The Oil Drum

215 comments on DrumBeat: November 20, 2007

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Leanan on November 20, 2007 - 10:53am

No, TOD is not "balanced," nor should it be. And climate change is very much intertwined with peak oil, and is considered "on topic" both here and at peakoil.com (where they are much stricter about keeping the discussion energy-related).

However, I see the DrumBeat as a sort of survey of the MSM. Not to be "balanced," but to keep an eye on what we're up against. Consider it "Know thy enemy."

That's why I occasionally post Corsi's abiotic oil stories, the BNP's peak oil stuff, CERA, etc.

In the case of today's climate change stories, I didn't go looking for them. They popped up on a site I check every day (Yahoo's climate change page). Perhaps a sign of a backlash building? Or a sign of panic, because they're losing?

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mcgowanmc on November 20, 2007 - 11:46am

"In the case of today's climate change stories, I didn't go looking for them. They popped up on a site I check every day (Yahoo's climate change page). Perhaps a sign of a backlash building? Or a sign of panic, because they're losing?"

You've just acknowledeged censorship by the
Search engines as a matter of course.

The corollary being that they, TPTB, understand full well
what is happening, because they're going out of their
way to broadcast/censor POV's.

http://climate.weather.com/articles/neworleans112007.html

"The news was an injection of hope for Lakeview, where a canal breach after Katrina hit washed homes off their foundations and flooded the neighborhood with up to 15 feet (4.6 meters) of water.

On Friday, though, that hope was dashed when the director of a Corps-commissioned team of engineers responsible for the projections said the previous estimates were wrong, and the flood risk had been reduced just 6 inches (15 centimeters).

"The conflicting information on the flood data raised new questions about the Corps' ability to police itself.

"It's so bizarre and unreal," said Al Petrie, vice president of the Lakeview Civic Improvement Association. "The people responsible for our safety cannot even get the issues straight with the numbers they're using."

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Leanan on November 20, 2007 - 12:13pm

You've just acknowledeged censorship by the
Search engines as a matter of course.

Not sure what you mean by that?

I don't think it's censorship, in the sense that certain POVs are favored. Rather, they give weight to certain sites over others. Investor's Business Daily is a rightwing site, but a pretty respected one, in their capitalist wingnut way. Naturally, their stuff gets picked up.

And it's not a human doing the searching. Every once in awhile you get a story that obviously fooled the software. (An article about a new line of moisturizers, or a press release about a new antacid medication appearing on the "oil and gas" page, for example.)