dhogaza above had said
> yes, I thought that the quote from MacCracken was a bit odd. My guess is that the snippet didn’t quite come across the way he intended – I wonder what else he said?

I’d emailed Dr. MacCracken to ask, and tonight* he sent a detailed response:

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No, the New York Times quote did not represent my views, and it did not even represent the reporter’s attempt to portray my comments –I am told the article was edited down a lot from his submission.

As for me, they quoted 7 words out of a 34 word sentence that was part of a 900 plus word set of comments on the background of this report that also said it was an impressive synthesis. The point I had tried to make was that since the Bush Administration had not supported new regional studies (and had limited the resources the authors could draw on to already published and approved assessment reports) and that there were no regional workshops or studies to draw out new issues and questions from stakeholders, there was not much coverage of new issues. And this is actually true. But the report is overall a new synthesis with updated data, and done very impressively. Having been on the review panel for the report, I had put in a lot of comments and suggestions–and in that way worked to contribute to the synthesis–and I very much support its publication.

I do, however, believe that it has to be viewed as only a beginning that is focused on issues we have known a lot about for many years. A once every 4 report, as legally required (and this one took 8 years), is not how the American public needs to be served–they need an ongoing assessment process that they can go to to ask questions, get specialized data needed to address their questions, etc. We started that effort over the period 1997-2000, and then it essentially wilted with no attention given to it. This whole effort needs to get restarted and strengthened as climate change is affecting the US now, and preparing and planning now can help to reduce future costs and impacts.

The NYT ended up ignoring all such talk and pulled the quote out of context. Very poorly done by them–and by me as I should have given them only the 7 words that I would wanted to have them use. I am hoping to meet with the reporter in a couple of weeks when we are both in town and try to work to build better understanding on all of this.
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* He would have answered sooner but didn’t get my (indirectly addressed) email until just recently.

Anybody think that the New York Times burial of this story was accidental?

The New York Times is the flagship paper of the Eastern financial establishment, and has been for many decades. The NYT prints what the financial establishment wants printed.

Our financial establishment in the U.S. was made rich by fossil fuels, “defense”, and banking.

The fossil fuel industries want to continue to sell fossil fuels, for as long as possible no matter what the consequences. A case can easily be made, looking at the output of such groups as the Heritage Foundation and the Council on Foreign Relations that our fossil fuel industries and our financial elites look forward to the Arctic melting, so that they can go after the fossil fuel resources under our current polar icecap. Check out the Heritage foundation website and the CFR website to confirm this. Especially, look for a series of articles by Scott Borgerson on the CFR website, in which he touts Arctic riches.

The “defense” industries look forward to a new cold war for Russia over Arctic resources, and may look forward to the chaos caused by global warming, as requiring a lot of weapons. These “defense” companies don’t make any money off of peace and tranquility- chaos is what they prefer. Check out the Heritage Foundation’s website, on which they call for a new cold war with Russia over Arctic resources.

The banks made out so well on the bailouts, the ones left standing, that they don’t need much of anything, either, IMO. They have made so much more money by feeding on created crises that they probably don’t have much interest in traditional banking. To the extent they do, they likely support the fossil fuel and “defense” industries in their desires for chaos and climate denial.

The NYT is the flagship newspaper of a financial elite that wants to profit off of denial and chaos, IMO.

That is why this story was buried, IMO. It’s not just an accident, or incompetence, or “bad” reporting.

pretty short and benign you’d think and no reference to the real report. And no reporter byline.

C X 1.8 + 32 = F
F – 32 X 0.5555 = C

Also sea level rise is often given in meters which tends to make it not so outstandingly scary under worst case.

I cruise the guardian website fairly often, not enough, http://www.guardian.co.uk
Also the Independent
http://www.independent.co.uk

If you see reporting from Britain from The Times, The Mail, the Telegraph, bring your salt shaker…