There were no MDG press clips last week due to the lecture by Naomi Oreskes. Consequently, below is a bit more than just this past week's notable MDG-related news. Scrolling through the automatized news surveilance thingys I set up I couldn't help going a bit further back than just half a month.

#5 From YouTube

There is a reasonable probablility that one or more of these videos will make you a) just go "wow", b) send it to all your friends, c) put it on your Twitter and Facebook or d) something else, ie think "wtf".

#4 From Ecowar

Lecture on fraudulent scientists or not, notes have been taken on the links between natural resources and conflict. Two recent stories went straight to my blog for their extreme relevance.

First, The Growing Problem Of Oil Theft In China. Where do you even begin describing the underlying implications? The poverty? The scarce resource? The arrogance towards pollution issues? Oil theft is, unfortunately, a problem in many places (Nigeria comes to mind).

Second and even more disturbing is the story of how Obama won't charge Blackwater with violation of Sudan sanctions. How do we cover that one? The consequences in privatizing security? The apparent hypocrisy of the US administration? The battle over the oil and minirals? The razed country?

A TH!NK3 post summing up the development issues as seen from Ecowar's perspective is coming up. Stay tuned.

#3 (More) BP cartoons

And finally, these aren't even cartoons:

#2 From the EU

That's (most of) us. Isn't it a bit weird TH!NK3 doesn't have a lot of "EU news"? Anyway...

Hedegaard throws weight behind EU carbon tax

'Don't tax what you earn, tax what you burn'. In an interview with EurActiv, EU Climate Action Commissioner Connie Hedegaard throws her weight behind an EU carbon tax and speaks about Europe's efforts to stay ahead of the game in international climate negotiations.

Belgium pledges 'sustainable' EU presidency

Belgium wants to lead by example during its upcoming EU presidency and has pledged to minimise the environmental impact of the numerous meetings and summits planned over the next six months.

The World Cup hasn't ended yet - OK, for France it certainly has but this story is from France: Green-Roofed Soccer Training Facility Has a Field Right On Its Roof!

#1 #Journalismgate

Remember "Amazongate"? One of the climate change / global warming / IPCC hyped up pseudo-scandals aired suspiciously close to the December 2009 Copenhagen COP15 summit? The one about an alleged miscalculation in relation to the Amazon forest's role in climate? Perhaps not - too much nonsense around in main stream media to keep track of all of it anyway.

Well, after months of debunking, the story was finally retracted by the British Sunday Times which had hitherto been merrily hyping it. They have since then removed the correcting article from their site - no doubt just during 'regular maintenance'. They had to at least briefly publish their retraction though as they were getting in trouble with the Press Complaints Commission.

Fortunately, ClimateChangeFraud.com has a back-up. Although debunked long ago, now Change.org, Monbiot and the rest of us can - and should - seriously start pounding back the massive hysteria the story created against the IPCC and the whole climate movement. The question is: is it worth it or did the -gate hype do permanent damage?

The National Academy of Sciences published a systematic investigation of the relative status of climatologists: Expert credibility in climate change by Anderegg et al. Go ahead, it's freely available. The climate change blogs were quick to report - ie see desmogblog.com and Climate Progress. As was the Union of Conserned Scientists. The deniers shrugged and claimed the study proved their experts were pushed out of the social circles of climatology - a predictable spin. The study concludes two things:

1. 97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC [anthropogenic climate change] outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
2. the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of the convinced researchers

In short, the very rare climate scientist still sceptical of humankinds impact on the climate are those least acknowledged for their actual skills.

Fits neatly with Naomi Oreskes documenting how most climate change scepticism, denial and spin can be traced back to three dishonest scientists. Still, this scandal, this non-gate, gets next to no media attention.

If we're not seeing a journalismgate, I don't know what we're seeing!? I'd bet 1,000 € that within a couple of weeks from now I'll be able to pick out a new TV news clip pitting an expert against either a clueless, misinformed crackpot or a callous industry spin advocate. Dear journalism: get your act together. Now.

I didn't come up with "journalismgate" (not the -gate hype type myself) - Simon at Green Blog did in The mass media and our environment. Simon quotes Johann Hari:

"…when it comes to coverage of global warming, we are trapped in the logic of a guerrilla insurgency. The climate scientists have to be right 100 percent of the time, or their 0.01 percent error becomes Glaciergate, and they are frauds. By contrast, the deniers only have to be right 0.01 percent of the time for their narrative–See! The global warming story is falling apart!–to be reinforced by the media. It doesn’t matter that their alternative theories are based on demonstrably false claims, as they are with all the leading "thinkers" in this movement."

Continuing himself:

"the global mainstream media only cares about their profit-margins and rather want to focus on "infotainment" news, and stories like Climategate, as it helps them pursue their corporate owners free-market and consumption-driven agenda. [...An issues] becomes an "nonissue" [when] those people affected by [it] are not "key power holders" or the media corporations main target audience."

And much more. Click the link and read. I for one am going to start using the #journalismgate tag on Twitter and TH!NK3 right now. Join me. It's time to take aim at crap journalists.