Re: [Marxism] Take London-based Poet Stephen Spender...

["Joaquin Bustelo" <jbustelo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Tony Lawless writes that the case of Zbigniew Jaworowski, the scientist and
global warming skeptic who has published at least eight papers in
LaRoucheite publications over the past decade, is perhaps like that of
"Stephen Spender, the somewhat well-known English poet, [who] claims that he
was unaware that Encounter magazine, which Spender helped edit, was funded
by CIA money. I believe that the latest biography of Spender by John
Sutherland supports Spender's claims."

I don't know what it is about crackpots like Jaworowski that makes people
come up with some pretty far-fetched arguments to defend him. The CIA
financing of Encounter was covert, hidden. The LaRoucheian character of 21st
Century Science and Technology isn't just overt, it is loudly proclaimed. 

The character of the Jaworowski articles themselves, like others in the
magazine I skimmed, are not the product of original research, reviews of the
literature in the field of his work, or similar, but rather advocacy pieces
along the lines of the magazine's political/scientific nostrums. And
Jaworowski is operating *politically* in the climate change debate, as is
shown by his pretend "testimony" to Congress. To suggest he's just another
absent-minded professor blissfully ignorant of the social/political
dimensions of his work, and therefore oblivious to whether it is published
or where, stretches credulity far past the breaking point. 

These articles were written to be published in 21st Century Science and
Technology or something like it. Their tone and stance is such that they
were obviously NOT meant for peer-reviewed academic journals. His *actual*
scientific work with glaciers in the 1970's and 1980's are not relevant to,
and do not give him some great expertise in, the main argument he is known
for, which is a challenge to the measurement of CO2 concentrations in
atmospheric gases trapped in ice. The responses to his challenges by
scientists in the field, including the most reputable, make clear that
Jaworowski is, at best, very poorly informed about the work that he has been
criticizing.

But there is also the point that Louis keeps harping on: even if we give
Jaworowski a bye, assume that as a sincere but somewhat clueless scientist,
and one obsessed with some foible or pet hypothesis (it's been known to
happen), Jaworowski simply doesn't really get it about the LaRoucheian cult,
Cockburn isn't eligible for any such dispensation.

It's Cockburn's JOB, as a radical journalist, to be sensitive to and know
about Barouche's cult, and if he didn't, to inform himself about it once he
ran across them. That he specifically cited Jaworowski article in a
LaRoucheian rag is Cockburn's way of giving the finger to the left.

And then there's what REALLY pisses me off. It was also Cockburn's
responsibility, his DUTY --simply and solely as a journalist-- to have
presented Jaworowski TRUTHFULLY, which means not trying to pass him off as a
climate scientist, highly expert in the field, who in fact demolished
scientifically one of the underpinnings of the global warming hypothesis,
when in fact Jaworowski is not a climate scientist, and most certainly NOT
in the way Cockburn tried to suggest, by immediately preceding "Take
Warsaw-based Professor Zbigniew Jaworowski, famous for his critiques of
ice-core data," with the sentences:

"The overwhelming majority of climate computer modelers ... certainly
believe in it [global warming] but not necessarily most real climate
scientists--people qualified in atmospheric physics, climatology and
meteorology. Geologists are particularly skeptical."

THAT is simply lying, and the fact that Cockburn as a clever scribbler
structured the sentences in such a way as to simply leave the false
impression among 99% of his readers, rather than putting the lie in so many
big words, only makes him MORE guilty in my book, because it shows he did it
carefully, consciously and with malice aforethought.

Joaquín

PS: Tony Lawless gets two points for the clever twist on the subject line,
but, given how the parallels break down, I'm afraid it's still no cigar.


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