Another day, another fatuous ‘fact’ check from Reuters. This time the news agency accuses the Daily Sceptic of “cherry-picking” Arctic sea ice extent data to provide a “misleading” story. Being accused of “cherry picking” by an outfit that funds a course for journalists that encourages them to pick a fruit such as a mango and discuss why it isn’t as tasty as the year before due to climate change is beyond ridicule. Taking lectures on responsible journalism from a Net Zero-obsessed operation that has promoted a course speaker who has suggested “fines and imprisonments” for expressing scepticism about “well supported” science is laughable, if also a tad sinister.
One of the activists called to admonish the Daily Sceptic with a ‘straw man’ argument was Walt Meier, a research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Centre, who said: “Comparing two specific years is not an indicator for or against long-term changes”. The Daily Sceptic did not do that. Interestingly, this would appear to be the same Walt Meier whose comments on ”mind blowing” low winter levels of Antarctica sea ice last year made headlines around the world. Meier claimed at the time that it was “outside anything we have seen”. Happily, the Daily Sceptic was able to remind Meier that he had been part of a team a decade ago that cracked open the secrets of early Nimbus weather satellites and found a similar sea ice low in 1966. At the time, Meier commented that the Nimbus data show there is variability in Antarctica sea ice “that’s larger than any we have seen” since 1979.
This latest fact check was similar to the failed attempt made recently by the BBC statistical programme More or Less. In both cases, exception was taken to our reporting that on January 8th this year, Arctic sea ice extent had soared to its highest level for 21 years. This was factually correct as both the BBC and Reuters confirm. Since the article went viral on social media, the attack focused on a claim of “cherry picking”, despite the article clearly placing the statistic in the context of long-term changes in Arctic sea ice. In the third paragraph it was noted: “We must be careful not to follow alarmists down their chosen political path of cherry picking and warning of climate collapse on the basis of individual events.”
The article featured the work of Danish scientist Allan Astrup Jensen who observed that the summer Arctic ice plateaued from 1979-97, fell for 10 years and then resumed a minimal downward trend from 2007. We also noted the work of climate journalist Tony Heller who used a four-year moving average, shown below, that revealed that the Arctic sea ice extent at its minimum level in September has been stable for over a decade.
None of this material appeared in the Reuters hit-job, although the criticism of the earlier BBC fact check was made available to the authors ahead of publication. What it did of course was cherry-pick the year 1979, when Arctic sea ice was at a probable 100-year high, and draw a line straight down to the present day. It is not in dispute that Arctic sea ice is currently at a lower level than the 1979 high point, which happened to coincide with the arrival of consistent satellite data. But Reuters used the testimony of an “expert in the modelling of the sea ice”, Miguel Maqueda of Newcastle University, to state: “There is no evidence nor reason to believe that the downward trend in winter sea ice extent in the Arctic is coming to an end.”
Despite the article fairly explaining the cyclical long-term trends in Arctic sea ice, a subject ignorned in most current mainstream media for political purposes, Reuters saw fit to headline its article: ‘Climate change sceptics use misleading Arctic ice data to make case.’
That, more or less to coin a phrase, sums up the blinkered approach that keeps climate catastrophists and their mainstream messengers focused on the fear-mongering prize. There is plenty of evidence in the historical record to show that Arctic sea ice is cyclical and the recent trend points to recovery and a possible upturn. After all, you don’t need a climate model to work that one out, just look at the data. Not to point this out is, how shall we put this, ‘misleading’. Those less charitable might prefer a considerable harsher verdict.
As we have seen in past editions, Reuters is up to its neck in Green Blob attacks on independent climate journalism. So-called ‘fact checks’ from operations like Reuters are frequently used by malevolent players attempting to destroy the possibility of competitors receiving online advertising revenue. In effect they are a form of trade protection warfare.
The mango nonsense, meanwhile, is promoted in the six-month study sabbatical offered to journalists around the world by the Oxford Climate Journalism Network. Immersion in the correct political narrative surrounding climate collapse, the ludicrous idea of ‘settled’ science and the need for extreme Net Zero measures, whatever the cost, is the order of the day. The obvious aim is to insert fear mongering stories into all sections of the media. Current attendees include BBC ‘disinformation’ reporter Marco Silva. The course is run by the Reuters Institute and funded by the Thompson Reuters Foundation. Direct funding has been provided by the Laudes Foundation and the European Climate Foundation. The latter operation is heavily supported by past Extinction Rebellion paymaster Sir Christopher Hohn.
Reuters is also one of the partners of Covering Climate Now (CC Now), a billionaire-backed offshoot of the Columbia Journalism Review. This operation claims to feed over 500 media operations with free, pre-written climate catastrophising stories.
Guaranteed, no doubt, to be spared a ‘fact check’.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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If the BBC has become simply a lobbying agency for billionaires with a commercial agenda then it must be packed off to the private sector and forced to publish its sources of funding by means of an audited annual report like every other private lobbying organisation.
Well done Chris.
This is the beginning of the end of free speech ahead of the EU elections, USA election and our GE.
They do not want the people to realise that the ‘green’ policies are about communism where a rich few will pollute at will whilst the rest of us will live in poverty.
I previously posted this chart in the 26 April News Round-Up.
From the BBC ‘sounds’
The Inquiry: Is climate change impacting chocolate production?
Cocoa production has never been higher. We can assume consumption has never been higher too – or they wouldn’t grow it.
That also means prosperity has never been higher as Cocoa is a luxury item compared to finding food to survive.
“Fact Checkers”. —–But facts according to who? Something that is a “fact” to Joseph Goebbels might not be a “fact” to the Dalai Lama.———So this fact checking is really just censorship of views that run contrary to officialdoms world view on everything. Climate Change Official Science is really just a smidgeon of the truth elevated into a planetary emergency for political purposes but with no empirical evidence and all based on computer models full of assumptions and guesses. ——-But hold on a second though. In science isn’t it the case that you question everything? We do not live in a scientific dictatorship do we, where government funded data adjusters simply proclaim the truth and the rest of us are to just blindly accept that?——-Apparently yes, and that is what the “Fact Checking” is for.
As Richard Feynman apparently said: “It is better to have questions that cannot be answered than answers that cannot be questioned.”
It is the latter that is coin for the alarmists and their industrial backers.
Or “In science, scepticism is the highest calling and blind faith the one unpardonable sin”.
The arbitrary 1979 starting point when artic sea ice was at a high after a cold 2 decades. Also an appeal to Tobes to stop spouting rubbish from the idiot Peter thiel on the DS podcast. Given the energy price in the UK is 44p a kWh and 6/7p in Russia/china there is obviously massive scope to turbo charge the UK economy by scraping net zero. The productivity gained from privatisation has been undone by ivy like bureaucracy, but that can be easily undone. Tobes please think about things before quoting them as gospel when they are obvious bs.
Fact check. In my experience mangos are much tastier than they used to be.
One thing that seems to ecape the catastrophists is that if they are right, one of the consequences will be the slow movement north of the cropping zones.
This would have a major impact on the area available for arable production in vast areas of N, America (including Greenland) and Russia, and enable the introduction of more tender crops in fertile European farmland.
Similarly S. America would benefit.
The mainland of Antarctica would remain well sub-zero as would the bulk of the Arctic, even in summer.
Time to reword that old saying perhaps:
Repeat a billionaire funded lie often enough and the propagandist MSM will ensure it becomes the truth.
For such big names such as NOAA or Reuters I expect an attention to detail rooted in the Western scientific traditions. Underpinning all the climate hysteria is usually a graph showing the inexorable rise in atmospheric CO2. While CO2 is still a trace gas and measured in parts per million it is usually shown just in relation to itself (see graph 1. below). In graph 2 below a zero baseline has been added to give a better relationship. In graph 3 CO2 is shown in the context of a 1,000,000 particles. Graph 3 is actually what we are being made to hyperventilate about. The fact that none of the prestigious organisations that have been built on Western scientific traditions ever show CO2 in it’s true context betrays the standard of thinking within these organisations as worse than unscrupulous 2nd hand car salesmen. Apologies to 2nd had car salesmen because you can at least get a car that will work.
Fact – I didn’t like mangos last year
Fact – I can’t tell if they’re tastier ir not this year, but I still don’t like them
Fact – my 5 month old grandson loves mango
Fact – he wasn’t here last year yo do the taste test
Fact – 50% of my sample don’t agree with the taste loss hypothesis
lies, damn lies and statistics!
The primary meaning of ‘check’ is to stop, or limit – often with force.
The media swine, on behalf of their Government handlers, is keen to stop facts getting into the public domaine, which of course expose the lies of said Governments and their partners in crime.