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Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]

Samizdata quote of the day – Another day, another fatuous ‘fact’ check from Reuters

Another day, another fatuous ‘fact’ check from Reuters. This time the news agency accuses the Daily Sceptic of “cherry-picking” Arctic sea ice extent data to provide a “misleading” story. Being accused of “cherry picking” by an outfit that funds a course for journalists that encourages them to pick a fruit such as a mango and discuss why it isn’t as tasty as the year before due to climate change is beyond ridicule. Taking lectures on responsible journalism from a Net Zero-obsessed operation that has promoted a course speaker who has suggested “fines and imprisonments” for expressing scepticism about “well supported” science is laughable, if also a tad sinister.

One of the activists called to admonish the Daily Sceptic with a ‘straw man’ argument was Walt Meier, a research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Centre, who said: “Comparing two specific years is not an indicator for or against long-term changes”. The Daily Sceptic did not do that. Interestingly, this would appear to be the same Walt Meier whose comments on ”mind blowing” low winter levels of Antarctica sea ice last year made headlines around the world. Meier claimed at the time that it was “outside anything we have seen”. Happily, the Daily Sceptic was able to remind Meier that he had been part of a team a decade ago that cracked open the secrets of early Nimbus weather satellites and found a similar sea ice low in 1966. At the time, Meier commented that the Nimbus data show there is variability in Antarctica sea ice “that’s larger than any we have seen” since 1979.

Chris Morrison

10 comments to Samizdata quote of the day – Another day, another fatuous ‘fact’ check from Reuters

  • jgh

    If I cherry pick 2016 and 2023 my food spending has plummeted by 28%. If I cherry pick 2017 and 2022 it has rocketed by 33%.

  • Discovered Joys

    When ‘the weather’ can be made to support the climate activists’ case, it’s a slam dunk.

    When ‘the weather’ cannot be made to support the climate activists’ case then it’s clearly a ludicrous proposition to try and link the short term and the long term.

    I wish they would make their minds up.

  • Nicholas (Unlicensed Joker) Gray

    Dear JGH, stop eating cherries!

  • Kirk

    The whole thing is a scam, and always has been. We’re coming down off the end of an actual Ice Age, and if you look at the historical record, it has been a hell of a lot warmer. Like, before the last Ice Age began… As well, the periodic post-Ice Age spikes in temperature that produced things like the Roman “good times” climactic optimum were there, and the more than sneaking suspicion that what caused the end of the good times during the Bronze Age was, again, the end of a climactic optimum.

    You can also see the fraud in how they’ve had to “massage” the records to produce all these lovely statistics.

    My take on all this is that it’s an attempted coup by the academics, who’re ideologically bound up in this idea that what humanity has done is unnatural and needs to be stopped. Stop and ask yourself where all these Malthusian anti-human ideas originated, and who has been responsible for spreading them…

    Also, ask yourself if they’ve ever once been right.

  • JDN

    what humanity has done is unnatural and needs to be stopped

    China, India and a host of other large countries are not only not being stopped, they’re being encouraged to go full steam ahead while the academics look the other way. For some countries economic development trumps the environment.

  • Kirk

    A handy discriminator I’ve used for years is this: Does this source demonstrate any form of self-hatred for themselves or their peers within their kind?

    Answer is yes? You can safely ignore the majority of what they’re telling you, because it’s almost always ideologically bound up in their self-hatred. Anything they do, to include “scientific research” is going to reflect their inherent bias. You can’t trust them to tell you the truth, because they don’t know what “truth” is.

    Self-hatred is a pretty good clue that someone has a profound problem, and is good grounds for avoiding their company. I’ve run into a lot of men and women who have demonstrated this stuff, and it’s always proven to be true that you cannot trust them… They talk about how bad men are, and they are men? They’re almost always going to turn out to be date-rapists and all the rest. Same with the women; it’s like they’re warning you ahead of time, out of some perverse sense of fair play.

    If you pause and reflect, I don’t doubt but that you could probably think of multiple examples of this that you’ve run into during the course of your life. Pay attention to it…

  • Paul Marks

    Tony Heller (realclimatescience.com) has been exposing the artic ice fall myth for years.

    The “cherry picking” is from the establishment – for both the Artic and the Antarctica they pick years when ice cover was very high (say the mid 1970s for the Artic) and then compare this with years when ice cover is low.

    When confronted with evidence that sea ice cover in the Artic was much lower in the past – they change the subject.

    Another con is to say “the ice is thinner than it was in the past” – especially with Greenland.

    The dishonesty of the establishment is without limit – whether it is about Artic ice, American elections, Covid, or anything else.

  • Phil B

    If you look at the Antarctic peninsula (just to the west of 60 degree longitude) you will see it is pointed at the southern tip of South America which is part of the Pacific ring of fire.

    The Antarctic peninsula has (from memory) about 90 active volcanoes under its ice covering. Guess what happens when molten lava meets ice? Answers on the back of a postcard to the usual address. But it is ONLY mankind’s activities causing the ice to melt, no doubt about it …

  • Paul Marks

    Phil B.

    The ice covering of Antarctic is growing at the moment – and it was greater than it was (at this time of year) quite some decades ago.

  • Ed Snider

    How about Reuters fact-checking the international welfare class pretending to be indigenous Palestinians? Now there is a hoax that needs some light shined on it.

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