Saturday, December 19, 2009

Junk in the Air and Junk on the Air

Readers of this blog busted David Kestenbaum (pictured above) for airing crap about climate change during his coverage of the UN Copenhagen Conference. As "doggydaddy" writes,
"This [link to the Tuesday morning story] may help explain my antipathy towards Kestenbaum this AM. Of all the stories one could file from Copenhagen, he gives credence to hack skeptic Lomborg who has been thoroughly discredited. [link to a point by point refutation of Lomborg's "science."] What a doofus and a tool is the Kestenbum."
Given that Bjorn Lomborg has been debunked, refuted and exposed as having only one goal - pushing for "the pressing need to do nothing about global warming" - one can only conclude that Kestenbaum shares this mission. This would explain his 2008 adoring [and shameless] piece on a teen global warming skeptic.

So how does a groovin', Yale-Harvard hipster like Kestenbaum top a scoop interview with Bjorn Lomborg? He does it by using his Thursday morning slot to sneer at and ridicule the attendees at the conference for contributing to carbon pollution by using air travel to get to the conference - how cutting edge! As "Woody" wrote in the comments,
"I nearly went inside the radio this AM, when I heard that lame-ass report on the "carbon footprint" required to host the Climate Summit, and the ever-so-condescending snarkiness of the lazy, smirking, sold-out creeps and asswipes reporting it.

Just once, I'd like to hear some proper context, like what is the size of the carbon footprint of just one day's operations by the USer military in Central Asia."
Ah yes, the footprint of the US military in Central Asia, that would be interesting. In fact would have been great fun to hear Bjorn Lomborg asked about the bloated US military spending that could be used for those humanitarian projects that he supposedly cares so much about.

7 comments:

dogthedog said...

Stephen Schneider is one of the scientists who has debunked Lomborg. His web site is worth a look.

doggystyle said...

So how is it that anybody with a google can easily find that Lomborg is a fraud, but Kestenbaum, who is paid handsomely to be a reporter on such issues, can't? Apparently Kestenbaum is paid to report what his puppetmasters dictate. It's that obvious. Why is subterfuge not the subject of other news reporting? Because they're all in bed together, it seems.

Anonymous said...

I think Kestenbaum is reporting what he himself wants to report on global warming and the fact that Vivian Schiller and other NPR management are in agreement just makes it easy for him to do so.

He clearly does not believe that AGW is real or if he does, that it is serious.

On economic matters, kestenbaum has shown himself to be a clueless hack.

On matters like climate change, he has shown himself to be an ideological (Libertarian) hack.

he should have stuck with physics, something he actually knows something about.

Anonymous said...

For mainstream journalists Lomborg is to environmental issues what Lieberman is to health care.

They view Lomborg as a "centrist" and since their entire news model is based on "balance' of right against left, anything in the center is perceived as optimal.

Not only do they see Lomborg as the center, the fact that he was once a member of greenpeace gives him credibility in their eyes.

GRUMPY DEMO said...

Here's my favorite comment under the story:

Richard Bady (rik5) wrote:

"I didn't hear any mention of how much CO2 was produced due to reporters covering distractions instead of real issues."

SNAP!

GRUMPY DEMO said...

I think it reflects a new editorial policy. NPR has decided, instead of just repeating FOX News talking points, to just plagiarizer FOX News ad hominem attack pieces.

Stupid premise, stupid reporting, stupid, pathetic, insulting to NPR listeners.

Why is Planet (worship the)Money reporting on an environmental story? I guess NPR is expanding the Planet Money model, having economic illiterates report on the economy, now to have scientific illiterates report on climate change.

Anonymous said...

The pathetic thing is that Kestenbaum is not a scientific illiterate.

He was educated as a scientist at Yale and Harvard, no less.

The real problem is that Kestenbaum's (libertarian) ideology is trumping the science.

I don't know what fraction of the total AGW deniers they comprise, but I'd have to say that a significant fraction of those are Libertarians.

By the way, Kestenbaum's ideology also colors his economic reports.

Like Fox, NPR's claim to present "balanced" reporting is basically a joke. If anything, I'd say NPR is just as ideologically motived as Fox.

It's just a different ideology.