Bishop Hill Reading the news backwards
Mar 13, 2007 Climate: WG2 Media It's said by many expert investors that the best way to read a set of annual accounts is backwards. This is because the bits that management don't want you to notice are tucked away right at the end. They hope that by the time you've read the three pages on pension schemes, you'll be fast asleep and will completely miss the contingent liability that's about to swallow the company.
It might well be advisable to read press reports on global warming in the same way. Here's a classic of the kind from the Associated Press on the subject of land loss on the east coast of England:
Climate change spurs coastal defense retreat yells the headline in the Courier News, reporting from Happisburgh in Norfolk. We're all doomed!! seems to be the subplot. There are lots of stories of houses falling into the sea, land no longer being protected because sea levels are going to rise, concerned villagers feeling cheated. It's all because of global warming you see! Cue interviews with European environment official, quote from Stern review and so on. Cause and effect duly insinuated into readers' heads (but no outright declaration of course)...
...and then right at the end the get out:
Happisburgh, on the East Anglia coast, always has been vulnerable, and accounts of houses, lighthouses or farmland collapsing into the sea date back to the early 19th century.
I call this dishonest, but then I'm just a heretic.
Reader Comments (2)
Look at the picture caption:
"Waves wash ashore at the edge of the village of Happisburgh, in Norfolk, England, on Jan. 24. Since 1990, nearly 25 bungalows have been lost because of falling cliffs in the area. It's a long-standing problem in the region, but Britain has decided in its new plan for coastal defenses that the area no longer is worth defending."
Look at the headline: SPURS coastal defense retreat. Makes it go faster, in other words.
This seems to be just a case of looking at something through shit colored glasses.