I am disappointed that you will no longer be appearing in the Listener. IMHO the previous Ecologic columnist wrote content more suited to a glossy womens mag or a TV reality show, long on general statements and short on data or analysis. When you arrived the column I started reading the column seriously, in the same way I read Brian Easton’s column.

The “balance” issue is interesting. Flying Spaghetti Monster / Kansas State Board of Education springs to mind.

The Listener said they’d think about it and did nothing until the day after Auer died when they sent me a “thank you for your submission, we will not be using it” letter.

Of course it was silly of me not to have realised I was wrong to suggest a binary choice for Auer and NZCSC when the fact is both choices are true.

Don’t forget this is a Listener which ran more than three pages from Nigel Lawson last year after he was brought out here by big business.

It’s neither for me to urge nor discourage a letter-writing campaign. But of course, it remains your perogative to get the Listener’s side of the story.

Cheers,

Dave

To other readers here make sure you follow Gareth’s link to the letter from J L Bast. The final paragraph is not the worst of it as far as distortions go.

That is really something. And, if the implication is correct, absolutely appalling from the Listener. I’m sorry to hear it.

I don’t know how writers like Hansford sleep at night. If he has even a shred of personal integrity, he should apologise for his attacks on the growing number of scientists who say the threat of global warming has been over-sold, and promise to never again write on this subject. And his publisher should accept nothing less.

It appears the Listener’s editor was craven enough to agree.

My name is Dave Hansford.

Until recently, I wrote the Ecologic column in The Listener, including “Some Like it Hot” (March 22, 2008) which looked at media treatment of climate deniers and the NZ Climate Coalition’s links to Exxon through front groups like the Heartland Institute and Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow.

I say “until recently,” because shortly after publication of that column, I was dropped from Ecologic with no valid explanation.

In the Listener’s ‘both sides of the “debate” treatment this week, we appear to have a situation where somebody who presents a page of verifiable, supported facts is summarily dismissed, while somebody else is given free rein to present a page of unsupported misrepresentation, disinformation and plain lies (and I’m not talking about Dave Kelly!).

The Listener will tell you that it is upholding the principle of balance.

Dave Hansford

The conference focussed on moving ahead on tackling climate change. Bryan and his cronies tried to raise a “debate” but were ignored.

grrrr

Hee hee – so much for the Copenhagen consensus then.