Chris de Freitas

Hypocrisy at the NZ Herald: de Freitas given platform for more climate lies

by Gareth May 27, 2013

When the NZ Climate Science Coalition lost its court case against the New Zealand temperature record last year, the NZ Herald — the newspaper of record for NZ’s largest city — ran an editorial pointing out the stupidity of the climate cranks tactics. It went on to criticise the views of Auckland University’s Chris de [...]

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Climate of complacency #2: de Freitas lies to TV3

by Gareth January 14, 2013

Imagine my shock when I discovered today that Chris de Freitas — the Auckland University academic who hit the news a couple of years ago when it was found that he was teaching climate denial to first year students, but who has a 20 year history of advocating for inaction on climate change — had [...]

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NZ Herald’s turn to offer propaganda as opinion – De Freitas’ links to cranks hidden from readers

by Gareth September 12, 2012

The new “compact” NZ Herald has taken a downmarket tabloid approach to informing its readers by running an opinion piece about the recent courtroom defeat for NZ’s climate cranks by prominent climate sceptic and Auckland University geographer Chris de Freitas, without explaining de Freitas’ long history of association with the cranks he’s defending. In the [...]

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Big coal coughs up for climate denial “conference”, takes NZ sceptics along for the ride

by Gareth May 16, 2012

As US corporate donors step away from the Heartland Institute following their ad campaign likening climate change believers to mass murderers and terrorists, big coal — in the shape of the Illinois Coal Association, supported by all the major US coal companies — has stepped in as a “Gold Sponsor” to support Heartland’s climate “conference” [...]

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Puppets on a string: US think tank funds NZ sceptics

by Gareth January 24, 2012

The Heartland Institute, the US organisation that plays a key role in organised climate denial, has directly funded New Zealand’s most prominent sceptics, a search of US Internal Revenue Service documents has revealed. In 2007, Heartland granted US$25,000 (NZ$32,000) to the NZ Climate “Science” Coalition, sending the money to NZ CSC member Owen McShane. They [...]

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Cranking it out: NZ papers conned by denier media strategy

by cindy January 16, 2012

My inbox in the last month has filled with emails about denier articles in leading New Zealand newspapers. It’s been a veritable crank central across the country. They include the ridiculous opinion piece by Jim Hopkins in the Herald late last year, a similar feature by Bryan Leyland  published in both the DomPost and The [...]

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McLean’s folly 2: the reckoning

by Gareth January 12, 2012

Ten months ago, Aussie “sceptic” John McLean predicted that 2011 would be “the coolest year since 1956″. I pointed out at the time that this was nonsense, and so it has proven to be. I’ve taken the GISS global temperature figure for Jan – Nov 2011 (+0.51ºC compared to the 1951-80 average) and added it [...]

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Jim Hopkins: vapid, vacuous, pretty vacant

by Gareth December 18, 2011

There’s a terrible tyranny in being a columnist for a national newspaper, required to produce entertaining and informative copy every week. It’s a hard job, having an opinion and expressing it cogently. Some writers struggle and succeed, others strive and fail dismally. The NZ Herald — the newspaper of record for NZ’s biggest city — [...]

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Put it there pal: the real story of Chris de Freitas and Climate Research

by Gareth November 30, 2011

The release of another batch of emails from the stash stolen a couple of years ago from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia may not have gained much attention in global media, but there has been a great deal of huffing and puffing at sceptic blogs such as µWatts and Climate [...]

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de Freitas feeds his students sceptic propaganda

by Gareth July 17, 2011

Auckland University associate professor Chris de Freitas has been caught feeding climate denier propaganda to first year geography students. A close examination of the student workbook for de Freitas’ lectures on climate for the University’s core first year geography course reveals that it includes material from sceptic blogs and US think tanks — even a [...]

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