How to be dishonest without actually lying

A lesson from the mainstream media in dishonesty
By Mark Pfister

The Independent recently published an article exclaiming, “Exclusive: No ice at the North Pole"! The subtitle was "Polar scientists reveal dramatic new evidence of climate change".

Upon first glance this sounds pretty crazy; no ice at the North Pole?! Global warming (climate change) is getting serious now; maybe those people denying man-made global warming (climate change) really are as bad as Ahmadinejad and all those crazy holocaust deniers.

Before we even get into the article let’s consider one thing. As a result of the many problems and doubts with regard to the theory of global warming, many environmentalists, led by The Great Goracle, who have been attempting to scare everyone into going back to an 18^th century life style that mirrors an Amish community, while they continue to live in mansions that could house a small tribe and fly across the globe to meet about the urgency of aforementioned looming disaster, have (in)conveniently changed the standards for what constitutes their environmental crisis. Rather than a simple warming of the globe, the boundaries for their enviro-crisis have been expanded to include “climate change”, a term so large as to be nearly meaningless. Every day, month, year, decade, century, etc the climate changes. A truly alarming occurrence would be the climate ceasing to change – if we had no more cooling and warming and rain and drought and variation in our climate; I think this would be quite a bit more “worrying” than climate change. With their new all inclusive guidelines for the encroaching enviro-crisis, the Goracle and his minions can claim pretty much anything as proof for their theory. Whether it’s heat, drought, flood, or freeze, it’s all climate change and proof that, what, the climate is changing? As if there were never heat waves and droughts and floods and freezes before George Bush caused global warming …er, climate change, because he wouldn’t sign the Kyoto treaty, so he could flood the black parts of Louisiana to kill democrats so it will be easier for him to become dictator of the North American Union. But I digress…

This exclusive report on melting ice announces in its first paragraph, "It seems unthinkable, but for the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year." The first thing that sprang to mind when reading this was, how exactly did the author know this? He doesn't reference any source for this claim or give any explanation for how he obtained this piece of historical information. He simply states it as if he's been around since the beginning of "human history" to makes sure that there has always been ice up there, like some sort of arctic life guard watching the world’s largest ice skating rink for a few millennia. If he's been around that long I’d very much like have lunch and ask him a few burning questions about some other events in human history that I think would be much more fascinating than whether or not there has always been frozen water at the North Pole. Perhaps there has always been ice at the North Pole, but if this is the case it would be nice to have a tid-bit of support for this rather fundamental claim.

Aside from all of this conjecture about whether or not the north pole has always been the world’s largest hockey rink, there is actually still ice there right now, but it's only "on course to disappear" and this course, of course, proves, Climate Change…err wait, now we’re back to global warming. I do wish these Goracalites would make up their mind. In any event, leading off the second paragraph, Mr. Conner (Science Editor!) states that, “The disappearance of the Arctic sea ice…would be one of the most dramatic – and worrying – examples of the impact of global warming on the planet”. I’m wondering, if this "course" reverses itself, would that prove that global warming/climate change has ceased and we have no need for further “worry”? Somehow I doubt it. So, on planet Gore, if the ice melts it’s global warming/climate change and if the ice doesn’t melt, well we’re still in global warming/climate change. How (in)convenient.

I know we’ve only looked at the first two paragraphs, but I have better things to do than analyze all 15, so let’s look at one more amusing part of this thing. Here we arrive at a way someone can be dishonest without actually lying. Its called deception – making something appear other than it actually is. As Socrates once said in the republic “…to conceive of things as they are is to posses the truth”. By a slight of hand, our friendly neighborhood author creates the illusion of knowledge, which can be very dangerous, by trying to fool the reader into thinking that his belief is the way in which things actually are. He takes quotes from scientists and “experts” and inserts his own commentary and interpretation in between to make it appear as though it’s the scientists and experts that are connecting the melting ice with globalclimatechangewarming, rather than it just being the writer’s own opinion. Notice how, in paragraph two, Mr. Steve Conner (Science Editor!) gives his own opinion, that the melting ice is due to global warming and in the very next sentence he quotes a scientist, yet the scientist says nothing about global warming. Steve wants his readers to associate his own opinion with the more authoritative, empirical observations of the scientists he quotes.

We naturally regard true authority as being based on insight. In other words, someone with more insight or understanding of a given subject, such as a scientist or doctor, or mechanic, would be considered more authoritative than you, me, Joe Blow journalist or Steve the Science Editor. After all, if we need surgery we’re going to go to a surgeon rather than our best friend or the health editor of the local newspaper. What people such as our Science Editor do is create the impression that their own opinion is actually the more authoritative opinion of persons who may have true insight, thus convincing the uncritical reader that the opinion of a non-authority is actually authoritative and we should actually care about it.

Now, if you to take the time to read Mr. Steve Conner’s (Science Editor!) integrity-less blatherings you’ll notice something very interesting; his view that the melting ice is a “worrying example of the impact of global warming” are no where, not once or even slightly supported by any of the scientist or “experts” that he quotes.

Let’s look at two things:

1. Whether or not the writer’s position support by the quotes that he uses

and

2. How he surrounds his own claims about global warming with quotes that ironically/dishonestly don’t support his claims at all.

Mr. Steve Conner’s (Sciences Editor!) Position: “The disappearance of the Arctic sea ice…would be one of the most dramatic – and worrying – examples of the impact of global warming on the planet.”

• The disappearance of the Arctic sea ice, making it possible to reach the Pole sailing in a boat through open water, would be one of the most dramatic – and worrying – examples of the impact of global warming on the planet. Scientists say the ice at 90 degrees north may well have melted away by the summer.

• "From the viewpoint of science, the North Pole is just another point on the globe, but symbolically it is hugely important. There is supposed to be ice at the North Pole, not open water," said Mark Serreze of the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado.

• Seasoned polar scientists believe the chances of a totally ice free North Pole this summer are greater than 50:50 because the normally thick ice formed over many years at the Pole has been blown away and replaced by huge swathes of thinner ice formed over a single year.

• "The issue is that, for the first time that I am aware of, the North Pole is covered with extensive first-year ice – ice that formed last autumn and winter. I'd say it's even-odds whether the North Pole melts out," said Dr Serreze.

• Scientists predict that at least 70 per cent of this single-year ice – and perhaps all of it – will melt completely this summer, Dr Serreze said.

• "Indeed, for the Arctic as a whole, the melt season started with even more thin ice than in 2007, hence concerns that we may even beat last year's sea-ice minimum. We'll see what happens, a great deal depends on the weather patterns in July and August," he said.

• Ron Lindsay, a polar scientist at the University of Washington in Seattle, agreed that much now depends on what happens to the Arctic weather in terms of wind patterns and hours of sunshine. "There's a good chance that it will all melt away at the North Pole, it's certainly feasible, but it's not guaranteed," Dr Lindsay said.

• The Polar Regions are experiencing the most dramatic increase in average temperatures due to global warming and scientists fear that as more sea ice is lost, the darker, open ocean will absorb more heat and raise local temperatures even further. Professor Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University, who was one of the first civilian scientists to sail underneath the Arctic sea ice in a Royal Navy submarine, said that the conditions are ripe for an unprecedented melting of the ice at the North Pole.

• "Last year we saw huge areas of the ocean open up, which has never been experienced before. People are expecting this to continue this year and it is likely to extend over the North Pole. It is quite likely that the North Pole will be exposed this summer – it's not happened before," Professor Wadhams said.

• Scientists at the Nasa Goddard Space Flight Centre said that the North Water 'polynya' – an expanse of open water surrounded on all sides by ice – that normally forms near Alaska and Banks Island off the Canadian coast, is much larger than normal.

• Inuit natives living near Baffin Bay between Canada and Greenland are also reporting that the sea ice there is starting to break up much earlier than normal and that they have seen wide cracks appearing in the ice where it normally remains stable.

To be fair, one might ask, if the arctic ice is melting, something must be warming it up, so why shouldn’t we assume that its climatewarmingglobalchange? Because there’s a better explanation that also explains how the arctic ice at the top half of the globe is melting while the Antarctic ice at the bottom half of the globe is getting thicker. One would think that if the culprit were warmingclimateglobalchange, the ice at both poles of the globe would melt, not just half the globe.

How about volcanoes? “PARIS (AFP) - Recent massive volcanoes have risen from the ocean floor deep under the Arctic ice cap, spewing plumes of fragmented magma into the sea, scientists who filmed the aftermath reported Wednesday.

The eruptions -- as big as the one that buried Pompei -- took place in 1999 along the Gakkel Ridge, an underwater mountain chain snaking 1,800 kilometres (1,100 miles) from the northern tip of Greenland to Siberia.”

Wow, so volcanoes can melt ice?! Quick somebody tell the great Goracle and Mr. Steve Conner (Science Editor!). This is big news!