Tuesday, 24 November 2009

Even the ABC gets sloppy when it goes online


On November 18 ABC Radio's AM program online record for that morning ran with this headline "Australia still highest per capita carbon emitter".
However when you open the link what is actually said is; "MICHAEL RAUPACH: In the basket of developed countries we compare obviously with the US whose emissions are almost flat at the moment, countries like Canada, with the European Union. And in almost all of those cases we exceed the emissions rates of those countries."
So the ABC is insisting that Australia is still highest while one of the authors of the report in question is cleverly ducking giving a direct reply to the radio interviewer's incorrect statement by switching the focus to growth rates.

What is really happening here?
The interviewer is being told that Australia is not the highest carbon dioxide emitter in terms of growth rates, isn't the highest carbon dioxide emitter on a per capita basis and isn't the leading developed nation carbon dioxide emitter on the same per capita basis.
Everyone else seems to know that this country is very slowly falling down the ranks of carbon dioxide gas producers per head of population (now behind the United States if the very thorough International Energy Agency 2009 figures compute), so why on earth is the ABC indulging in sensationalist headlines that reek of The Telegraph's haphazard approach?
Why did Sarah Clarke insist that Australia's CO2 emissions were still rising according to the Carbon Budget 2008 when anyone reading this report and number sets can see that the nation's Co2 was down by 4,918 units last year.
Is the ABC making a bid to be accepted into the University of East Bumcrack School of Journalism?

Smart Aleck
Woolgoolga

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