Tuesday
Jan052010
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Times withdraws green adverts
New Scientist reports that The Times has withdrawn adverts claiming that climate change had caused the opening of the North-east passage. They also cancelled a second advert that claimed that the world's oceans would be denuded of fish by 2048.
The mainstream media may well be the first climate change casualties.
Update on Jan 6, 2010 by
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill
Andrew Orlowski in the comments points out that it was him that broke this story. The link to his original piece is here.
Reader Comments (10)
Now is the time to go after as much AGW claptrap as possible.
I think it was The Register's Andrew Orlowski (coiner of the term "wiki-fiddler") who pointed out that, had the BBC, The Times and others who first ran this story actually bothered to look at Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_east_passage - they'd have known in seconds that the story was a fake. He calls the process churn-alism. The Times deserves all it gets which, as the paper is owned by Rupert Murdoch, won't be much.
However, depressingly, both sides of the AGW debate are at it. A story (which seems to have started life this morning in a moribund London freesheet) about Old Age Pensioners using charity-shop paperbacks as fuel has gone viral. It relies on an interview with "staff" in a Swansea charity shop and a few (commendably cautious) comments from fuel-poverty charities.
It has featured on WUWT, The Global Warming Policy Foundation and other sites whose editors ought to know better but seem, what with all the recent publicity, to be getting out of their depth.
Tosh like this is up there with dying polar bears only not so competently publicised.
Agree, the lamestream media lying about climate change is beginning to take hold.
Dave B. Stocking up on coal, wood and books if you can burn them in your home might be prudent.
"Experts have forecasted that the UK now only has enough gas supply for 15 days, so the country will have to depend on gas imports sooner."
"The alert provoked the cost of gas to increase by 70 per cent"
http://www.electric.co.uk/news/uk-gas-supply-dwindles-as-country-experiences-sub-zero-weather-12341571.html
Bruce,
Even in the US a nuclear plant has had to be partially shut down due to ice on the river that supplies the cooling water. I can't remember that happening at any time in recent years. And in reference to your link, is Rough pronounced as rhyming with cow, rough, toe, or two? The ough thing always gets me with English names.
Plane Stupid withdrew their cinema ad (showing polar bears falling from the skies) back in December, following a large volume of complaints. The ASA website shows this as an informally resolved case on 23rd December:
http://www.asa.org.uk/Complaints-and-ASA-action/Adjudications.aspx?date=23/12/2009#results
Still no news on the investigation into the government's drowning-puppy Bedtime Stories ad, though.
By agreeing to reword the copy, the Times escapes a full ASA investigation and censure.
The ASA made its adjudication on December 9. I picked up on it on Monday this week, on my first day back at work after three weeks off. The New Scientist blog post simply rehashes our story, without adding anything new. Although my story about the bogus ad claim made it into Private Eye, I couldn't find any other coverage of the ASA's adjudication this week. So much for professional rivalry.
The New Scientist post was probably put together by an intern, it adds no new information. It is odd to find The Register cited as the source for the date of a maritime trade route opening. Perhaps Google was unavailable to the intern.
Beg pardon, Andrew. I hadn't picked up that it was you.
"New Scientist" is a crock - always has been.
Looking at the deleted comments on their main blogs is like watching a teenager sticking his fingers in his ears and saying "La la la la - can't hear you - la la la - can't hear you".
Reading a recent NS at a friend's house...
Editorial piece whining about those naughty first-world drug companies making new drugs for naughty people in naughty first-world countries instead of curing 3rd world diseases. I did not realise before reading the article that the New Scientist magazine distributes free copies of itself to everyone in the 3rd world in their own language. /sarcoff.
Then a story about fractals. Weird that there were no maths formulas at all. Article was based around how its author felt about fractals. Then the crunch link to - er - climate thingey. The author was excited that fractals could be retro-fitted to climate models to make them even better than perfect. Post-perfect? Uber-perfect? Author seemd to think that the retro-fit process would be simple like putting on different socks rather than having all internal organs transplanted.
Best part of the mag was - er - the car adverts. Saab. Mercedes. BMW. Nice - but think of the carbon !