Broadsides

Everybody is jumping all over William Broad's piece on Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth in today's New York Times -- and rightly so. The story, which aims to show that scientists are uncomfortable with Gore's movie for being alarmist, uses somewhat dubious sources to advance a rather lame thesis and gets most of its 'facts' -- which are scant to begin with -- wrong in the process. Here's the story. And some of the reaction:

• Carl Pope was early out of the gates this morning with this item in his blog, Taking the Initiative.
• David Roberts went crazy with it over at Grist.
• Also blogging at Grist, Andrew Dressler takes a stab.
• The authors at Real Climate, who had taken issue with Broad's reporting before, are sorely disappointed.
• Other commenters include: Tim Lambert at Deltoid; Chris Mooney at The Intersection; Tom Yulsman at Environmental Journalism Now; Sierra Student Coalition's Nathan Wyeth at It's Getting Hot in Here; and well, it goes on and on.

My only question, the thing I just can't fathom, is why Broad chose to write such a pathetic piece in the first place.