Newspapers should lead the country | JoNova - The Australian

DAVID McKnight's criticism of The Australian over climate change ("Sceptical writers skipped inconvenient truths", Inquirer, December 11) makes for a good case study of Australian universities' intellectual collapse.

Here's a University of NSW senior research fellow in journalism who contradicts himself, fails by his own reasoning, does little research, breaks at least three laws of logic, and rests his entire argument on an assumption for which he provides no evidence.

Most disturbingly - like a crack through the facade of Western intellectual vigour - he asserts that the role of a national newspaper is to "give leadership".

AGU Fall Meeting: Part II | Climate Etc.

The AGU had a session on “Which of these books have you read?” which highlights popular books authored by AGU members, on topics related to global environmental change. I didn’t see any skeptical books on the list, not sure how to interpret that. I guess a number of people were invited to participate, not all accepted the invitation.
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A few words are in order about Greg Craven. Before this meeting, I had never heard of him. Apparently he is a high school teacher, I am not exactly sure why he is a member of the AGU. Apparently his book and youtube video are pretty good (I watched the youtube video). I can’t imagine how to explain his behavior at AGU. I have no idea how to explain how/why he was invited to participate in the AGU. If I had been session chair, I would have interrupted his performances at several junctures (but that is said in hindsight, I can’t imagine what was going on in the session chair’s mind during this performance).
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In a section on controversies, its difficult to leave out Mike Mann. He spoke in a session entitled “Institutional Support for Science and Scientists in an Age of Public Scrutiny.” Mann’s talk was entitled “Climate Scientists In The Public Arena: Who’s Got Our Backs?” It seems that what Mann has learned from his experiences over the past several years is how to write op-eds for the Washington Post.
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I like Chris Mooney, and have learned a lot from him about communicating science. Do I agree with everything he says? Well, I don’t read everything he says, and I am sure there is much out there that I would probably disagree with. But I think he is a good addition to the AGU Board. Yes, he is an english major, but he is a science journalist, and spent a year at MIT (last year) taking science courses related to climate, energy, biotech.