It's not easy when you stop trusting particular sources of information. It tends to reorder your world. Oftentimes there's a precipitating event that suddenly puts the source in a different (and unflattering) light. This appears to be the case for John Callender, a birder, computer programmer, and blogger. Callender is an avid consumer of climate media, particularly blogs. He counts Grist's David Roberts as "one of my favorite writers on climate issues." But in recent months Callender's "taxonomy of the climate change debate" has been thrown into turmoil. In this post, he discusses the response to a newspaper article that reinforced
a decision I made recently to remove [Greg] Laden and [Joe] Romm from my newsfeed. It's not that I'm in the denialist camp that disputes the science of global warming. But just because one champions scientists doesn't make one's own assertions scientific. Laden and Romm have let their adopted role as advocates carry them past the point of being honest brokers of information. They're peddling self-serving spin as truth, selecting what to pass on not on the basis of skeptical inquiry, but simply on the basis of which untested hypotheses paint their enemies in the worst light.
The sooner more people come to such a realization--about the spinners in their respective camps--the sooner we can have a more constructive debate on climate change.
