One of my “beats” here is how science and politics intersect. A while ago, a post at Crooked Timber reported on a thorough critique of Ross McKitrick and Steven McIntyre’s (and a subsequent one by Ross McKitrick and Pat Michaels) “refutations” of climate change research. Now there’s RealClimate. Its goal:
“Many scientists participate in efforts to educate the public and to rebut or debunk rather fanciful claims or outright mis-representations by writing in popular magazines such as EOS and New Scientist or in the Comments section of journals. However, this takes time to put together, and by the time it’s out, mainstream attention has often moved elsewhere. Since these rebuttals appear in the peer-reviewed literature, these efforts (in the long run) are useful. However, a faster response would sometimes be helpful in ensuring that the context of breaking stories is more widely distributed at the time.
Journalists with deadlines and scant knowledge of the field quite often do not know where to go for this context on papers that are being pushed by some of the partisan think-tanks or other interested parties. This can lead to some quite mainstream outlets inadvertently publishing some very dubious and misleading ideas.
RealClimate is a commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists for the interested public and journalists. We aim to provide a quick response to developing stories and provide the context sometimes missing in mainstream commentary.
In order to limit the scope to those issues where we can claim some competence, the discussion here is restricted to scientific topics. Thus we will not get involved in political or economic issues that arise when discussing climate change. The validity of scientific information is completely independent of what society decides to do (or not) about that information. Constructive comments and questions are welcome, as are guest articles from other scientists who may choose to contribute on an occasional basis.”