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Ideological conservatives hold The New York Times and The Washington Post to be beneath contempt, as poster children of their bizaare conceptions of media thease are supposed bastions of liberal bias. When it comes to climate change issues, however, The Washington Post (and, more seriously, Washington Post Writers’ Group) embrace of “fair and balanced” rather than “true and truthful” should give these reality denying ideologues a cause for glee. A particularly atrocious George Will piece, abusive of sources and any valid claim to legitimate factual discussion, has raised an outroar in the blogosphere that has now moved to major environmental organizations calling on The Washington Post to correct Will’s disinformation.

Amid all this, it seems reasonable to conclude that The New York Times editorial leadership has decided that not only The Washington Post should lay claim to “fair and balanced” when it comes to print journalism on the issues of climate change. While The Times is beefing up its enviromental (including climate change) and energy reporting, it has given a solid home to perhaps the worst “science” reporter / columnist directly working for any major traditional media outlet. With Tierney, it seems as if The Gray Lady is determined to give The Washington Post and George Will a run for their money in a competition as to the worst discussions of climate issues in a major traditional print outlet.

Tierney has been launching poorly sourced and deceptive attacks on the Obama Administration’s top scientists appointed to policy positions. In a continuation of this disinformation, latest monstrocity of appearing ‘reasonable’ while peddling disingenuous truthiness was published under the title “Findings”, as if it had some great degree of authoritative nature. This article attacks Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, Science Advisor John Holdren, climate science and various solutions under the title “Politics in the Guise of Pure Science“. This article begins:

Why, since President Obama promised to “restore science to its rightful place” in Washington, do some things feel not quite right?

And, from there Tierney is off to the races with attacking Chu and Holdren as dishonest brokers, likely to engage in “stealth issue advocacy” rather than basing their recommendations and efforts on actual science. An example of Holdren’s abuse of science was his decision to join with others in a 11-page Scientific American “attack” on climate delayer Bjorn Lomborg’s serial truthiness and abuse of statistics.

Tierney bases his broadside in the seemingly reasonable voice of Roger Pielke, identified by Tierney with the following description:

Dr. Pielke, a professor in the environmental studies program at the University of Colorado, is the author of “The Honest Broker,” a book arguing that most scientists are fundamentally mistaken about their role in political debates. As a result, he says, they’re jeopardizing their credibility while impeding solutions to problems like global warming.

Honest Broker? Okay, to start with, Pielke is a regular in the global warming / skeptic community, and has been caught with “misconceived” (to be polite) analysis attacking Global Warming. Huh? Is it clear why Tierney’s piece is, without even going further, fundamentally flawed to the point of moving past simple embarassment for The Times?

While there are many good people working at The New York Times and The Washington Post. And, they can often have good (even great) reporting and editorial on energy, environmental and climate change issues. It is necessary, when seeing Tierney and Will published in their pages, to check the front page to be sure that one isn’t actually reading The New York Post and The Washington Times.

Like George Will, Tierney chose to attack Steven Chu based on misrepresenting his interview with the LA Times.

Why, since President Obama promised to “restore science to its rightful place” in Washington, do some things feel not quite right?

First there was Steven Chu, the physicist and new energy secretary, warning The Los Angeles Times that climate change could make water so scarce by century’s end that “there’s no more agriculture in California” and no way to keep the state’s cities going, either. While most scientists agree that anthropogenic global warming is a threat, they’re not certain about its scale or its timing or its precise consequences (like the condition of California’s water supply in 2090).

Other than waving his hands (“most scientists … not certain …”) without a specific citation, what is Tierney’s basis for attacking Chu? Oh, not surprisingly, a misrepresentation of Chu’s comments. What did Chu actually talk about?

What is being predicted in climate change, there are two bracketed scenarios. The more optimistic one — that we will really control carbon emissions, that we will get a handle on this, and we’re talking the end of this century — even by mid-century, in the optimistic scenario, we will have decreased our snow pack by 20 percent on an average basis. And our forests are going to begin to die, because of parasites and such…. In the pessimistic scenario, the snow pack will decrease by 70 to 90 percent….

… a scenario where there’s no more agriculture in California. When you lose 70 percent of your water in the mountains, I don’t see how agriculture can continue. California produces 20 percent of the agriculture in the United States. I don’t actually see how they can keep their cities going.

It would seem that The New York Times (Tierney) owed it to their readers to place Chu’s comments in context. Perhaps they could have mentioned that this Nobel Prize Winner at top of the Department of Energy is enough on top of his subject area that he is able to cite and discuss actual scientific studies about the issues of concern. Here is the abstract of “Emissions pathways, climate change, and impacts on California”:

The magnitude of future climate change depends substantially on the greenhouse gas emission pathways we choose. Here we explore the implications of the highest and lowest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change emissions pathways for climate change and associated impacts in California. Based on climate projections from two state-of-the-art climate models with low and medium sensitivity (Parallel Climate Model and Hadley Centre Climate Model, version 3, respectively), we find that annual temperature increases nearly double from the lower B1 to the higher A1fi emissions scenario before 2100. Three of four simulations also show greater increases in summer temperatures as compared with winter. Extreme heat and the associated impacts on a range of temperature-sensitive sectors are substantially greater under the higher emissions scenario, with some interscenario differences apparent before midcentury. By the end of the century under the B1 scenario, heatwaves and extreme heat in Los Angeles quadruple in frequency while heat-related mortality increases two to three times; alpine/subalpine forests are reduced by 50-75%; and Sierra snowpack is reduced 30-70%. Under A1fi, heatwaves in Los Angeles are six to eight times more frequent, with heat-related excess mortality increasing five to seven times; alpine/subalpine forests are reduced by 75-90%; and snowpack declines 73-90%, with cascading impacts on runoff and streamflow that, combined with projected modest declines in winter precipitation, could fundamentally disrupt California’s water rights system. Although interscenario differences in climate impacts and costs of adaptation emerge mainly in the second half of the century, they are strongly dependent on emissions from preceding decades.

While these “scientists are not certain”, their work was accurately discussed by Secretary Chu. And, as for implications, does Tierney want to seriously suggest that California agriculture would survive in anything like what it is today if the “snowpack declines 90%)? Or, that there wouldn’t be serious difficulties with eight times more frequent heatwaves in Los Angeles? Or …

Tierney’s deception, using the voice of Roger Pielke to achieve his objectives, didn’t end there. Tierney quoted Pielke at length suggesting that as yet to be invented, not fully conceived of, ways of removing carbon from the atmosphere “could be chaper” than cutting emissions. “Could be cheaper if the technology improves …” Well, I “could win pitch a perfect game” if I’d only improve my fastball. “If …”

We have to ask ourselves why theoretically serious newspapers hand over precious (and it is precious) column inches to such serial deceivers as John Tierney and George Will.

NOTE: Please see Joe Romm’s John Tierney makes up stuff, just like George Will — does the New York Times also employ several know/do-nothing fact checkers? For those concerned, let me end as Joe does:

Please email the NYT at nytnews@nytimes.com to demand a correction for the egregious mistakes in Tierney’s column and/or email its public editor at public@nytimes.com to explain you are “concerned about the paper’s journalistic integrity.”