One myth about the Washington Post: It still practices serious journalism

[bananas]

http://climateprogress.org/2010/04/27/one-myth-about-the-washington-post-it-still-practices-serious-journalism/

One myth about the Washington Post: It still practices serious journalism
No myth: Wind power HAS reduced Denmark's CO2 emissions a lot
April 27, 2010

The Washington Post has adopted many strategies to stave off its collapsing circulation. It has, for instance, gone tabloid, repeatedly publishing falsehood-filled op-eds by Sarah Palin, including one on climate science!

It also strains to print an unconventional “contrarian” analysis ever week in its “5 Myths” series, which is supposedly “a challenge to everything you think you know.” Of course, lots of what you know is true, and that means the Post has to print lots of stuff that isn’t.

In its 5 Myths about China’s economic power piece two weeks ago, “Myth” 4 was “China’s hunger for resources is sucking the world dry and making major contributions to global warming.” You may notice something about that myth — it isn’t one. China is making major contributions to global warming. One would have to categorize that as a fact. China is now actually the world’s biggest emitter, which must qualify as a “major” contribution even to the Post.

And the ‘debunking’ asserts, “unlike the United States, China has recognized that it cannot let its fossil-fuel appetite grow forever and is working hard to improve efficiency.” China, like the United States under Obama Administration, is working to improve efficiency, but right now China looks like it plans to keep building one or two coal plants a week for the foreseeable future — whereas U.S. fossil fuel consumption may well have peaked a few years ago and in any case will see little net growth from 2005 through 2020 and probably well beyond that. Indeed, but for a handful of Senators, we’d be on a path to an 80% reduction by 2050.

This Sunday, the Post published its most nonsensical piece in the series, “5 Myths about green energy.“ They farmed out the task to the right wing Manhattan Institute, which, surprise, surprise, has received $800,000 from the big-time polluters at Koch Industries in recent years, on top of money from ExxonMobil. It’s no surprise Big Oil and polluters fund right-wing disinformation. And I suppose it’s no longer a surprise that the Post reprint their misinformation as fact.

I don’t have the time to debunk the entire piece. Fortunately, Matt Wasson Director of Programs for Appalachian Voices, dismantled the first one thoroughly at HuffPost, which I excerpt below:

<snip>

Here's Matt Wasson's article:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matt-wasson/extreme-misinformation-in_b_552097.html

Matt Wasson
Director of Programs for Appalachian Voices
Posted: April 26, 2010 01:09 PM

Extreme Misinformation in the Washington Post: Actually, Wind Power has Reduced Denmark's CO2 Emissions a Lot

Readers of the Washington Post were served up some jaw-dropping whoppers yesterday about why renewable energy - and wind in particular - supposedly doesn't reduce CO2 emissions, increase our national security, or create jobs in the US. The author of the op-ed is climate change denier and long time fossil fuel cheerleader Robert Bryce. Bryce's piece was part of the Post's "5 Myths" series, which invites readers every Sunday to "challenge everything you think you know."

While challenging everything you think you know is generally a good idea, it's not a good idea to replace what you know with what Bryce thinks he knows because, as it turns out, he doesn't know much about renewable energy. Relying on bad science like the Nature Conservancy's "Energy Sprawl" study and thoroughly discredited white papers like "The Case of Denmark" from Bjorn Lomborg's Institute for Energy Studies, Bryce deftly turns logic and common sense on its head to convince his readers that burning more fossil fuels is really the best path to a green energy future.

It would make for an exceedingly long and boring post to debunk every piece of misinformation in his 1,000 word piece, so for now I'll just focus on Bryce's "Myth 1: Solar and wind power are the greenest of them all."

<snip>

[bananas]

1. My my - look at the cover of the Washington Post...

Just saw this in LBN:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8230228

The Washington Post Cannot Tell Obama from Malcolm X



Violent black radical Barack Hussein Obama X is busy learning about wind energy in Iowa, The Washington Post reports in a most unfortunate photo caption error.

http://gawker.com/5525783/the-washington-post-cannot-tell-obama-from-malcolm-x?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+gawker%2Ffull+%28Gawker%29

Error? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..............

[kristopher]

2. Is that for real?

[bananas]

3. That's the first thing that came to my mind.

Apparently it is real.
Apparently they were running a separate article about Malcolm X and used that photo.
How could that get past the editors?

[pscot]

4. They have editors?

I thought they just threw shit against the wall to see what would stick.

[depakid]

5. Pravda on the Potomac

The Post has been a laughing stock since Katherine Graham passed away. They can't even write a science article without coloring the copy with beltway right wing spin.