Wall St. Journal Shows Why It Is Under Attack for Climate Science Denial by Publishing Another Dodgy Column - DeSmogBog

The Wall Street Journal has been spiced up substantially recently thanks to a series of adverts on its own pages attacking the paper’s slanted coverage on climate science.

The Washington Post has reported on the background to the advertisements and the group running them — the Partnership for Responsible Growth (PRG).

But basically, it goes like this.   PRG analysed a couple of decades of content from the Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper and found it stunningly out of step with mainstream science, while being remarkably in step with the talking points of fossil fueled climate denialist think tanks and the views of Murdoch himself.

PRG analyzed 201 WSJ editorials going back to 1997 and found not a single one of them acknowledged that fossil fuels cause climate change.  This is like writing a couple of hundred articles on lung cancer without ever mentioning cigarettes.

The story was largely the same when PRG looked at columns and op-eds published by the paper.  Of the 279 op-eds published since 1995, just 40 reflect mainstream climate science, or 14 per cent.  Of 122 columns published since 1997, only three per cent accepted as fact that fossil fuels cause climate change, or endorsed a policy to cut emissions.

All up, of the 602 op-eds, columns and editorials published since 1995, just 44 “treat fossil fuel-driven climate change as a reality”, the analysis found.
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Ploddingly conventional
Anyway, one of those WSJ columnists — Holman W. Jenkins, Jr — has written a response to the adverts.  The column was also printed in another Murdoch-owned paper, The Australian. Jenkins' contribution is appropriate, given that he says he has written more on the climate issue for the WSJ than anyone else.

Jenkins claims that rather than being out there on the fringes, his views on climate science have been “ploddingly conventional”.

He then goes on to provide just the kind of column that prompted the ads in the first place — one so “ploddingly conventional” among too many right-wing commentators and climate science denialists.

Let’s have a look at just a few of Jenkins’ easily checkable claims.

Read more at Wall St. Journal Shows Why It Is Under Attack for Climate Science Denial by Publishing Another Dodgy Column