UN Rejects Press Credentials for Representatives of US Newspaper

Published November 30, 2007

(CHICAGO, Illinois – December 3, 2007) — As the first goals of the Kyoto Protocol are about to expire, the United Nations is preparing a “Conference of the Parties,” the highest decision-making authority. The meeting will take place in Bali, Indonesia from December 3 to December 5.

But the event lost any claim of impartiality when organizers rejected attempts by representatives of Environment & Climate News to receive press accreditation for the conference.

UN press office coordinator Carrie Assheuer said the newspaper’s representatives “do not meet the criteria for press accreditation.” Environment & Climate News has been in continual publication for 10 years; is sent to more than 75,000 elected officials, opinion leaders, and environmental professionals in the United States; and is one of five newspapers published the by 23-year-old Heartland Institute.

James M. Taylor, managing editor of Environment & Climate News, stated, “Ms. Assheuer’s decision is stunningly totalitarian. Environment & Climate News is an excellent newspaper sent to educate elected officials on the latest developments in climate science for over a decade. We have had dozens of reporters over the years and this is the first time we have had press credentials denied.”

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been criticized in the past for censoring dissenting voices in favor of a pre-determined political outcome. Even strong cautions were widely ignored, as in the Second Order Draft Comments (Chapter 6; section 6-42), when Eric Steig cautioned, “In general, the certainty with which this chapter presents our understanding of abrupt climate change is overstated. There is confusion between hypothesis and evidence throughout the chapter.”

A dissenting group of distinguished scientists from the International Climate Science Coalition, representing Africa, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States, will be available for advice and counsel in Bali, but they expect to be ignored at the conference as European liberal politicians monopolize the agenda and allow for no dissent.

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