Today, the Mail continues in the same vein. They've published an article talking about the Climate Challenge Fund (CCF) being "utterly bonkers and misleading".
As recently reported on Left Foot Forward, the Daily Mail and other right-wing papers are conspicuously failing to observe even minimal standards of journalistic probity in their efforts to mud-sling at climate science and the climate-justice movement.
Today, the Mail continues in the same vein. They’ve published an article describing the Climate Challenge Fund (CCF) as being “utterly bonkers and misleading”, citing a Whitehall report which claims public opinion on manmade climate change hasn’t been changed by the work of this fund.
The first point to make here is that just because public opinion has not dramatically shifted on climate change does not mean that the work of the CCF hasn’t contributed to the current state of public opinion not being worse than it actually is.
Honest journalism on this story would consider the possibility that, if the CCF hadn’t done its work, recent opinion polls on the public’s climate-understanding would be even worse than they actually are. (An analogy in this particular regard is the vast amount of money spent by laundry/detergent sellers on advertising. They do NOT expect to win any improved market share by spending this money – they are just trying to avoid losing market share.)
In any case, the substance of the Mail’s story does not match its headlines. It says:
“The report by consultants Brook Lyndhurst … judged that ‘the aggregate picture is one of neutral or very modest positive shifts’.”
That’s a very far cry from a verdict that the money spent was wasted.
Even if the Brook Lyndhurst study that the TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) dug up does say the Climate Challenge projects didn’t succeed in shifting public opinion at all, this would hardly be much of a stunning conclusion – for changing attitudes and behaviour on manmade climate change is notoriously difficult. (For some of the best ways forward on this, see below.)
The TPA have been extremely selective in the CCF projects they highlight. Here is a rather fuller listing of the vast array of projects that the Fund has been engaged in: http://tinyurl.com/ccf-projects
The Mail story opportunistically concludes by saying:
“The Climatic Research Unit [CRU] at the University of East Anglia, which received £16,000 from the Climate Challenge Fund, has come under fire over leaked emails which show scientists attempted to hide data from sceptics.”
I work at UEA, but you don’t need to work here to be aware – any journalist would or should be aware – that the CRU is itself a pretty huge organisation. The money that it received from the CCF was for completely different purposes than the temperature-mapping work which is at the centre of the stolen-emails controversy.
CCF funding is for projects about public understanding of sustainability, etc. – not about the actual business of temperature-measuring. In other words: there is no real connection between this story and that controversy. The Mail has arbitrarily linked the two, to try to jump on a bandwagon.
The Mail’s piece does, however, make one good point:
“Future programmes should ‘avoid sensationalist or shocking imagery in climate change messages, since respondents are likely to find this off-putting’, [the report] said.”
But this is about how most effectively to communicate around manmade climate change, something about which we are still learning. Some of the best thinking on which way to go next with climate communications, away from doom and gloom and toward a better greener future, can be found at:
• SIZZLE
But the Mail, presumably, would rather not let people know about any of this positive thinking about climate-communication.
23 Responses to “More Mail climate change misreporting”
Rupert Read
You say that you will ‘leave aside the ad hominem’. Kindly then take back significant portions of your post, and request the MAIL to do the same with their story. It is a disgrace that you throw around vague (and largely false) allegations about CRU which have no connection whatsoever with the substance of this story. Your kind of mud-slinging exercise is ad hominem from the beginning.
[And btw, isn’t it time you rebranded yourselves as ‘The non-taxpayers alliance’, given the revelations about your funders’ tax-status?]
Matthew Sinclair
Rupert,
Surely you can see the clear relevance of what happened at the CRU to this story?
A scandal, and what appears to be a breach of FOI law (not just my opinion, the ICO has said the same thing), at a climate change research unit in a university supported by the Climate Challenge Fund to promote its research into climate change is about as clear a connection to the story as I can imagine.
It’s not mudslinging, it’s criticism. Get used to it.
[One of our directors, a former teacher, retired to France. People who live in France tend to pay French taxes, not British ones. He’s a retired teacher, not a sinister billionaire kingpin]
Best,
Matt
Shamik Das
“One of our directors, a former teacher, retired to France. People who live in France tend to pay French taxes, not British ones.”
Matt – should he then, as someone who isn’t paying UK taxes, have a say on how UK taxes are spent?
Imagine if someone who lived in France was advocating an increase in spending, would you be happy with that?!
Matthew Sinclair
Shamik,
He’s an unpaid, non-exec Director. And, people who don’t live here advocate for various positions and causes all the time. Joe Stiglitz was on one of the letters this morning and you guys cite Paul Krugman all the time…
Matt
Rupert Read
Your latest comment has brightened my afternoon, Matthew – thanks! There’s nothing like a good chortle to keep one’s health good and spirits up. . . The point you seem to have missed is that Joe Stiglitz doesn’t fund an organisation called The [UK] Taxpayers’ Alliance!