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YouTube faux-amateur slander from the halls of DCI

An unspeakably stupid video about Al Gore and penguins has been floating around YouTube for a while. Over at The Wall Street Journal, Antonio Regalado and Dionne Searcey pulled off a crackerjack bit of reporting, tracing the author to an email address, an email address to an IP address, and ...

... the email originated from a computer registered to DCI Group, a Washington, D.C., public relations and lobbying firm whose clients include oil company Exxon Mobil Corp.

You don't say.

DCI runs Tech Central Station, the notoriously bought and paid for opinion outlet. ("TCS is supported by a small group of sponsors: the American Beverage Association, ExxonMobil, Freddie Mac, General Motors Corporation, Gilead Sciences, McDonalds, Merck and PhRMA.")

Somebody's paying for adolescent, faux-amateur, "viral" smears. Wonder who?

Video below the fold:

Global warming …

... is making it warm.

Federal judge rips EPA a new one

Over on E&E News (paid subscription only), Darren Samuelsohn reports that a federal judge has applied his boot to the derriere of the U.S. EPA:

A federal judge lashed out at U.S. EPA yesterday for pursuing industry-friendly regulations at the same time it missed statutory deadlines to control toxic air pollution from small industrial plants.

Judge Paul Friedman of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia criticized EPA for focusing on other priorities as opposed to issuing regulations that address about a third of toxic air pollution.

"EPA has been grossly delinquent in making serious efforts to comply" with the Clean Air Act, Friedman said in his 28-page opinion (PDF).

And he put some oomph behind it:

Rifkin’s in my head

Wow, this is a fantastic interview with Jeremy Rifkin. I was only peripherally aware of the guy, but damn, he's mirroring my entire worldview (no wonder I like it!). He's got the exact right idea, about sequestration and clean coal, about nuclear, about distributed generation, smart grids, you name it. I kept highlighting parts to excerpt, but I ended up highlighting the whole thing. Here's a bit:

Mooney and Nisbet on reporters, hurricanes, and climate change

Chris Mooney and Matthew C. Nisbet have a long, careful piece in Skeptical Inquirer about journalistic coverage of the global warming/hurricane link. It's the best overview of that subject I've seen, and if you're interested in the intricacies I highly recommend you give it a read.

For the lazy among you, here's the nut:

Eating well is cheap! And fun!

Has anyone seen Wal-Mart's new commercial? I caught it -- full of happy children smearing themselves with organic food -- the other night. Apparently it started airing a few weeks ago, and is the first part of a multi-million-dollar campaign. According to Ad Week, it's the company's first ad campaign to focus on food. Related print ads will launch this month in several publications.

I have to admit, the tagline "organic food at Wal-Mart prices" sounds appetizing to me (and my wallet), even though I know all the reasons it shouldn't. Wonder how it'll work on everyone else?

It may be time to slow this trend! To the ramparts!

NYT commentator Bob Herbert, sitting on one of the most valuable pieces of real estate in the media world, writes a column on global warming and manages to say ... nothing.

To get the flavor, check this out:

Futerra’s principles of climate change communication

In today's Daily Grist we reference a piece on BBC about "climate porn." More specifically, it's about a new report on climate-change coverage in the UK press.

The report was put together by "sustainability communications" outfit Futerra. It's called "Climate Fear v. Climate Hope" (PDF).

The basic problem, as summarized by Futerra's Solitaire Townsend (which, by the way, isn't a bad porn name): "The style of climate-change discourse is that we maximize the problem and minimize the solution." Global warming itself is discussed in apocalyptic tones, accompanied by terrifying pictures. The solutions -- change your light bulbs! -- appear weak and defeatist in contrast.

Turns out Futerra's David Willans reads Gristmill, and let us know in this comment that Futerra has released a guide (PDF) for how one should discuss global warming. He says:

It's a distillation of a good few feet of research papers on how to communicate climate change and environmental issues. It was the foundation of the UK government's climate change communications strategy.

So, I looked it over, and yeah, it's interesting. And short. Because I know everyone hates PDFs, I've reproduced it below for your edification. Thanks to Futerra.

Five-part ocean series exceeds expectations

It's hard enough to get reporters to write a story on the threats facing our oceans -- but five? The L.A. Times did just that this week with its "Altered Oceans" series (also discussed by Kif here). And I'm not just talking about a couple hundred words buried on page seven; they brought out the big guns for this one. This series is a full multimedia package: videos, graphs, and enough photos to fill the national gallery of art.

Extreme temps all over the place

Hmm ... record-breaking heat in the U.S. and Europe and an unusually severe winter in South Africa? What the heck?

(On a related note, this gets my vote for Best Unexpected Subhead Ever: "Concern for homeless, concert-goers, animals.")