The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers

Thomas Jefferson

What is the purpose of journalism?

The cynic might answer that it is to sell newspapers, but in their book, The Elements of Journalism, Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel offer a better answer. Journalism, they say, “is not defined by technology, nor by journalists or the techniques they employ.” Rather, “the principles and purpose of journalism are defined by something more basic: the function news plays in the lives of people.” The bottom line is that journalism exists to provide citizens with the information they need to make the best possible decisions. And, as with all aspects of decision-making, the veracity, impartiality and pertinence of the information provided is critical to the quality of the decisions made.

I’m sure that back in 1821, when the current-day Guardian first appeared in the guise of The Manchester Guardian, its founding fathers had such high ideals in mind. The clue is in the name, since ‘Guardian’ suggests a benevolent intent. And nobody could deny it is a newspaper that has established for itself a strong ideological image. Indeed, the term ‘Guardian reader’ has become synonymous with the stereotype of the liberal, left-wing and politically correct middle-class. The Guardian exists to inform opinion, but does so from a very particular ideological standpoint. And there is nothing wrong with that, provided that the imperatives of veracity, impartiality and pertinence are met.

To expand upon this point, it is useful for me to first list the elements of journalism that were identified by Kovach and Rosenstiel:

  • Journalism’s first obligation is to the truth.
  • Its first loyalty is to citizens.
  • Its essence is a discipline of verification.
  • Its practitioners must maintain an independence from those they cover.
  • It must serve as an independent monitor of power.
  • It must provide a forum for public criticism and compromise.
  • It must strive to make the significant interesting and relevant.
  • It must keep the news comprehensive and proportional.
  • Its practitioners must be allowed to exercise their personal conscience.
  • Citizens, too, have rights and responsibilities when it comes to the news.

So, on the evidence of the deluge of articles currently appearing in the Guardian on the subject of climate change, and their increasingly dogmatic and hysterical tone, how is the Guardian currently standing up when measured against the essential elements of journalism? To answer that question I would like to concentrate upon three recent articles, since I believe they are representative of current standards.

The people must change

My first example is an article written by Christy Lefteri, published on Mon 14 August 2023 under the title: ‘Even in Greek towns razed by wildfires, people don’t blame the climate crisis. That must change’.

The phrase ‘the climate crisis’, used in preference to ‘climate change’, is in line with the Guardian’s adoption of a new style guide that is purported to be more scientifically accurate. However, ‘crisis’ is not a scientific term. So this is not an obligation to a scientific truth but an obligation to an editorial position. That position is made very clear in the article’s opening statement:

Many see climate breakdown as a problem of the future, but it’s here now. To move forward, we must understand our part in it.

Once again, ‘climate breakdown’ is not a scientific term but one that sets a mood favoured by the editorial board. And as for the ‘here and now’ message, the IPCC has been keen to promote such a perception ever since it outlined its strategy for the ‘social amplification of risk’ in AR5, WG3, Chapter 2. So it appears, on this very important point, that the Guardian, whilst no doubt believing itself ‘loyal to the citizens’, is actually being loyal to the IPCC (where the IPCC’s loyalties lie is quite another question). As for what has happened to the Guardian’s ‘discipline of verification’, that would have to be anyone’s guess. Has anyone at the Guardian even thought to read AR5, WG3, Chapter 2 to see what the IPCC has been up to? Did anyone on the newspaper’s staff remember their obligation to ‘serve as an independent monitor of power’ before so eagerly taking up the IPCC narrative? Big Oil isn’t the only power that needs to be challenged.

However, although the Guardian’s standard editorial position troubles me, there is something peculiar to the Lefteri article that I find unusually distasteful; it’s a chemistry that certainly doesn’t feature in The Elements of Journalism. The article starts:

“During the summer of 2021, I flew to Greece to learn more about the wildfires there. I wanted to hear people’s stories, to understand what it meant to be displaced by environmental disaster…and I was three months pregnant. Feeling Evie growing inside me made me wonder what kind of world she would live in – and made me all the more determined to learn as much as I could about what people had experienced.”

So we are led to believe here that Christy is just acting like a good journalist and a responsible mother should, keen to learn more from the locals and to give them a voice on the world stage. However, reading between the lines, her true mission was to spread the truth as only a middle-class, London-born, Guardian reader and wannabe psychotherapist could possibly understand it. The locals needed to know where their ire should be directed – at the oil companies. Unfortunately, it seemed they were having none of it:

“What surprised me, however, was that any mention of the bigger issue, of the climate crisis and global heating, was shut down immediately and completely. It was made clear to me that this subject was unacceptable. Survivors felt that these issues had nothing to do with what they had suffered, and that the people actually accountable needed to pay.”

So she came back home and wrote an article lambasting those poor, long-suffering survivors for not getting on board with the liberal, left-wing worldview promoted by the Guardian. The title said it all: ‘That must change’. Having one’s opinions informed by direct experience of a catastrophe must change. Seeing wildfires in terms of a complex set of issues involving human acts and omissions that go far beyond the burning of fossil fuel must change. Worrying about a chronic and worsening epidemic of arsonists must change. Complaining about years of neglect regarding forest management must change.

Try as I may, I cannot reconcile such arrogance, ignorance and contempt for local opinion with any obligation to the truth or a loyalty to citizenry. As for veracity, impartiality and pertinence, the article deliberately rejects the veracity and partiality of first-hand accounts and is nothing if not impertinent. The Elements of Journalism calls for independence of thought, but also warns that:

In our independence, however, journalists must avoid straying into arrogance, elitism, isolation or nihilism.

I am sad to say that, when it comes to reporting upon climate change, the Guardian seems to stray into arrogance and elitism on a daily basis.

How facts don’t matter when climate justice is at stake

For my second example, we stay with extreme weather but cross the world to Pakistan to see how the Guardian reported upon the devastation caused by the 2022 flooding. The article I have chosen is actually an opinion piece written on Mon 5 Sep 2022 by a former member of the Senate of Pakistan, Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar. It goes by the title, ‘Rich countries caused Pakistan’s catastrophic flooding. Their response? Inertia and apathy’.

It is not surprising that a Pakistani politician should paint such a black and white picture of climate injustice, and it is equally unsurprising, given its ideological leanings, that the Guardian should allow him to make his case without challenge. However, there comes a point when one would hope that the required elements of journalism would intervene. And that point must surely have arrived when Kohkar was allowed to repeat the easily refutable claim that:

 One-third of Pakistan is now underwater.

The true figure was 9%. Even so, it may seem immaterial for me to draw attention to this gross exaggeration, given that ‘more than 1,700 people perished in the disaster. But these details do drive the narrative, so their accuracy matters. According to Kovach and Rosenstiel:

Even in a world of expanding voices, “getting it right” is the foundation upon which everything else is built – context, interpretation, comment, criticism, analysis and debate.

However, perhaps the more serious misdirection isn’t as a result of what the article says but what it fails to say.

According, to Khokhar:

We’re now living through a crisis that wasn’t of our making.

And to illustrate that point he makes a great deal of the impact that climate change is having on what he refers to as the ‘third pole’, the mountainous region that stretches from Myanmar to Afghanistan. He goes on to explain:

“Little grows at such high altitude. But the third pole functions as a water reserve whose 10 major rivers flow downstream from these mountains and sustain more than 1.5 billion people. When you understand this, you start to see the mountains, valleys, and continuously flowing streams and rivers in a different light.”

Yes, but what he fails to mention is the role played by the forested foothills and how they are vital in moderating any flooding that may occur in the lower plains as a result of the ‘flowing streams and rivers’. It is these forests that act as the watershed and it is these forests that have been subjected to massive deforestation over the last 30 years. This environmental catastrophe occurred under the watchful but impotent gaze of the Pakistani government and it was a highly significant contributor to the devastation caused in 2022. As reported here:

“Deforestation played a tremendous role in aggravating the floods,” said Ghulam Akbar, director of the Pakistan Wetlands Program, an environment protection group funded by the United Nations and other international organizations. “Had there been good forests, as we used to have 25 years back, the impact of flooding would have been much less.”

This is not a detail that Khokhar wishes to draw to anyone’s attention and it isn’t one that the Guardian sees fit to introduce at any point. There seems to be one narrative played out on the world stage of politics, and another that reflects the reality on the ground. Whilst the Guardian seems to have little regard for local opinion when it contradicts its own understanding, other news outlets seem less dismissive:

“Our irrigation departments are not in touch with locals, our environmental protection agencies are not in touch with locals, and the Balochistan disaster management authority is currently the most useless institution in the country. And while climate change is important in water policy and government discourse, I think the federal and provincial governments place a lot of blame on climate change and use it as a scapegoat for their own incompetence.”

To be fit for purpose, a newspaper ‘must serve as an independent monitor of power’. Clearly, this article fails to provide any independent challenge. It allows a politician to press his case for reparation without attempting to test the strength of his argument. The Guardian colludes on this occasion because Khokhar is professing a climate injustice that the Guardian itself believes in. However, in so doing, the Guardian also betrays its obligation to truth and denies a voice to the citizens to which its primary loyalty should lie.

Forums for debate

For my final example I leave extreme weather to see how the Guardian has reported upon the thorny subject of online climate change ‘misinformation’. Having just demonstrated how the Guardian is no stranger to such artifice, you may find the following somewhat ironic.

The article concerned was written by Oliver Milman on Fri 2 Dec 2022, and is titled, ‘#ClimateScam: denialism claims flooding Twitter have scientists worried’. It leads with the message that:

Many researchers are fleeing the platform, unnerved by the surge in climate misinformation since Musk’s chaotic takeover.

Yes, according to Oliver, scientists are abandoning in droves the platform formerly known as Twitter, due to Elon Musk’s takeover and his insistence that the platform should be dedicated to free speech. Apparently, the subsequent relaxation of moderation has had a profound and disturbing effect:

Scientists and advocates have told the Guardian they have become unnerved by a recent resurgence of debunked climate change denialist talking points and memes on Twitter, with the term #ClimateScam now regularly the first result that appears when “climate” is searched on the site.

To evidence the claim, Oliver calls upon the testimony of that paragon of trustworthiness, Michael Mann:

Michael Mann, a prominent climate scientist at University of Pennsylvania, said he has no immediate plans to depart Twitter but he’s noticed that climate disinformation has “become a bit more on the nose, with climate deniers who had been deactivated making a reappearance, and climate denial getting somewhat more traction”

And if that were not enough to settle the issue, Jennie King of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue was summoned to the stand:

King said there was a “renewed energy” coursing through the effort to spread baseless claims about the climate crisis on Twitter, particularly by high-profile accounts that fold the issue into other major clashes, such as over abortion or LGBTQ+ rights.

Claims of a resurgence may be true, but what about the headline regarding #ClimateScam? Remember that scientists were ‘unnerved’ that it was regularly the first result that appears when ‘climate’ is searched for. That surely is the smoking gun that tells you that, on Elon’s watch, climate denial has taken over Twitter. Well, no, not actually. According to Jennie King:

There’s no evidence there are more posts with ‘climate scam’ than ‘climate emergency’ or other terms, or that they are getting more engagement, so it’s a bit perplexing why it’s the top search term, we are scratching our heads at it.

Despite the headline, it turns out that the problem is not one of a new era of dominance caused by Elon letting the hordes of climate deniers back online, it is a problem with the algorithm that promotes search items, and the lack of transparency for that algorithm.

Once again, upon reading the report in full, I come away with a distinct impression that the Guardian had attempted to misdirect me. And this misdirection is important because it speaks to the narrative of a peril within, a peril taking the form of misinformation:

While false claims about the climate crisis have been deployed for decades by the fossil fuel industry and various conservative figures, there is some evidence there has been a rise in polarization over climate on social media over the past two years.

And what might those false claims be?

..claims such as that people favoring climate action are somehow hypocrites or that reducing emissions is pointless or expensive…

There is indeed a debate to be had over such issues. And, as pointed out in The Elements of Journalism, newspapers ‘must provide a forum for public criticism and compromise’. How the Guardian thinks it is providing such a vital service by demonising one side of the debate and portraying it as if it were an infection driving away all the good folk from social media is something I need explaining to me. It could be argued that the posited online resurgence of views, abhorred by Guardian readers, may be because platforms like Twitter succeed in providing the required forum, whereas newspapers such as the Guardian signally fail to do so. In this very important respect, the Guardian is most certainly not fit for purpose.

Trust me, I’m a journalist

Back in 2020, the Guardian was boasting that a survey conducted by Ofcom found it to be ‘the most trusted by its readers among UK newspapers’. Such results are very important because they indicate the extent to which a public is prepared to use a newspaper for its primary purpose – to inform its decision-making. However, trusted is not the same as trustworthy, and in that reality gap can be found the seeds of misfortune. As Kovach and Rosenstiel said, ‘getting it right is the foundation upon which everything else is built’, and far too often the Guardian can be found getting it wrong – often tendentiously so. To add to this, it is often apparent that, as a newspaper, it is too loyal to its ideology, to the detriment of failing to encourage open debate on matters of public interest. Its tone can be shrill and dismissive, to the extent that it exudes arrogance and condescension.

The fact that the Guardian is considered a newspaper of record merely accentuates how important it is that it should adhere to the elements of journalism outlined by Kovach and Rosenstiel. Unless it fulfils its obligation to the truth, treats its loyalty to the citizens above all others, maintains a discipline of verification, serves as an independent monitor of power, and provides a forum for public criticism and compromise, it cannot lay claim to being fit for purpose. When it comes to climate change and a proposed accelerated transition to Net Zero, the public are faced with decisions carrying enormous importance. Perhaps more than at any point in recent history the public needs access to reliable information. The internet won’t always provide that, but that doesn’t mean that the Guardian does.

49 Comments

  1. John,

    Great analysis. Will there be a sequel? “What has happened to the BBC? And is it still fit for purpose?”

    Liked by 2 people

  2. Mark,

    I could write a sequel to cover the BBC, but I suspect it might be a bit samey 🙂

    Also, I have concentrated upon what I thought were the most important elements of journalism, but the are others for which useful observations could have been made.

    Liked by 1 person

  3. I read the Guardian six days a week, every week and, in the past used also to read the Observer and I have no regrets. Stories about climate I skim read (on the basis that you need to know what the other side believes/thinks). Sometimes I laugh, but mostly I shrug. After a time you become inoculated against the climate porn.
    Why do I continue? Well the Guardian is left leaning, as am I, and it sports IMHO some of the more talented reporters who can produce truly outstanding and unique stories. But to be truthful, we still take it because “she who must be listened to” favours the crosswords.

    Like

  5. Alan,

    Yes indeed!! Essential at the breakfast table — quite often still working on the crossword from Monday, or Tuesday, but actually it’s Friday! The Lady’s requirements must be respected….

    But then I read the Torygraph at the same time, so one must be fair. Actually I’m much sadder about the way the FT has gone over to being so incredibly woke and relentless in pushing climate change.

    Like

  7. To be fair to the BBC (🤣), as the Graun’s largest (paper) customer, the BBC probably sources much of its ready-made misinformation from it.

    Liked by 1 person

  8. “However, trusted is not the same as trustworthy, and in that reality gap can be found the seeds of misfortune.”

    Indeed. Given how long the Guardian has been full-on preaching the catastrophe narrative, there can surely be few if any readers left who don’t ascribe to the secular religion of catastrophism (excluding a few highly dedicated crossworders). Which means that the more, and more ardently, the paper preaches, the more will their audience of adherents trust them, as a congregation trusted its vicar back in the day.

    Liked by 2 people

  9. Thank you John.

    Like many readers, I was a Guardian reader above all other newspapers. Its shameless lies about climate drove me away from the rest of it. Michael Crichton:

    Media carries with it a credibility that is totally undeserved. You have all experienced this, in what I call the Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. (I refer to it by this name because I once discussed it with Murray Gell-Mann, and by dropping a famous name I imply greater importance to myself, and to the effect, than it would otherwise have.)

    Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them.

    In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

    That is the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. I’d point out it does not operate in other arenas of life. In ordinary life, if somebody consistently exaggerates or lies to you, you soon discount everything they say. In court, there is the legal doctrine of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, which means untruthful in one part, untruthful in all. But when it comes to the media, we believe against evidence that it is probably worth our time to read other parts of the paper. When, in fact, it almost certainly isn’t. The only possible explanation for our behavior is amnesia.

    Liked by 4 people

  10. Andy, indeed. In the age of the internet, news organizations decided their business model was deciding your audience (congregation) and telling them what they want to hear (in large part already shaped by your slant). AFAIK only MSNBC openly admits their mission is “perspective management.”

    Liked by 2 people

  11. The American Press Institute have written a very good synopsis of The Elements of Journalism. In fact, it was the main source used in writing this article. I had hoped to include a hyperlink in the article but when I tested the link it returned ‘Error 404’. The relevant link is:

    The elements of journalism

    Hopefully, readers will be able to access the material by visiting the above web page.

    Liked by 1 person

  12. The Guardian should be renamed The Gatekeeper, as that is what it does: protect the official government narrative on subjects like Covid and climate by labelling those who rationally question that narrative as conspiracy theorists, by pumping out misinformation and disinformation daily in support of said narrative and even by organising campaigns attempting to get inconvenient published scientific articles retracted.

    Liked by 4 people

  13. Jaime,

    I am reminded of a quote from journalist Alexander Cockburn, which I like to repeat on these occasions:

    “The First Law of Journalism: to confirm existing prejudice, rather than contradict it.”

    Yes, ‘Guardian’ implies benevolence, but benevolence to whom?

    Liked by 2 people

  14. Jaime,

    An interesting quote from that Guardian article:

    “Three out of 10 people thought the “Great Reset” initiative announced by the World Economic Forum in 2020 was a conspiracy to impose a totalitarian world government.”

    Well, I suppose it depends upon what is meant by totalitarian government. If Net Zero is anything to go by, a ‘Great Reset’ may not be a conspiracy to achieve totalitarian government, but it is difficult to see how it could be achieved without one. For example, I don’t see how the current state of democracy in the UK is allowing any opposition to it.

    Liked by 2 people

  15. Apropos truth to data (and ‘Matter,’ )

    Primo Levi poses this question to his friend Sandro: ( Chapter on Iron.)

    “And finally, and fundamentally, an honest and open boy, did he not smell the stench of Fascist truths which tainted the sky? Did he not perceive it as an ignominy that a thinking man should be asked to believe without thinking? Was he not filled with disgust at all the dogmas, all the unproved affirmations, all the imperatives? He did feel it; so then, how could he not feel a new dignity and majesty in our study, how could he ignore the fact that the chemistry and physics on which we fed, besides being in themselves nourishments vital in themselves, were the antidote to Fascism which he and I were seeking, because they were clear and distinct and verifiable at every step, and not a tissue of lies and emptiness, like the radio and newspapers?”

    Liked by 3 people

  18. Thanks for the book reference Beth. I’m not very well read, I must admit, but I will definitely make the effort to read this. Ironically, the Guardian also recommends it, questioning whether it is in fact a science book at all and whether it ranks as Levi’s greatest work, but then concluding that it is the ‘nearest match to the ideal science book’ you can get. But that was just a month before Climategate, when The Science of climate change was settled and irrefutable and had not the faintest whiff of fraud and corruption about it.

    https://www.theguardian.com/science/2009/oct/09/primo-levi-periodic-table

    Liked by 1 person

  20. Jit – thanks for that Michael Crichton quote.

    I found this partial quote very apt given John’s head post –

    “Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories.”

    Like

  22. John,

    No doubt the following article is tongue-in-cheek, and intended to be light-hearted, but it’s still an example of much that’s gone wrong with the Guardian:

    “As Britain drowns in filth, the Tories want more toilets
    Stewart Lee
    Kemi Badenoch wants gender-specific lavatories in new venues, but is it wise to release more excrement into our fatally compromised sewage systems?”

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/20/as-britain-drowns-in-filth-the-tories-want-more-toilets-kemi-badenoch-lavatory-tsar

    It makes a serious point:

    Already, a crumbling water infrastructure, fatally wounded by decades of criminal underinvestment by private owners, cannot cope with current sewage levels, resulting in regular discharges of untreated human muck into our seas and rivers at unprecedented levels, often hazardous to health. More than 90% of freshwater habitats in our most valued rivers are soiled by raw human excrement.

    But obsession with identity politics leads to this howler:

    Kemi Badenoch’s Tory lavatory tsar would have had to pause to consider if it is appropriate, today, to encourage the construction of yet more toilets, and thus to facilitate the release of yet more excrement into an already fatally compromised privately owned sewage system.

    Of course, the amount of excrement going down the pan is a function of the number of people excreting, not the number of toilet facilities available for them to perform said act.

    Like

  23. Mark, the trans-loving, illegal immigrant welcoming author of that excremental piece in the Guardian would, I believe, recommend the solving of the ‘sewage crisis’ by encouraging a lot more crapping on the streets (with or without the provision of poo bags) and by half starving the population via ‘the withdrawal of all fibrous foods our supermarkets’ (read, food shortage). The sane attempt to provide men and women, boys and girls, with gender specific, hygienic public toilet facilities, by this Tory administration, is of course to be ridiculed by the insanely woke hard left and condemned as basically defecating on Britain’s natural beauty spots in a fit of faux outrage, manifesting as environmental virtue-signalling cynicism.

    Like

  24. Mark,

    Stewart Lee is an award winning comedian who has been referred to as the comedian’s comedian. I suppose it’s a matter of taste, but I’ve never seen it myself. Also, I have been led to believe that toilet humour is a rather low brow genre which I would have thought was below the comedian’s comedian. And I certainly don’t think it should be used by a ‘newspaper of record’ to make a political point.

    But at least Stewart Lee has got some good publicity for his forthcoming tour.

    Like

  25. P.S. That wasn’t a dig at you, Jamie. I appreciate that your response was just a demonstration of how any genre can be returned in a counter-argument.

    Liked by 1 person

  27. John
    Stewart Lee has history with ToiletBooks
    Would be interested in how the “story” was handled by other “newspapers of record” as opposed to just singling out the Guardian.

    Like

  28. Alan.

    John’s piece is about the Guardian. I posted the story as an illustration of how far the Guardian has fallen, that’s all. I confess I knew nothing about Stewart Lee’s background, and his toilet humour isn’t to my taste, though others may find it funny. In which case I have no problem with his writing an article such as the one the Guardian has just published – freedom of speech, and all that. My point was with regard to the intellectual incoherence involved in claiming that more toilets – without more people – will lead to more sewage. It’s easy for an author to miss an obvious faux pas (as, sadly, I know only too well), but isn’t that what editors are for?

    Liked by 1 person

  29. Alan,

    As far as I can see, all newspapers of record have previously covered this important topic in an adult fashion, including the Guardian:

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/03/single-sex-toilets-to-be-compulsory-in-all-new-public-buildings

    However, I am not aware of any newspaper, other than the Guardian, that has chosen to return to this topic by giving a comedian the opportunity to publish an extended scatological skit that is actually nothing more than a childish smear (no skid mark puns intended) aimed at those holding a politically different viewpoint. I thought it was valid for Mark to draw attention to the article since it was unbecoming and not normally associated with serious journalism.

    That said, I don’t agree with Mark that an obvious error in logic contributes to the article’s failings. Stewart Lee often plays with absurd logic as part of his comic act, and I am assuming that is all he is doing here. He likes to trick his audience this way so that he can then sneer at them. I don’t like him particularly.

    Liked by 2 people

  30. John/Alan,

    In my defence, and continuing the theme, there is so much sh*t in the Guardian these days that it’s impossible to tell when an article purports to be serious and when it’s supposed to be comedy/satire.

    Like

  31. Re. ‘their increasingly dogmatic and hysterical tone’ on climate, they’ve been encroaching on funny farm territory for a while now, Monbiot leading the charge. How much more ‘increase’ have they got left?

    Liked by 1 person

  32. “Why did tourists keep coming as Rhodes and Maui burned? It’s about far more than denial
    As the world heats up, we need to confront what our urge to travel is really rooted in – and rethink it”

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/30/tourists-rhodes-maui-burned-travel

    While Rhodes burned, tourists kept flocking in. Homes were being turned to ash, thousands of holidaymakers were being evacuated, and still the visitors came. In the wake of the Hawaii wildfires, which have killed at least 115 people, the island of Maui experienced the same phenomenon.

    These images played on my mind as I set off on my own holiday abroad a week later. They niggled at me as I fumbled my way through Turkish thank-yous and waited dutifully in line to see Istanbul’s Blue Mosque….

    …As the climate crisis intensifies, the moral aspect of travel becomes even harder to defend. International travel may give us, as individuals, a sense of connection and purpose within the maelstrom of modernity. But how can we square engaging in ritualistic pilgrimage to Giza’s pyramids, or the hot air balloons of Cappadocia, with a keen awareness of just exactly what mass tourism means for the very sites we have been taught to worship?

    Tourism is responsible for 8-10% of annual global CO2 emissions. The rise of cheap flights opened up access to international travel, and yet is surely no longer sustainable….

    …This is horribly hard. I don’t want to scale back my ambitions to see the world on a whim. I want sunset epiphanies while sitting in Lycian amphitheatres; to hear the toucan’s call in Costa Rica and to inhale as much mansaf as humanly possible after finally seeing the marvels of Petra with my own eyes. In my heart of hearts, I believe that it’s how I will find myself….

    So very Guardian!

    Like

  33. I Had to Travel to…the toilet after reading that Guardian twaddle.
    “the very sites we have been taught to worship?”
    and they pay people to write this sentimental/eco guff.

    Like

  34. Mark,

    ‘The damned economy class tourists kept jumping on planes even as the arsonists burned their holiday hotspots. Not to vorry, ve haf ozzer means of stopping zem flying: Deploy ze NATS Gremlins Weapon!’

    Liked by 1 person

  36. “How Germany, France and Italy compare on net zero emission targets
    Ajit Niranjan
    European Environment Correspondent
    Politics get in the way as the EU’s three largest economies, also its biggest polluters, fall short of cleaning up their act”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/24/how-germany-france-and-italy-compare-on-net-zero-emission-targets

    I could have posted this on Sunak Blinks, given that this is the Guardian making it clear (though not explicitly, of course) that Sunak’s current position is really little different to the position in France, Germany and Italy, yet it has been met with hysterics from the Guardian and the eco-zealots. However, I put it here, thanks to the final sentence:

    The IPCC has shown that global heating is entirely down to humans.

    Er, no it hasn’t.

    Liked by 1 person

  37. Mark,

    >”Er, no it hasn’t”

    Whatever the case, you should be aware that when Friederike Otto performs her attribution studies, she uses the models to estimate how likely and extreme the events would be both with and without the measured warming. The difference is fully attributed to AGW because her understanding is that all warming can be attributed to greenhouse gas emissions. The days of worrying about other possible causations seem long gone. Climate change = Anthropogenic climate change. Systemic model uncertainties? Pah!

    Like

  39. Whenever climate hysteria raises its very noisy head I find it calming to recall two quotes from top climate scientist Richard Lindzen:-

    “The influence of mankind on climate is trivially true and numerically insignificant.”

    “To say that climate change will be catastrophic hides a cascade of value-laden assumptions that do not emerge from empirical science.”

    Panic over. That’s better.

    Regards,
    John.

    Liked by 1 person

  40. Mark, John, the Guardian probably justifies its assertion based on the AR5 attribution statement:

    “It is extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together. The best estimate of the human induced contribution to warming is similar to the observed warming over this period.”

    Judith Curry has railed against this unscientific and irrational IPPC attribution statement for years. Norman Fenton recently exposed it as an example of the Prosecutor’s Fallacy:

    https://www.thegwpf.org/publications/logical-fallacy-ipcc-report/

    Physicist Pierre Darriulat heavily criticised it in his written evidence to Parliament at the time. All to no avail. Science, logic and actual evidence don’t matter when you have a religion to promote.

    Liked by 1 person

  41. Jaime, you could well be right. But even allowing for that, it still isn’t true that “[t]he IPCC has shown that global heating is entirely down to humans.”

    Like

  42. Is it OK to make up headlines that don’t accurately reflect the content of the article:

    “Macron launches ‘ecological plan’ to end France’s use of fossil fuels by 2030”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/25/emmanuel-macron-ecological-plan-end-france-fossil-fuels-by-2030

    …It was essential, he said, that “France reduces our dependence on so-called fossil fuels, coal, petrol and gas, which we don’t produce any more but on which we depend”. The aim, he added, was to reduce this dependence from 60% to 40% by 2030….

    Which is not the same as “end France’s use of fossil fuels by 2030”.

    Like

  43. Is it okay to make up headlines that don’t accurately reflect the content of the article?

    Let me just check with the ten elements of journalism…

    They say no.

    Like

  44. An amusing use of the word “unprecedented”. A favourite term used loosely by Guardian journalists. Don’t they teach English in UK schools?

    https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/oct/24/brazil-amazon-climate-change-rock-carvings-petroglyphs

    “Human faces and other figures etched in stone up to 2,000 years ago have been revealed on Amazon riverbanks as a historic drought in the Brazilian region has brought water levels to unprecedented lows.”

    So unless the petroglyphs were carved under water the low water levels can hardly be unprecedented. Climate change involved as per usual.

    Liked by 2 people

  45. Potentilla,

    Well spotted. I too have noticed the unprecedented use and abuse of the word ‘unprecedented’ by journalists nowadays, particularly when writing about climate change. But I didn’t spot that one.

    Like

  46. A journalist who had even the slightest degree of curiosity would have highlighted the clear and fascinating evidence of a drought occurring 2000 years ago and at least raised a few questions. Instead they just unthinkingly continue to push the narrative.

    Liked by 1 person

  47. “UK weather: freezing conditions and snow to continue into the weekend”
    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/dec/01/uk-weather-snow-temperatures-fall-yellow-warning
    And what’s the conclusion at the end of this piece about freezing weather, snow and dangerous road conditions? In case anyone feels it’s cold and forgets the official narrative, the Guardian are obliged to state:
    “Meanwhile, this year has joined 2021 and 2022 as one of the hottest autumns on record in the UK, figures show.”

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  48. Potentilla,

    I’m beginning to wonder if a section of the Climate Change Act obliges UK media companies to include a statement about how it is, even (perhaps especially) when it’s freezing cold.

    And they can say what they like, autumn this year was not particularly warm, apart from a few days in September.

    Like

  49. The world is still very warm though, despite our cold snap, and it currently shows no sign of cooling down. November was as warm as October or September – three months of simmering after the world ‘boiled’ in summer 2023. It must be that weird El Nino they keep talking about . . . . . .

    Like

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