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Look, if you want to try and shoot the messenger, do so but do it properly. Otherwise you just look foolish. The webpage I linked to on that site is not "polit

Look, if you want to try and shoot the messenger, do so but do it properly. Otherwise you just look foolish. The webpage I linked to on that site is not "politics". It's a copy of a paywalled Australian newspaper article discussing scientists who disagree with the supposed consensus - deeply relevant to the points at hand. If I'd been able to link to the original I would have done, and then you wouldn't be talking about Wattsupwiththat at all, but that wasn't possible so I had to link to a duplicate. If you believe that Australian newspaper is also a "politics website" that is a "source of misinformation" then justify that. Or better, stop messenger shooting and tackle the actual arguments being made by the chairman of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. Now, in your rush to condemn you've missed the point being made here, and missed it very badly indeed. So I'll spell it out again. My "case" is nothing to do with corals or reefs. I don't care about corals or reefs, to put it bluntly. I care about the state of debate and its relation to science, or lack of it. So reread and you'll see I was responding to this statement: Yet again, someone falsely ascribes views to scientists that they never had. I keep track of this stuff, and I don't know what forecasts you are talking about. That's a strong claim: that scientists are having views ascribed to them by the media that they never actually had (views of impending coral doom), and thus this discovery that the corals aren't dead after all shouldn't affect our perceived reliability of scientists. The article in the Australian clearly shows that this view is false: an authority no less than the chairman of an Australian authority devoted to the Great Barrier Reef has said explicitly that "activist scientists" were working to "misrepresent the extent and impact of coral bleaching". Clearly this is more complicated than scientists (all of them) being ascribed views they don't have by journalists.

kirrent 7y ago
> If you believe that Australian newspaper is also a "politics website" that is a "source of misinformation" then justify that. I don't want to jump in on the rest of your conversation but I saw this and thought I could chime in. The Australian is our only national broadsheet with a long history of fairly good reporting, good commentary from all sides of politics, but a definite conservative editorial slant. Unfortunately over the last few years its reporting in general and environmental reporting in particular, have veered away from good quality conservative aligned journalism towards the more typical Newscorp produce. On reef issues in particular Graham Lloyd is well known for cherry picking sources even if they have little expertise in the area or have already had their views discredited in the scientific community. https://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/episodes/muddying-the-waters-on-the-great-barrier-reef/9972936 https://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/episodes/muddying-the-wate... https://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/episodes/great-barrier-grief-missing-from-the-australian/9972734 https://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/episodes/great-barrier-gri... So to answer that statement, the Australian is definitely a source of misinformation on environmental issues and if its not a politics website, it has a strong political agenda.
throwaway5752 7y ago
First, The Australian is checking the referrer. If you google for "Activists ‘distorting’ reef data" you will be able to view the article. It should be the first or second result. Second, the link you provided is about bad media coverage, and Wattsupwiththat presented it in a biased manner. The reality is one Australian agency thought 22% of the reef died in 2016, and another thought that 35% died. The person in charge of the first agency took issue with the head of the other agency's language and some (poor) unrelated media reporting that grossly overstated the extent of the die off. He was completely correct to take issue with the poor reporting. But there is no dispute that 1/4-1/3 of the reef bleached that year. If you are interested, here is the publication from the 2nd agency, with methodology: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-04660-w https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-04660-w Notably, the scientist you are talking about, Dr. Reichelt, didn't disagree with the consensus. Quoting him, "This is a frightening enough story with the facts, you don’t need to dress them up. We don’t want to be seen as saying there is no problem out there but we do want people to understand there is a lot of the reef that is unscathed" If it's of interest to you, https://www.aims.gov.au/reef-monitoring/gbr-condition-summary-2018-2019 https://www.aims.gov.au/reef-monitoring/gbr-condition-summar... is a great resource, and will show bleaching events and recovery in the various regions of the Great Barrier Reef.

kirrent 7y ago

> If you believe that Australian newspaper is also a "politics website" that is a "source of misinformation" then justify that. I don't want to jump in on the rest of your conversation but I saw this and thought I could chime in. The Australian is our only national broadsheet with a long history of fairly good reporting, good commentary from all sides of politics, but a definite conservative editorial slant. Unfortunately over the last few years its reporting in general and environmental reporting in particular, have veered away from good quality conservative aligned journalism towards the more typical Newscorp produce. On reef issues in particular Graham Lloyd is well known for cherry picking sources even if they have little expertise in the area or have already had their views discredited in the scientific community. https://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/episodes/muddying-the-waters-on-the-great-barrier-reef/9972936 https://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/episodes/muddying-the-wate... https://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/episodes/great-barrier-grief-missing-from-the-australian/9972734 https://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/episodes/great-barrier-gri... So to answer that statement, the Australian is definitely a source of misinformation on environmental issues and if its not a politics website, it has a strong political agenda.

throwaway5752 7y ago

First, The Australian is checking the referrer. If you google for "Activists ‘distorting’ reef data" you will be able to view the article. It should be the first or second result. Second, the link you provided is about bad media coverage, and Wattsupwiththat presented it in a biased manner. The reality is one Australian agency thought 22% of the reef died in 2016, and another thought that 35% died. The person in charge of the first agency took issue with the head of the other agency's language and some (poor) unrelated media reporting that grossly overstated the extent of the die off. He was completely correct to take issue with the poor reporting. But there is no dispute that 1/4-1/3 of the reef bleached that year. If you are interested, here is the publication from the 2nd agency, with methodology: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-04660-w https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-04660-w Notably, the scientist you are talking about, Dr. Reichelt, didn't disagree with the consensus. Quoting him, "This is a frightening enough story with the facts, you don’t need to dress them up. We don’t want to be seen as saying there is no problem out there but we do want people to understand there is a lot of the reef that is unscathed" If it's of interest to you, https://www.aims.gov.au/reef-monitoring/gbr-condition-summary-2018-2019 https://www.aims.gov.au/reef-monitoring/gbr-condition-summar... is a great resource, and will show bleaching events and recovery in the various regions of the Great Barrier Reef.