Cigarettes and Climate and the Power of Doubt

Image by Tumbleweed:-) via Flickr
"Doubt is our product."

SJ pwned again

This picture, titled "Guardians in the Mist," nicely illustrates the role that newspapers SHOULD but so often fail to play -- helping people navigate through the fog generated by shills like Patrick Moore. Image by Coast Guard News via Flickr

The pros and cons of nuclear energy merit intensive study and debate, that's for sure. But one thing that derails the debate faster than anything else is deception, such as when paid propagandists hide their status behind an "astroturf" (fake grassroots) title, as Patrick Moore successfully did yet again, this time fronting an article into the Salem Statesman-Journal while pretending to be simply an interested citizen:

Dr. Patrick Moore, co-founder and former leader of Greenpeace, co-chairs the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition (CASEnergy) a grassroots coalition which promotes the economic and environmental benefits of nuclear power as part of a green energy economy.

The reality is that Moore, whose doctorate is in Ecology, not in Physics or Nuclear Engineering, spent a brief few years involved with Greenpeace and has spent the next few decades trying to profit from that stint by selling himself and his opinions to industry for "green credibility."

By failing to perform a few seconds of checking on the background of a "contributor" and publishing the misleading attribution whole, the Statesman Journal offers yet another exhibit in the long line of examples of why we're going to miss newspapers like the SJ less than we thought.