One could hardly miss the gleeful “told-you-so” tone of satisfaction as some supporters of the commonly called climate change “consensus science” (for lack of a better term) relished a British newspaper’s full retraction of a January story wrongly blasting climate scientists as part of the IPCC’s 2007 Fourth Assessment Report.
Some were quick to point out that the retraction came from The Sunday Times, a prominent part of the media conglomerate headed by Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corporation and Fox TV are often portrayed as patsies for the climate contrarian perspective. That newspaper’s Jonathan Leake had reported in January 2010 on what the paper headlined as “UN climate panel shamed by bogus rainforest claim.” Leake had written that the “source for its claim was a report from WWF, an environmental pressure group, which was authored by two green activists.” He incorrectly wrote that the IPCC conclusion involving Amazon rainforests “was based on an unsubstantiated claim by green campaigners who had little scientific expertise.”
Leake wrote that the research supporting the WWF “research” (Leake pointedly put the term in quotes in his news story) actually “did not address rainfall but in fact looked at the impact on the forest of human activity such as logging and burning.” He wrote that it was the third instance “in as many weeks that serious doubts have been raised over the IPCC’s conclusions on climate change.”
On June 20, The Sunday Times published a “Correction” saying that the IPCC’s “Amazon statement is supported by peer-reviewed scientific evidence” and not on “unsubstantiated claims” by activists as the paper initially had reported. After retracting virtually all of the key points made in its initial story, The Sunday Times said “We apologise (British spelling) for this” and said it was removing the original article from its site.
For more background on the initial flawed Sunday Times story and reactions to the newspaper’s apology and retraction, go here, here, here, and here.