion pieces, and by their very nature the authors of those
pieces are not expected to be as disinterested as, say,
reporters who cover political campaigns, homicides, or the stock
market. On the other hand, neither are op-ed editors supposed to
publish discredited propaganda that's been bought and paid for
by corporate and right-wing interests, especially when those
interests are not disclosed.</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">The Globe has been apologizing a lot lately,
even when it shouldn't have. Well, Taylor's ridiculous piece is
something that's definitely worth an apology.</font><br>
</blockquote>
<font face="Calibri">Meanwhile, the Globe's advertising salespeople
must be wondering how they'll ever manage to sell an op-ad when
the editorial side is giving them away.<br>
</font><font face="Calibri"><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://medialogarchives.blogspot.com/2004/06/and-now-rest-of-story.asp">http://medialogarchives.blogspot.com/2004/06/and-now-rest-of-story.asp</a> <br>
<br>
<br>
</font>
<p><font face="Calibri">======================================= <br>
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