The Climate Propaganda Cabal, which calls itself Covering Climate Now (CCNow), is a fantastically, frighteningly, effective organization that is flooding the print and online news media with a single message: “The climate emergency is here. To preserve a livable planet, humanity must take action immediately. Failure to slash the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will make the extraordinary heat, storms, wildfires, and ice melt of 2020 routine and could ‘render a significant portion of the Earth uninhabitable’. “
Any moderately educated, well-read human being, and any human possessing even a modicum of common sense, knows that this message is inherently somehow false – but because of the constant barrage of messages repeating the meme endlessly, everywhere they look, many people have begun to think, despite their instincts and intellect, that it just might be true.
That’s how propaganda is intended to work – and work it does. Richard Alan Nelson, in his book A Chronology and Glossary of Propaganda in the United States, provides a definition of the term:
“Propaganda is neutrally defined as a systematic form of purposeful persuasion that attempts to influence the emotions, attitudes, opinions, and actions of specified target audiences for ideological, political or commercial purposes through the controlled transmission of one-sided messages (which may or may not be factual) via mass and direct media channels.”
This is the stated purpose of Covering Climate Now — see my earlier essay The Climate Propaganda Cabal .
One of the techniques CCNow is using is the intentional blurring of the lines between Opinion and hard, factual Science News. They do this through their story sharing efforts.
Today’s Example:
On 4 May 2021, Tallbloke’s Talkshop highlighted a story that appeared in PHYS.ORG. Phys.org is a unit of Science X and touts itself as “Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science”. The story posted at Phys.org is “The 1.5-degree global warming limit is not impossible—but it soon will be” by Bill Hare, Carl-Friedrich Schleussner, Joeri Rogelj and Piers Forster. The bottom line assertion of the story is this:
“The Paris Agreement was adopted by 195 countries in 2015. The inclusion of the 1.5 degrees C warming limit came after a long push by vulnerable, small-island and least developed countries for whom reaching that goal is their best chance for survival. The were backed by other climate-vulnerable nations and a coalition of high-ambition countries.
The 1.5 degrees C limit wasn’t plucked from thin air—it was informed by the best available science. Between 2013 and 2015, an extensive United Nations review process determined that limiting warming to 2 degrees C this century cannot avoid dangerous climate change.“
While almost nothing in those two paragraphs is literally true, I have no objection to the authors stating it, since they were writing their Opinion, originally published at The Conversation.
Here are the connections: Phys.org, a science news outlet, has a contributing partner, The Conversation, which is a basic “opinion page” outlet for academics, despite their pledge to “Inform public debate with knowledge-based journalism that is responsible, ethical and supported by evidence” the only qualifications “To be published by The Conversation you must be currently employed as a researcher or academic with a university or research institution.” The Conversation, as an organization, is a partner of Covering Climate Now, the dedicated climate alarm propaganda organization.
Four authors, academics, write an Opinion piece at The Conversation. At The Conversation their associations and conflicts of interest are clearly stated in the sidebar. [ I insert the disclosures below, readers in a hurry can skip the blockquote – kh ]
Disclosure statement
Bill Hare receives funding from the European Climate Foundation, Bloomberg philanthropy, Climate Works Foundation
Carl-Friedrich Schleussner receives funding from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (01LN1711A) and under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant no. 820829 (CONSTRAIN). He is affiliated with Humboldt University in Berlin and Climate Analytics.
Joeri Rogelj receives funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme. He is affiliated with the Grantham Institute – Climate Change & Environment at Imperial College London, and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. He is a Coordinating Lead Author on the IPCC 1.5°C Special Report and a Lead Author on the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report.
Piers Forster receives funding from UK funding council (UKRI) and the EU. He is a member of the UK Climate Change Committee and Lead Author of IPCC reports.
With the disclosures, knowledgeable readers can easily ascertain the biases of the authors – they are all heavily invested in the IPCC and its 1.5ºC global temperature target and its mandated solution – the total elimination of the use of fossil fuels.
This opinion article gets immediately re-posted to Phys.org as a hard Science News story, but it is posted without the Disclosure Statement from The Conversation and not labelled Opinion — this shift from Opinion to Fact facilitated by the Covering Climate Now resources sharing scheme.
Science Opinion thus becomes magically transformed into Science Fact. At least, as received and perceived by the general public.
Propaganda in its most powerful form.
# # # # #
Author’s Comment:
This is not an isolated incident, as readers who follow science news already know.
CCNow’s Statement on the Climate Emergency uses this trick in the following:
”Failure to slash the amount of carbon dioxide …. could “render a significant portion of the Earth uninhabitable,” warned a recent Scientific American article.”
The linked SciAm “article” is an OpEd piece (repeating link above) not a report of a scientific findings, not research results and definitely not science fact, written by “William J. Ripple … lead author of the World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency.” Self-referential, circular opinion being re-presented as fact.
Lector cave – Reader Beware.
Many readers might just think that this CCNow thing is just “business as usual” for the media. It is not. It is a whole new level of the intentional corruption of journalism into propagandistic media activism that disregards truth, substituting opinion, bias, worldview and politics in its place – it is a by-any-means-necessary media push to brainwash the population.
I hope to expose this anti-journalism cabal for what it is and what it is doing over the next few weeks in a series of essays.
I will be more likely to see your comments if you address them to me, “Kip…”.
Thank for reading.
# # # # #
via Watts Up With That?
May 5, 2021 by Kip Hansen
You must be logged in to post a comment.