Wednesday, July 20, 2011

A climate change wiki is a good idea - but not if its climate sceptic organisers block alternative views

But perhaps the new wiki is is an attempt to put the record straight and prove his critics wrong? Is there a better way to show you are fair and balanced than an open wiki invites all help set?

But my first impression of the wiki didn 't exactly satisfied me with hope that they, the concept of fair and balanced understood. To say that wiki 's article would be subjectively putting it mildly. It is often a case of what they want rather than to leave just plain wrong. There are dozens of examples on the wiki highlight, but why not start with the entry on the "hockey stick trend" out there "is repealed Climate Change Reconsidered, a work of non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change" to \ , a group of U.S. climate skeptic Fred Singer and Craig Idso conducted:

One of the most famous pieces of "evidence" for the anthropogenic global warming brought in recent years was the "hockey stick" graph Michael Mann and his colleagues. Since the graphics played such an important role in mobilizing concern about global warming in the years since it was first released, and since the IPCC continues to rely on and defend in its latest report devote some space we are here to to explain its unusual origin and subsequent rejection of much of the scientific community.

OK, so that these people clearly don 't like a man or his hockey stick. We get it. But the beauty of wikis is that everyone gets the chance to suggest a change or perhaps even edited. (Man 's own property Climate website a climate runs wiki, the people invited, "dive in and make changes,".) This is particularly important in this case because, as Heartland himself says, in this wiki at \ goal "of any high school students to scientists in the field".

So I looked around the site for a logged no joy. The only place where users are prompted to log in, is limited to pre-registered users. And the only way to become a registered user is initially reviewed by the Heartland Institute. Suddenly this wiki didn 't feel very open.





[3] http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11676&page=R1


* Chen, C., Harries, J., Brindley, H., & Ringer, M. (2007). Spectral signatures of climate change in the Earth's infrared spectrum between 1970 and 2006. Retrieved October 13, 2009, from European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) website.




On 17 June, following a nudge, I received an update from Lakely: "We have our staff on it, but it's not a big staff. We'll give you an answer, probably next week."

The climatewiki is so dangerous because it presents itself as providing 'neutral' information about climate change, when in fact it is a highly selective and ideologically filtered presentation of climate science and politics.


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