Washington, DC – The New York Times has issued a “climate correction” for an “error” in its April 24, 2009 (posted online April 23) high profile front page global warming article that was touted by former Vice President Al Gore during his Congressional testimony as evidence that industry was clouding the science of climate change. [ See: Gore Mouthing-Off About Make-Believe Madoffs & NYT Corrects Article Gore Cited in Congressional Testimony]
But just little more than a week after publishing the front page article, The New York Times and reporter Andrew Revkin have now admitted the article “erred” on a key point. Revkin wrote about the now defunct Global Climate Coalition and documents that suggest the group had scientists on board in the 1990's who claimed “the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted.” As Climate Depot exclusively reported, Revkin's article came under immediate fire from scientists and others who called into question the central claims and the accuracy of the story.
In a May 2, 2009 post titled “A Climate Correction”, Revkin and the New York Times wrote: “The article cited a 'backgrounder' that laid out the coalition's public stance, published in the early 1990s and distributed widely to lawmakers and journalists. However, the article failed to note a later version of the backgrounder that included language that conformed to the scientific advisory committee's conclusion. The amended version, which was brought to the attention of The Times by a reader, acknowledged the consensus that greenhouse gases could contribute to warming. What scientists disagreed about, it said, was 'the rate and magnitude of the 'enhanced greenhouse effect' (warming) that will result.'"
The New York Times also posted an “Editors' Note” on May 2 with the same correction.
In addition, the original Times article now has a May 2 “Editors' Note” and Revkin's Dot Earth Blog has a note, “describing an error in the news story.”
Australian Paleoclimate researcher Dr. Robert M. “Bob” Carter was the first to dismiss the NYT's Revkin article as “strange, silly even.”
Carter wrote to Climate Depot on April 23, 2009:
Revkin's latest article in the New York Times makes for strange reading; silly, even. For though the technical experts may have been advising (for some strange, doubtless self-interested reason) this: “even as the coalition worked to sway opinion, its own scientific and technical experts were advising that the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted”, I'll eat my hat if anyone could show that was actually the case at any time since 1990. My guess is that Revkin -- like all other promulgators of AGW (anthropogenic global warming) hysteria throughout the media and scientific communities -- is starting to really feel the weight of the evidence that shows all too clearly that dangerous AGW is a myth, and is simply thrashing around in any and every direction to try to find a way of continuing to obfuscate the issue until December. #
UK's Lord Christopher Monckton was even more outraged and accused the New York Times and Revkin of “deliberate misrepresentation” in climate article and of writing a “mendacious article.”
Monckton wrote the following to New York Times Public Editor and Readers' Representative Clark Hoyt, Esq., on April 28, 2009:
“The New York Times guidelines for staff writers on 'Journalistic Ethics' begin by stating the principles that all journalists should respect: impartiality and neutrality; integrity; and avoidance of conflicts of interest. Andrew Revkin's front-page article on Friday, 24 April, 2009, falsely alleging that a coalition of energy corporations had for many years acted like tobacco corporations, misrepresenting advice from its own scientists about the supposed threat of "global warming", offends grievously against all of these principles.”
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