I believe by virtue of his position, he has a responsibility to be more factual about the imminent dangers of climate change than he has been so far.

But please don’t insist that Andy R hold his breath and turn blue until editorial policy improves. You might as well require him to don a stretchy uniform and cape and fly around rescuing people from train wrecks. Terrific idea, but not an available option. I’m confident his influence on the whole institution is minor. If you want to take an uncompromising, moralistic stance, feel free to insist he resign (the sort of sacrifice few of us are saintly enough to make), but there’s no way he determines what goes on the front page every day.

Though it’s far beyond lame, considering what’s at stake.

This one would probably have been edited by Erica Goode, unless she was out for some reason; could someone please email her (via the link on this page to find out, and report back? Her young relatives will want to know.

Thanks PaulM for the Newsweek piece. Maybe we should send that to Ms. Goode as well.

I wish we could get the whole truth from the horse’s mouth.

“If you can’t blurt out the truth, what business are you in?”

[JR: Can't agree (nor do I want his job). The world would be better off if there were many more Revkins -- and the NYT, for all the flaws in its coverage, is to be commended for having such an extensive science and climate team, in a world where most media outlets are shedding such jobs.

I will say in general that, as they say of political leaders, we get the media we deserve. When future generations lay blame for destroying their livable climate, the media will be on the list, for sure, but the real threats to human kind are those who are actively pushing disinformation -- a very long list -- not NYT science reporters (well, other than Tierney).]

The National Academies ….
National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council.

http://americasclimatechoices.org/

In response to a request from Congress, the National Academies have launched America’s Climate Choices, a suite of studies designed to inform and guide responses to climate change across the nation. Experts representing various levels of government, the private sector, nongovernmental organizations, and research and academic institutions have been selected to serve on four panels and an overarching committee.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.” Upton Sinclair

Or as the British put it in their recent report on the causes of the financial mess:

“…the failure to foresee the timing, extent and severity of the crisis and to head it off, while it had many causes, was principally a failure of the collective imagination of many bright people, both in this country and internationally, to understand the risks to the system as a whole.”

Aside from dissembling and giving a ridiculous amount of equal time to nonsense about which there is no longer any real scientific debate, if Andy Revkin sincerely wanted to contribute to public awareness of the extreme danger posed to human civilization (not to mention the other species we share the earth with) by climate change, he would refuse to enable the topic to be marginalized and insist on at a minimum one major story every day ON THE FRONT PAGE of the NYT.

Instead he preens in a self-congratulatory monopoly in a marginalized section of the paper where only the already climate change aware, or denier trolls, take the trouble to visit.

I gave up reading dot earth years ago, it is way behind the curve of sites like climateprogress, realclimate, and even many less well known blogs to which links can be found at both of those sites, all of which encourage lively debate and input from readers as opposed to pure unadulterated self-aggrandizement.