If I’ve helped you better understand the climate debate, the IPCC, the shortcomings of academic research, or that Borg-like entity known as the United Nations, please let me know.

Since I began writing this blog in April 2009, I’ve published 1,035 posts. Looking back at the earliest ones, it’s evident I was appalled by the one-sided nature of the media’s climate coverage at the time.

This blog began partly as a reaction to the credulous, cheer-leading manner in which Canada’s largest newspaper had promoted Earth Hour in March of 2009.

As I wrote back then, the Toronto Star’s headlines employed words like apocalypse. They told us we had mere hours to prevent climate disaster. Taken together, that coverage amounted to panic-inducing nonsense.

How mortifying that the newspaper that had given me my first big break in journalism 17 years earlier, had turned into a propaganda machine for a single point-of-view.

A few weeks later, in what was post #4, I wrote:

There’s a whole side of the global warming discussion that 90% of the mainstream media ignores. This is because editors and journalists are as susceptible to “group think” as anyone else…

I wish I didn’t feel the need to say anything at all about this topic. There are lots of other things I’d rather be thinking about in my spare time. But the current state of affairs is wrong. [bold added]

The purpose of journalism is to help the public make informed decisions. Informed decisions don’t happen if only one slice (analysis/worldview) of the pie gets served over and over again, as though the rest of the pie doesn’t exist.

Journalists are supposed to chase the story that hasn’t yet been told. They’re supposed to be curious about the world around them.

Where complex public debates are concerned, it is not the business of journalists to decide which side is right and which side should be de-platformed/frozen out. That approach is profoundly undemocratic, and it’s one of the reasons life-long newspaper readers are cancelling their subscriptions.

I explore the part of the pie other journalists refuse to talk about. Originally, this blog was called No Frakking Consensus, due to my exasperation at the one-sided nature of the conversation.

It’s hard to believe a full decade has elapsed since then. Instead of being in my mid-40s, I’m now in my mid-50s :-)

So here I am, still banging my head against the same brick wall – making many of the same arguments I made during those first few months – insisting that skepticism is required of grownups. Declaring that important decisions shouldn’t be based on hysteria.

We all have a limited amount of time on this Earth. Thank you for spending some of yours reading my work. I never take your attention for granted.

I invite you to help me celebrate this 10th anniversary by clicking the yellow button below.

If you’re in a position to contribute a small sum on a monthly basis, the yellow button will let you do that, as well.

Please know that this second option is particularly motivating. We all have days when we think things are hopeless. When I’m having one of those days, I recall the kind souls who remind me each month that what I’m doing is valuable.

Then I take a deep breath, put a smile on my face, and get to work.

LINKS:

• I wrote a weekly opinion column for the Toronto Star between 1992 and 1996. During that time I was one of the few media champions of Guy Paul Morin, wrongfully convicted of murder, but later exonerated and financially compensated. A public inquiry into those matters produced the 1161-page Kaufman Report, available here.
• blog posts dated April 2009
• blog posts dated May 2009
• quote from a July 2009 post: “It seems not to have crossed [Al Gore’s] mind that some of us consider his arguments flawed, his data suspect, his climate analysis simplistic, and his rhetoric overwrought.”
• quote from a Sept. 2009 post: “What shall I say to my grandchildren when they ask me why I let freedom slip away? When they ask why I did nothing as every facet of daily life became assessed, inspected, and tightly regulated by eco authorities…What shall I say to a granddaughter who isn’t permitted to study abroad because she doesn’t have enough carbon rations?”
• quote from a Nov. 2009 post: “few people have witnessed an actual debate between someone who believes in an impending global warming catastrophe and someone who is skeptical.”
• see also the Archives dropdown menu on the right margin of this page