2014 warmest year

Andrew Revkin has this commentary at the New York Times: How ‘Warmest Ever’ Headlines and Debates Can Obscure What Matters About Climate Change. I will argue below that Revkin has, inadvertently or not, linked a science denialist trope to the important scientific finding that 2014 is the warmest year on record, as part of his presumably well intentioned effort to focus on trends rather than individual points. (See his comment on this blog below.) Yes, the trend is more important than a given data point, but the headline does not really obscure, but rather, underscores. I'm afraid the…
The New York Times put the news of 2014 being the warmest year on their front page, in the precious space known as "Above The Fold." But, the venerable paper of record continues to give credence to science denialists by calling them "skeptics," and continues to imply that there really is a debate between consensus based science and politically motivated denial of science. To underscore this point I created the above graphic. I would also like to congratulate the Washington Post for putting this piece by Joby Warrick and Chris Mooney on the front of section A1. And, TIME has also placed…