The Politico has issued a sort-of apology for a piss-poor story on climate change that got many people overheated (see this post for my commentary).

From the Politico's Jeanne Cummings (published Nov. 26):

The article in question was never intended to offer a sweeping examination of the scientific support for or against climate change.

It set out only to provide an update on the last hold-outs against global warming given the dramatic shifts — both electorally and in public opinion — against their position.

Politico found them still feisty and readying for a fight despite their diminishing odds.

That’s the part we got right.

Here’s where we slipped: The headline overstated what was in the story. That’s a chronic problem in the industry that might have been mitigated if the article had plainly stated its narrow intent, which it didn’t. It also should have included the challenges to the cited scientific data.

Politico could have moved up the quotes from global warming advocates to provide a more balanced tone to the piece — although it’s not like a reader had to plow through dozens of inches to get to them.

Here's part of a letter in response to the orginal article from Russ Walker and David Roberts, executive editor and staff writer with Grist magazine:

While reasonable people may debate the value of cap-and-trade legislation, and it is certainly worth reporting on how its congressional opponents are strategizing to block it, it is simply false to point to a "growing accumulation" of evidence rendering basic climate science "shaky." There is no such accumulation; there is no such science. If there were, perhaps the author would have cited some of it — it is telling that she did not.

Instead, she relies on the work of Joseph D'Aleo, a meteorologist (meteorology is the study of weather, not climate). D'Aleo's lack of qualifications in climate science would be less relevant if he had published his work on "global cooling" in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Instead, it appears in the Farmers Almanac.

Incidentally, D'Aleo's professional association, the American Meteorological Association, is one of dozens of leading national and international scientific groups to endorse the broad consensus on anthropogenic climate change. For some reason, the author did not reference or quote a single one of the hundreds if not thousands of scientists who might have vouchsafed that consensus (inexplicably, the one countervailing quote is given to Al Gore's spokeswoman). If she had spoken with mainstream climate scientists, she would have discovered that they are not "urging caution" on global warming — they are running around, to paraphrase ex-CIA chief George Tenet, with their hair on fire, increasingly radicalized by the ignorance and delay of the world's governments in the face of the crisis.

Also glossed over is the fact that the organizations backing D'Aleo's work — National Consumer Coalition, Americans for Tax Reform, the National Center for Policy Analysis and Citizens for a Sound Economy — are (for better or worse) conservative interest groups, not science organizations. Similarly, the "Global Warming Petition Project" the author cites is one of the oldest, most discredited hoaxes in the "skeptic" handbook. It first emerged in 1998, when it was promptly disavowed and disowned by the Academy of Sciences. The petition is deceptive: Only a handful of signatories come from relevant scientific disciplines, it is open to signature by anyone willing to fill out an online form and there is no clear way to document the scientific credentials of those who have signed. (One clever blogger signed up his dog.) The petition is rereleased every few years and debunked all over again, inevitably after snookering a few journalists.

The two also offered up this:

Readers interested in learning more about the hoary arguments of climate change skeptics can check out Grist.org's extensive series: http://grist.org/skeptics