What National Geographis is now:
Posted on 09/07/2004 7:29:53 AM PDT by ZGuy
This is not your father's National Geographic any more. Once a coffee table staple with gorgeous photos of people, places and things, it now more resembles a host of other slick lobbying mags, pushing today's popular issues.
Last month's cover story was "fat." This month it's global warming, a subject that actually lends itself to quantitative fact-checking, of which National Geographic apparently did little.
I will start with the first misrepresentation of facts. When I get to this article's word limit, I'll still have 75 percent of them left. . . .
It begins with a picture of a flooded rice field in Bangladesh . . .
The first article starts with the melting of Sperry Glacier. . .
Next column: "The famed snows of Kilimanjaro have melted more than 80 percent since 1912." . ..
Two pages later, we read, "Human activity almost certainly drove most of the past century's warming." That's not true either.
Seven misleading statements in three pages. There are 28 more. When the truth gets this stretched, that's more than one person's work. Instead, it's a process, where scientists tell editors what they want to hear, editors don't check the facts and, ultimately, we all pay with very bad policies. Unfortunately, it's all predictable.
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
Nowadays they get that on BET.
ping
Surely NG's contribution to sexual "education" can't be overlooked but now that 90% of the web is porn, does it really have a place anymore?
I stopped reading it years ago (of course, I'm married).
That's one reason. The other, as I learned on FR, is that H2O traps a much wider range of IR frequencies than CO2.
It's a shame really that NatGeo has so deteriorated. Used to be a great resource for kids to explore the world - almost everyone had copies around somewhere.
Now that it's scarce, kids have lost one more avenue of learning.
What National Geographis is now:
I have been offered a free subscription to NG from a relative. I said "no thanks." Years ago I read them from cover to cover. Many years ago. My father in-law says he is dropping his scrip. Science propaganda sucks!
Pat Michaels (the author of this article) is fantastic. I first heard him speak about 6-7 years ago when is was Virginia's state climatologist and a professor at UVA. I highly recommned anything he has written. I don't know anyone who can debunk the global warming myth like he can.</p>
Change to the National Review.
National Geographic's conclusions often conflict with what many Freepers typically believe. But I don't believe they have moved noticeably leftward any time in the last couple of decades.
Whether it was Mau Mau rebellion in the 50s, Ethiopian famine in the 80s, or global warming in the 90s and beyond, they take an examined look at global issues involving politics and geography, and to their credit, do so without a foregone conclusion in search of data.
Sometimes their conclusions cause more conservative readers consternation. But is that evidence of biased reporting by the magazine or the closed mind of the reader?
I disagree with this critique. The author picks out three anecdotes from the article he wishes to to take issue with, and says these are typical misstatements of the article, but then gives a feeble excuse as to why we should just take his word for it even though he can't expound more (the article's word count limit).
I've read the article. I do believe global warming is a real phenomenon, but don't think it's either man made, nor an impending catostrophe. The planet and its inhabitants will adapt, even if you can't observe the beautiful glaciers of Kilimanjaro anymore.
But for this author to state that the research is flawed and biased is laughable. It is one of the most thoroughly researched and comprehensive article I've ever read on the subject, with page after page of trend data, side by side photographic evidence, timeline, and comparative graphs backing up all of the correlations laid out in the article.
Some people, it seems, are a bit too touchy when their pet theories are challenged. Name calling does nothing to advance scientific knowledge.
Theres glaciers all around me locally ... here in Alaska..
Been melting for more than 10,000 years.. (they say)..
WOuld'nt even be "an Alaska" without them melting.. Was covered almost completely by glaciers 10,000 years ago(Alaska).. Melts faster some years slower other years..
Glaciers are melting.!...COOOL... Oh! if the federal government would melt like that... would too.. if we had a different republican party..
Ah. Then he won't miss mine.
see Burnham's Law: "Institutions not committed to the Right will inevitably turn leftward over time."
I'm a back yard Birder and get several bird mags and all of them are now preaching the "habitat destruction" and "global warming" propaganda...
BP = before present.
If you listen closely, you can hear the sound of Gilbert M. Grosvenor spinning madly in his grave.
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