Great article about what Tim Lambert calls “The Australian’s War on Science” in the SMH:

Less well documented so far has been the industry’s influence on the media. Take the powerful News Corporation, which publishes two-thirds of our remaining newspapers. Despite a spectacular about-face on climate change in 2007 by News Corp’s chairman Rupert Murdoch, no media group can match the Murdoch press for consistently fomenting global warming scepticism and arguing against climate change mitigation measures.

News Corp’s tabloid provocateurs Piers Akerman and Andrew Bolt rail against greenies every other day but don’t have the attention to detail to influence national debate on climate change science, emissions trading and reduction targets, and international negotiations on global warming.

The Australian – Rupert’s baby and local flagship – does. But nothing you read on climate change in The Australian can be taken at face value. Its coverage of the issue is effectively sponsored by the resources industry.

Read it.

The latest denialism blog meme to pop up is the one about sea ice being at 1979 levels. Wanna know how they came up with that?

That’s right – they  drew a line linking a point in December 1979 with a point in December 2008, even though the trend is clearly down. This goes even further than Mantaray refusing to accept that climate and weather are different. This is the graphic equivilant of shoving your fingers in your ears, shutting your eyes and shouting “I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”.

This is the difference between skeptics and denialists. The line in the sand is here.

Shocking stuff.

More at Open Mind and LP.