Bob Friel Responds

[CTLBob]

Hi All,

First, let me make clear that this has nothing at all to do with sun and fun Caribbean travel except in the biggest of big pictures. If you're looking for a great vacation or to interact with all the fellow travelers on this web site, please don't waste your time with this particular forum. This is a tangential discussion of global warming prompted by a short section in an article I wrote... actually, it was prompted by the letters that my article prompted. I really didn't expect that kind of response so far into this global warming issue, but hey it happened and the letters/complaints deserve a response from me.

The two times I mentioned global warming in CT&L drew the same response: Letters (a half dozen the first time and maybe a dozen this time) from those who don't agree that man is causing an accelerated rate of atmospheric heating primarily through the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation. I've responded personally to nearly all the letter writers and had nice back and forths with all but the most extreme. This public response will touch on a few issues and will, necessarily, be bloggy and long and maybe rambling and probably not entertaining (and, by the way, only reflects my opinion, not CT&L's).

I'll try to take care of a few points quickly at the top, so feel free to stop reading whenever I hit your particular objection. And seriously, if you're looking for great Caribbean travel stories, you've got the magazine and the rest of this web site, which don't have anything to do with this issue - no need to spend your time here with these rants.

THE ENVIRONMENT?
Why address the environment in CT&L? If there's one of the universal issues that does deserve at least a little space in a travel magazine that covers a region that totally depends on its natural attractions to draw tourists, it's the environment. While most environmental coverage tends toward either the preachy or the wonky, we decided to make it more palatable by using my back page column to address it with some humor in the form of a Q&A.

THE ORIGINAL LETTERS
I was more than a little shocked to hear that several readers thought that the letters in that article were real. With names like Barbie Dreamhaus, Fester Boyle and Joe Sithpack, I was pretty sure that wouldn't happen. I used the fake Q&A as a device to bring up various environmental issues. None of these were real people except my mom (who didn't really write the letter yelling at me for calling a Senator names) and the Senator, Sen. Inhofe of Oklahoma. And no, the Senator didn't really write that letter; his quote was taken directly from a speech he gave on the floor of the Senate.

THE "DEBATE"
As to the "debate" (quotation marks used intentionally) on global warming: As I've said before, I strongly believe that there is no longer a scientific (that's scientific) debate about whether man-made global warming actually exists. I believe this not as an article of faith that was communicated to me via any celebrity, documentary, talk radio blobberator, science fiction novel, or keynote speaker at either a butterflies-are-free or oil-is-our-friend convention. I believe it as a journalist with a science background and a highly tuned BS detector.

What does exist is a special-interest-driven political argument purposely posed and positioned in the media as a scientific "debate." And just as with religion and politics, there is no reasonable way to debate those who hold any position for ideological reasons. This argument taking place on talk radio and talk tv and all over the web is trying to drown out the science, which thankfully, as science always does, has moved on.

There is certainly legitimate scientific debate as to the scale, time frame, particular forcings and ultimate consequences of global warming, but there is no legitimate scientific debate over the fact that man's actions have caused global temperatures to rise more than they would naturally and that rising temperatures are having real effects on all the world's ecosystems. If you're the type of person who insists on getting their "facts" from a single source in the media or from a set of aligned media sources that are telling you that this is all hooey, an anti-capitalist conspiracy, a liberal Chicken Little whine, just a way for researchers and environmental organizations to raise money, or you've decided that any issue that has Al Gore or Sheryl Crow or Leonardo DiCaprio or any other person you hate on one side then you HAVE to be on the other no matter what the facts are, then you can just curse me and stop reading here. If, however, you're a reasonable person open to facts and science, I will include links to the most objective factual sources I know on the subject - along with some subjective sources from what may seem (if you believe this is all political) surprising arenas.

SCIENCE?
One reader questioned why I was even allowed to comment on the subject as a "writer with no science background." I'm certainly not a scientist; I believe that designation belongs to those working in the field. I do, however, have a degree in marine science and I worked as a research assistant for three years at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences in Florida. That, plus the 20 or so years of reporting that has often included environmental topics does, I believe, give me a pretty decent background from which to comprehend and comment on scientific issues and studies.

I first became aware of global warming in 1988 when I lived in the Republic of Maldives. The issue is acute there, as that entire nation will be among the first to be abandoned as the sea level rises further (most of the islands in the archipelago are about three feet above sea level). I've followed the issue closely - along with many other issues that directly effect the seas, small islands, coral reefs and fisheries - since then.


THE BUTT OSTRICH
The back page column is a limited space. Not only didn't I have space for those other fake letters listed above in my post "And Furthermore," but I didn't have room to include any background on Sen. Inhofe's battle with science. My name-calling was totally schoolyard and intentionally over-the-top. And to keep with that theme, let me say: He started it!

Senator Inhofe has a long history of labeling anyone who doesn't agree with his "man-made global warming is a hoax" position an "extremist," "elitist," "alarmist" or even an "Al Gore." All of which is meant to be very insulting. As I wrote in the current issue of the magazine, I certainly didn't mean to offend the sensibilities of any CT&L readers, who are, in my opinion, the most intelligent, tasteful and best-looking readership out there. I even chided myself as a juvenile in the very next "letter" to call attention to it being over-the-top. But, if you were offended by the words I used or the mental image of an actual butt ostrich or of Sen. Inhofe in a physically painful position, then I sincerely apologize. It definitely lacked taste and certainly was below the level of discourse always seen in CT&L. My only defense is that, like all thoughtful uses of profanity, it was done for effect.

"Butt Ostrich" was meant to signal the outrage that we all should feel about anyone, like Sen. Inhofe, who thinks they can get away with abusing the power granted to them by the people and who thinks they can get away with helping their sponsors pollute OUR water OUR air and otherwise damage OUR environment. Why do we always forget that, as Americans, it's completely up to us to let people ruin the environment of the United States or to prevent them from doing so? No person and no company has the right to ruin the things held for our common good or to damage our health and the health and futures of our kids... unless we or our elected representatives let them.

So, would I apologize to Sen. Inhofe as some have suggested? Nope. Besides, a man in his position would be unable to hear me.

POLITICS
I find it entertaining that some readers have written in complaining about my political agenda. My piece was about the environment, which I don't consider a political issue. The environment effects us all the same. A Democrat's health is damaged just as easily as a Republican's or a Whig's or a Green's or a No Nothing's when he or she eats mercury-laden fish, breathes air or drinks water carrying carcinogens or hormone-mimicking petrochemicals, etc. Me: I was a registered Independent up until four years ago. (And as for elitist tree-hugger: I'm middle class from Philly, I've worked as a roofer, painter and dive instructor as well as a writer; I fish and shoot and I own a chain saw that has indeed tasted the sap of its natural prey.)

[CTLBob]

There's nothing political about what I wrote and I would have written the same bit (and used the same name) about a Democratic Senator if, in fact, it was a Democrat that had been, for years, the lead industry mouthpiece in a coordinated and well-funded campaign to stand in the way of any meaningful action on this issue at the Federal level. (Fortunately, as we're a republic, U.S. States have a lot of independence, and it's a big group of governors and mayors - Rep and Dem - that are working to get the U.S. back in the position as leader on important global security issues such as global warming. At present count, 28 states along with 159 cities and local governments have enacted programs to reduce their greenhouse emissions. Of course, for those who say that global warming is some kind of anti-capitalist conspiracy organized either by the United Nations or China or the creatures from the planet Paranoy who beam their thoughts into your head whenever you don't wear enough tin foil inside your fedora, U.S. businesses would really really prefer that the Feds to be the ones doing something about this so they, industry, don't have to deal with the inefficiency of potentially dozens of different state regulations and caps.)

Anyway... this article not political. I take no position that Republicans are bad for the environment and Democrats good. Teddy Roosevelt, a Rep, was big on national parks; even Richard Nixon gets props for establishing the Environmental Protection Agency; and it was during the administration of George H. W. Bush (George the father), that the U.S. hosted the plenary meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He also led the U.S. to sign the Framework Convention on Climate Change and, get this, he called on world leaders for "concrete action to protect the planet" from man-made global warming.

Clinton didn't get much accomplished in his eight years, though he did have Newt Gingrich gnawing at him at almost every step. And now George the son's administration has energetically tried to undo everything that was done for the good of the environment by both sides of the aisle, from strangling Teddy Roosevelt's parks to neutering Nixon's EPA and letting industries write their own tickets when it comes to how their pollution is regulated. He's also, obviously, had the opposite ideas on global warming than his father did. So, does it mean it's political if you think that's bad??? No, it means you care about democracy and your country and/or you care about your kids and anyone who depends on a healthy environment... which is all of us.

The global warming issue has actually been around a long time. And it's been understood, at the highest levels of U.S. government, that man was having effects on the earth's climate as far back as the Johnson administration:
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/31/AR2007013101808.html
So Democrats as well as Republicans have dropped the ball on it. Fortunately, there's so much evidence of what's going on and so much more general awareness of how it's going to effect national security (http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2004/02/09/360120/index.htm; http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?alias=armies-must-ready-for-glo;), the economy, food and water supplies, and our health as well as that of the natural systems, that the claims that this is a bell being rung by tree-huggers or elitists or liberals (or any other paint-brush catch phrase that's used by the bloviators in the hopes that their loyal listeners will immediately discount whatever comes after it) is absolutely ludicrous. When the pentagon and the CEOs of chemical companies (http://www.us-cap.org/) are ringing that bell, it becomes pretty hard for certain ideologues or their water boys and girls to say that this is a tune and issue played only by sissies.

Here are a few pieces that come from what may some may find as a surprising side of the street:

Here's a speech from Republicans for Environmental Protection: http://www.rep.org/opinions/speeches/70.html

And a conservative perspective on "Facts and Myths about Global Warming."
http://www.rep.org/news/GEvol5/ge5.1_globalwarming.html

And a position paper that discusses the IPCC and global warming:
http://www.repamerica.org/policy/climate.html

What IS obviously political (meaning that there's a deep self-interest buried somewhere), is the position of trying to deny that there is a man-made component to global warming. Simply follow the money and lobbying efforts and make up your own mind.

www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/hotpolitics/reports/manipulation.html
If you have a knee-jerk reaction against PBS, then go to the Washington Post:
Saturday, February 10, 2007: The company [Exxon Mobil] has been the poster child of denial among those convinced of global warming. In 2001, it pressed the Bush administration to remove an outspoken scientist from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In 2005, a White House official accused of altering scientific reports to cast more doubt on global warming went to work for the company.
The company has also been accused of financing policy groups as surrogates for sowing doubts about the causes of global warming. The Competitive Enterprise Institute received about $2 million over seven years.

Original article here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/09/AR2007020902081_pf.html

Or see how this org examines one company, Exxon, and the way it tracks how the oil company has funded climate change skepticism (you'll find Inhofe has his own funded family tree inside): http://www.exxonsecrets.org/
As to Inhofe… that screwheaded, morally and intellectually bankrupted gentleman of the Senate deserves all the scorn that I and anyone else who cares about having clean air to breath, clean water to drink (and simply fill in anything else that's in the public trust - meaning it belongs to all of us and no one should have the right to ruin it and our health and the health and welfare of future generations) or who cares about American democracy can heap on him. Aside from global warming, one of Inhofe's many greatest hits against the environment and democracy was when, as chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (fortunately he lost that position last year after the mid-terms), he hired a coal industry lobbyist, John Shanahan, to oversee clean air legislation. Any objective problem to that? Is that defensible? Do you have to be of the opposite political party to see that there's a problem with the industry that's a primary polluter of our nation's air being made responsible for clean air legislation? Or is there common sense somewhere?

REAL SCIENCE
As to the actual science... Who do you want to believe? You could (SARCASM ALERT) pick Sen. Inhofe's favorite scientist, science-fiction writer Michael Crichton. Or any number of official-sounding think tanks (that are really just lobbying orgs) that put out global warming position papers (Funny story: There are organizations working the denial side of global warming that also worked the denial side of the "second hand smoke is dangerous" issue.).

Or you could believe, say NASA's top scientists:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20070530/ "NASA and Columbia University Earth Institute research finds that human-made greenhouse gases have brought the Earth's climate close to critical tipping points, with potentially dangerous consequences for the planet."

Or NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies, which has been tasked with looking at climate change. Its web site has a lot of great data and educational materials:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/

Or how about the National Geographic Society? Not exactly a hot bed of liberalism and extremely well-known for getting their facts straight...
http://green.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/gw-causes.html

Or maybe the for-scientists-by-scientists publications:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=C053EDAB-E7F2-99DF-356454A74454CBEB&sc=I100322
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000DA7C0-FBE9-1239-BBE983414B7F0000
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11462
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/search?&search_submit.y=7&search_submit.x=13&site_area=sci&fulltext=global+warming&src=hw&sortspecbrief=date&sortspec=date
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/
http://www.realclimate.org/

Or even the Environmental Protection Agency
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/index.html

Or how about simply going straight to the most strenuous scientific review of any issue ever (reviewed by more than 2,500 climate scientists): the IPCC. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was set up to periodically review all the latest data and studies on the world's climate. You can read all its reports here: http://www.ipcc.ch/

[CTLBob]

THE DENIERS
I don't want to go through and refute all the denier arguments. One reader, Zon (who, as I said in the magazine, seems like a real nice guy and even offered to debate on a beach over drinks) listed a number of arguments that have all been soundly debunked numerous times elsewhere. What concerns me about this, though, is that regular people with busy lives, who don't have time to read the scientific journals for themselves, keep hearing this noise from deniers that makes it sound like there's an actual scientific debate going on about whether man is causing increased global warming. Fortunately, science has moved on to the important questions of better measuring the warming rates and better understanding carbon sinks and feedback loops in the seas, the arctic tundra and ice sheets, etc.

I spend a lot of time meeting readers on beaches and boats and I always enjoy talking to them over drinks. This, however, is really not something we should debate over if we ever meet. I'm happy to talk fishing or diving or favorite islands, but the existence of global warming is, as I've said, not a debate to me. Zon, a lawyer, claimed he'd be able to convince me using his research that there's no such thing as man-made global warming. His letter is posted on this forum as "The Facts?" and he lists his evidence, like volcanoes and water vapor etc (I'll ignore his "religious" comment that's remarkably similar to one made by Sen. Inhofe and repeated by Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh among others).

To check out (debunk) all Zon's arguments (sorry Zon, I’m not picking on you; you're just the one who laid out the most denial positions) and any of the other "debates" you hear, simply follow the following link (or, again if you think this is just political, use the Republican web site instead: http://www.rep.org/news/GEvol5/ge5.1_globalwarming.html).

This, however, is the best, most exhaustive site on global warming myths and realities that I've seen, and references many supporting links: http://gristmill.grist.org/skeptics

A couple of other interesting links I've just seen...
http://www.theseminal.com/2007/07/05/the-psychology-of-global-warming-deniers/
http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2007/may/policy/js_comment.html

FUTURE POSTS
Well, this was exhausting... I mean fun. I will check back in with this forum, but I can't promise that I'll have the time to post. If you want to debate hockey stick graphs or solar flares or whether polar bears really need sea ice or if they should just buy water wings, I'll probably have to simply refer you to scientific studies. We're very busy working on a gigantic CT&L 100 package for our next issue, and no matter what you believe about global warming, I hope that you'll tune in for that.

See you on the beach,
Bob Friel

[greg.holochwost@verizon.net]

Bob,
I read Zon's and the other replies and was ready to zip off my first ever letter to editor. This, in fact, is first time I've done sent something in in any form. I've been sailing (licensed USCG Captain) for close to 40years throughout the US and for 20 in the Caribbean. I really can't top your response. In this day and age, I don't understand how anybody except the energy industry and their hack scientist can dispute Global Warming and our contribution to it. Then again, 41% of Americans still believe Hussein had something to do with 9/11. Me, I'm heading for the islands for good in a few months and try to enjoy them responsibly while they are still there.

[CTLBob]

Congratulations on the move, Greg. I hope it's all smooth sailing and safe harbors.

Bob

[coppermoon]

It is difficult for me to believe so many people STILL don't believe in global warming - yes, there are scientific reasons for some of what is going on, but darn, there are a whole lot of other things going on that are not just normal weather patterns.

The islands (and the world) are in danger and there are none so blind as those who will not see. The flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil can set off a storm in Texas. Isn't that an amazing statement? Physicists call this theory "The Butterfly Effect" to explain how the breeze produced by a butterfly's wings could set off a series of reverberations that over time have a tremendous affect on weather patterns thousands of miles away. If a butterfly can do that, do we humans think that spewing tons of carbons into the air, cutting rainforests down, or polluting the ocean will not affect anything?

As for Senator Inhofe, I think you were much more polite than I would have been, Bob - I've watched this Senator's record and he is definitely a part of the problem but never a part of the solution.

The islands of the Caribbean are incredibly beautiful - we should all be trying to protect them, not sleeping through their destruction. Wake up, people - Bob is telling the truth.

[Jonasher]

There's little value in arguing the various political aspects of Global Warming. Whether man-made or natural, none of us can deny this is happening, and drastic measures must be undertaken immediately to slow this disaster down.

With that said I think it's appropriate to comment on Mr. Friel's statements, but not from an impassioned position that some have taken that CT&L shouldn't be addressing topics like this. On the contrary, CT&L is EXACTLY the right place because one assumes that if you're reading the publication you're already familiar with, or are desirious of becoming familiar with all things Caribbean.

To suggest that CT&L ignore this issue is akin to those who read Sports Illustrated who suggest that it shouldn't cover topics as controversial as NBA refs with gambling problems, football players who apparently participate in dog fighting and HGH and steroid-filled baseball players who have literally become larger than life. Some purists believe the magazine should stick to sports coverage -- but these nasty subjects are very much sports coverage.

The same holds true for CT&L and Global Warming or any other "difficult" subject related to the Caribbean: This is the place those stories should appear and we readers are the ones who need to know these things.

Now, let me quickly make a couple of relevant points. First, I have been visiting the Caribbean for almost 30 years and have seen many islands, many people and many changes. Second, I have been a reader of CT&L for many years. Third and last, by profession I am both a writer and photographer, so I might look at some subjects a bit differently than some of you.

Over the years I have angered the staff of this magazine by having written a few letters and sent in a few photos that "disputed" stories that appeared within its pages. In almost every instane I was complaining about CT&L having obscured the real facts about a place by printing photos that were no longer factual, or by writing glowing puff-pieces that I knew to simply be untrue.

We need to recognize that CT&L is basically a promotional tool for the Caribbean islands. It is not going to discuss poverty in Dominca or the DR, it is not going to outline deteriorating reef conditions in the USVI nor is it going to discuss things like the street demonstrations that took place in St. Vincent prior to the visit of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. That's not the magazine's intent.

Any article that portrays a completely factual picture of any island is going to result in a loss of advertising revenue, so it's just not going to happen, which means, like it or not, that CT&L does not provide a truly honest picture of the subjects it covers. That might help explain why I have heard dozens of people referring to it as "Caribbean Travel & Lies."

Harsh, but true.

CT&L can provide anyone with a basic picture of what some portions of the Caribbean are like, but any potential traveler should do extensive research beyond its pages to get a real idea of what they're going to experience when they get there in person.

Bob Friel's editorial comments were overdue in CT&L. It was refreshing to see an honestly written piece in a magazine that has a widespread and deserved reputation for being little more than a propaganda arm of the islands, hotels and restaurants it regularly heaps praise upon with nary a negative word.


Jon Asher
Glorieta, New Mexico

[CTLBob]

Well, this is a difficult one to respond to. First, thanks for the support on the global warming content; I obviously agree that CT&L is a venue for that kind of issue that will have a profound effect on the region. Second, I disagree with pretty much everything else you said.
I know a little about the editorial content of CT&L because I’ve been with the magazine since 1999, and was its editor in chief from 2002 until this past January. During the time I was editor in chief, I had complete control over the editorial content and there was never, never, a time when it served as a propaganda arm for anyone, nor was it ever a promotional tool.
I read every letter that ever came to the magazine during my tenure. I’m not saying you didn’t write to us, but I don’t remember any letters or photographs from anyone “complaining about CT&L having obscured the real facts about a place by printing photos that were no longer factual, or by writing glowing puff-pieces that I knew to simply be untrue.”
Like any publication, there were a few (literally a few) times over the last 8 years when we may have erred on a fact or printed a photo that, because of something like a recent hurricane, was instantly outdated. But NEVER was anything like that done as propaganda or promotion, and certainly not to distort facts.
One thing that should be totally, perfectly, clear: CT&L never does what you’re inferring, it never trades or gives positive editorial coverage in exchange for advertising. There’s a sales staff and an editorial staff, with no crossover. Edit people don’t deal with advertisers and sales people don’t dictate editorial. There are magazines that operate that way, but CT&L absolutely does not.
I find many of your comments really naïve. CT&L is a travel magazine, not Newsweek or a Peace Corps primer. I could go to anyplace in the world, not just the Caribbean, and report on poverty. I could go to any reader’s home and without having to drive 10 miles, say to Pecos, do a heart-wrenching story on poverty. Would that poverty problem reflect what it would be like to visit that reader’s home? Or your home? Couldn’t I do a valid travel story about visiting that reader’s neighborhood – to visit his local museum, or park, or beach -- without mentioning the fact that just five miles down the road were poor people? Does the fact that there are poor homes on the other side of town flavor my take on the reader’s home? Do I have to say that I can’t really enjoy staying in his nice home because a few miles away there are shacks?
I could also do a crime story much closer than 10 miles from any reader’s home. Would that story about petty theft or bank robbery or murder reflect that reader? Or his home or the vacation possibilities of his city or state?
Of course there’s poverty in the Caribbean. And AIDS and drugs and abuse and and and. And there’s the same, only more, within one mile of CT&L’s home office and within a short distance of wherever you are. The U.S. is consistently one of the world’s top tourist destinations… Do people come here to tour our poverty? Is that what international travel magazines should be focusing on? Come to America and do the crack whore tour of LA?
Well, CT&L doesn’t do stories focusing on the crime or poverty of Caribbean destinations. Demonstrations about Hugo Chavez? That’s a news story. CT&L is published 9X, what value is it to a vacationer to know that there was a street demonstration about a politician’s visit maybe six months before they plan to go? CT&L is a travel magazine. People travel for many reasons, and thankfully few of them include rubbernecking ghettos among their top desires. CT&L’s brief, unabashedly, is to say to our readers, “Follow us and we’ll find a good time in all the destinations of the Caribbean.” We don’t waste anyone’s time on taking a tour of all the things NOT to see and not to do and places not to stay. Why would we? What purpose would that serve anyone except maybe people who’d already decided they were never going to leave their house and were looking for validation that the world isn’t all butterflies and lollipops?
And there’s no pretense with CT&L; there’s no attitude like in some other publications that we absolutely must take the pose of finding places or things to whine or complain about in every story just to validate the writer's sense that he or she is better than everyone else. When (not if, it’s a when) we find things that don’t meet standards (when we don’t think any of our readers would find value in certain hotels or whatever) we simply don’t cover them. What a waste of paper, ink and resources to do a magazine story only to tell the reader at the end of it NOT to go there. When we find things like that, we just don’t run the story and instead save the space for something that is worthwhile visiting.
Your charge of lying is extremely serious. I speak to professional freelance writers nearly every day, and never heard anyone refer to CTL as Travel & Lies. I’ll make a point of actively checking this out with writers who regularly deal with the Caribbean to see who if anyone is saying this and what possible reason there could be.
You also mentioned things like us not talking about deteriorating reef conditions. You specified the USVI, but in fact we’ve written that they’ve deteriorated all throughout the Caribbean. We’ve also done stories on IWC member’s efforts to lobby the Caribbean to help restart commercial whaling. And we’ve done stories on controversial developments; we’ve done stories with definite negative takes on what we believe are bad developments or overdevelopment (all of which were about resorts and were all advertisers or potential advertisers). And we’ve also done stories on how our readers can donate to Caribbean charities, and profiles on people working to alleviate poverty in the region. I know because I’ve either written, or assigned and edited those stories. And not one of them lost advertisers, just like no piece we ever did on the best Caribbean beaches or our picks for top beach resorts or whatever was ever done to gain an advertiser or promote an advertiser.
Something you apparently don’t understand about magazines is that unless you are prostituting your editorial (and that is very easy to spot in magazines that operate that way), the way you get your advertising is to attract the right kind of readership. Age, income, education, etc, all the demographics have to fit. For CT&L’s advertisers, one of the most important values they’re looking for is that the audience be frequent travelers, specifically to the Caribbean. The advertisers who buy space in Caribbean Travel & Life do so because they know it gets their ad in front of people who love the Caribbean, are interested in the Caribbean, and frequently travel to the Caribbean. Why that kind of reader has the magazine in their hands in the first place is because of the quality and value of the editorial content.
So, in short, I know for a fact that your take on CT&L is a load of crap.

[kirbychristian]

As a longtime reader and subscriber to CT&L, I have to (gasp!) agree with Bob on this one. I don't subscribe to read about news, crime, protests, etc. in the Caribbean. I subscribe so I can read about all the beautiful places I hope to visit. I subscribe so I can get ideas of cool things to do once I get there. I subscribe because I can't afford to travel to the Caribbean as often as I'd like to and reading articles on places I've been brings back great memories that hold me over until my next trip.

That being said, I still disagree with Bob on using such a crass term as "butt ostrich"...but it's his article, he can write what he wants. And it's my right to turn the page if I don't agree...there's so much other good stuff to read in the magazine.

The thing that really bothers me is that this is the only part of the CT&L forum with any activity lately. That's a shame!

[CTLBob]

Kirbychristian, I agree with you (without even having to gasp). It'll be nice to get back to some juicy trip reports.

We put this forum up here because that piece stirred up some readers and we want to give them a place to speak their mind about what I've written. What most people probably don't realize is that magazine editors and writers love the feedback even when it's negative. For one, it shows that there's somebody out there actually reading instead of lost in 300 channels of cable tv or hunched over a keyboard all night!

The actual process of putting together a magazine (after all the wonderful travel is done) can be pretty harsh and the writing and creating layouts is a lonely business. Then you give birth to an issue that has absorbed your entire life for a month, and... and... the worst thing is to not get any feedback at all. We see sales reports so we know there are people buying the magazine at newsstands, and we know we have our loyal subscribers, but we always wonder how well the different pieces went over with the readers. Did you like this article?, hate that cover? Did Bob tick you off again? Unless there's feedback, then it's just a void. The negative feedback is also always instructive.

What I'm going to suggest to our web gurus now, is to put up another new forum, one where we can combine the best of the trip reporting that you guys do in other forums with a feedback loop to the editors. We want you to let us know when you find great things that we should cover -- after all, there are 152,000 of you out there traveling and only 8 of us plus our freelancers. Find us some great bars for the Lively Up department, or interesting characters, new Day Trips, etc. and we'll go check them out. Maybe you can even send in some topics or questions I can use for Bob's Back Page...

Look for the new thread soon.

Best,

Bob

[cavedogg]

Bob, you have spent most of your time here reciting the scientific evidence that you believe supports your view that man's activities are contributing significantly to global warming and denouncing evidence that reaches an opposite conclusion. The one issue that you have not spent much time talking about is your journalistic judgement in letting your article go forward.

Let me be clear about my specific concern. I am not in that group of readers who thinks that the subject of global warming shouldn't be addressed in your magazine. In fact I thought your response to jonasher was rather unconvincing. I don't see how you justify opening the door to political advocacy of one issue that affects folks travelling in the Caribbean (global warming and yes, it is a POLITICAL issue Bob) and close the door to other political issues that also affect folks travelling in the Caribbean (crime and poverty).

I thought the letter writer Mr. Garrison ("Missed Opportunity") was right on the mark. Let readers have all the various perspectives in an informative, readable format without all the perjoratives and emotional hectoring that the "true believers" on each side (Inhofe on one side and Friel on the other) try to bombastically impale us folks in the middle with who are trying to sort it all out and make up our minds. You stated in one of your letters that you are a former editor of this magazine and seem to know a fair amount about the importance of demographics and providing content tailored to your readership. I don't have access to your demographic data Bob, but I would be willing to lay a bet that an article with the kind of puerile, thumb in your eye attitude that your article reflects is not even close to what most of your readership wants or expects. I do think a major reason you wrote this article was because it made you feel good to call Inhofe a "butt ostrich" I remember doing somthing like this Bob-- when I was a features writer for my my high school newspaper.

This whole, "It's OK for me to call Inhofe names because he started it" excuse is really silly. You seem politically attuned enough to know that in politics, calling people names such as "alarmist and extremist" is so ho-hum-- it happens every day. It's just politics. One side says something and then the other side says something (Gore calls those who disagree with him "deniers"-- Get it? People who disagree with Gore really know unequivocally that Gore is right bit they are too evil and self absorbed to do anything about it)?

So you want to get down in the mud and play this game too and splay it out on the pages of CTL for all to see?

Finally your excuse that your sophomoric rhetoic is OK because Inhofe "thinks [he] can get away with abusing the power granted to [him] by the people and [he] thinks [he] can get away with helping [his] sponsors pollute OUR water OUR air and otherwise damage OUR environment" is just rhetoical bluster to try to justify your poor journalistic judgement. You have no evidence that Inhofe "thinks he can get away with abusing power". Inhofe just has a political disagreement with you.

In sum, Bob, the subject matter was probably right for your magazine, but you probably should have ha somebody else write the article because the one you wrote makes you look small and petty.

[optimysticalmandy]

It is what it is people! Lordy, leave the man alone. He has addressed the Inhofe name calling, he corrected many a people's INCORRECT understanding of how it is Man's ACTIONS that are ADDING to Global Warming. Bob stated that he said quite a bit for affect. By the way peeps...........It is a real issue. Not only man's actions but climate (El Nino/El Nina), Fire's/Volcanic eruptions/earthquakes/probably even space travel...............who knows!!

And Bob, for the record, I mostly...... laughed my backside off. Loved the letter from Mom! Perfect where you placed it in the article, scolded yourself didn't you, before everyone else could.
By the way people, would you actually even be thinking this was Political if Inhofe wasn't mentioned in this article? Take him out of the equation and truly answer that. Can't find/attach it to political standing can you? I know I can't.

Maybe we'll see ya on the beach someday Bob,

optimysticalmandy

[CTLBob]

No worries about the posters letting me have it -- that's what this forum is about: To let them vent. (Not that CT&L can really afford to have me spend much time debating ideologues, which is, by reasonable definition, not even possible). But... you'll be happy to know that we're getting a big email response similar to your posting from readers who "got" the article, understood the intent, appreciated the pokes in different directions at those who need to be paying attention to various environmental issues that they have control over -- resorts, developers, tourists, govt -- and even got the use of humor. So, thanks! And yes, see you on the beach where I'm happy to not talk politics.

To Cavedogg,
Bombastic, puerile, silly, small, petty and having poor journalistic judgement... did I get them all? That's the most names I've been called in a single post or email -- so congratulations.

Some of these posts really make me wonder if anyone actually read the original article. Instead of 50 or so words, one fake letter out of 10, it sounds like I wrote a 12-page cover story on how we should all turn our backs on capitalism and go live in yurts and anyone who doesn't agree is not going to heaven. And that I said Ayn Rand is a poopie pants. (Oh yeah: Cavedogg, you also inferred that I was at the journalistic level that you were at in high school.)

I don't know what else to say that I haven't said in other too-long posts, but I guess it's worth adressing again about the politics. Funny... I have a feeling that only those for whom this actually IS a political issue accuse me of using it as a political issue, or as Cavedogg said "I don't see how you justify opening the door to political advocacy of one issue that affects folks travelling in the Caribbean (global warming and yes, it is a POLITICAL issue Bob) and close the door to other political issues that also affect folks travelling in the Caribbean (crime and poverty)."

Sorry, but there's absolutely no politics for me in this issue. (The issue that we're talking about, by the way, is whether man-made global warming exists). This is a 100% science issue that, unfortunately, has been clouded by extreme views on both sides of the political fence and used for ideological reasons. I've already addressed the fact that I would have called out someone of any political affiliation who was such a punk of a poster child for willful ignorance like Inhofe. (And as to using the name-calling for effect: Hopefully, that got a few people interested enough to do a little research themselves on the issue.)

Anway, it's totally disingenuine to call it a political issue. How the heck would politicians figure out what's happening to the atmosphere? They're too busy worrying about reelection and how to get around whatever new ethics laws are being passed. It's a science issue and it's been settled. The confusion and disinformation on all of this is mindboggling. Of course, that's the whole idea of the denial machine. Newsweek just did a big cover story on global warming denial, even using "hoax" on the cover and basically putting out all the things I've posted here over the last month about Exxon, Inhofe, the cigarette connection, the whole obfuscating mess. Within seconds of the issue going out, there were postings on their website of such breathtakingly ignorant ad hominem attacks that it would make your head spin.

Anyway, me, this article, the magazine, politics:

Global warming and its man-made component is about facts, not politics and NOT opininion. You don't agree to disagree with someone's OPINION that gravity doesn't exist. Arguing one side of a scientific issue for which there's solid data by using an opinion that's not backed up by fact or is backed up by demonstrably erroneous information is not going to get anyone far in a scientific debate. It only works on tv talking-head shows, which unfortunately have helped perpetuate the belief among so many that there is a genuine scientific debate about the simple yes or no about the existence of a man-made component to climate change.

A genuine POLITICAL debate in which opinions and gut feelings on this issue that WOULD be valid is whether there's anything we need to actually do about global warming or not. Do we just wait and retreat from the coast if necessary, shift food production if necessary, relocate people who live on low-lying islands if necessary, etc, etc. But that's not what the people who wrote in wanted to talk about. They either wanted to upbraid me for the crude language (which I totally understand) or to say I was wrong to assume there's such a thing as man-made global warming. And to that, I'm happy to quote the science.

Science, science, science. Facts, data, research. No, Cavedogg, whether there's such a thing as man-made global warming is definitely not a political issue. It's an observable phenomenon. What's political is the blanket of BS that ideologues have chosen to throw over it because they worry it will hurt their vested interests OR because they're blinded by hatred (again mostly because of ideology) of those who are calling attention to the issue.

My journalistic judgement? Me being bombastic, silly, etc? Sure, that's something where opinion comes in and where your opinion is certainly as valid as the next reader. You say I haven't addressed that... well, I did, at length in previous posts.

[cavedogg]

"My journalistic judgement? . . . You say I haven't addressed that... well, I did, at length in previous posts."

That's nice Bob, except I never claimed that you failed to address it, just that the reasons you gave in attempting to defend your editorial judgement were unsound. Re-read my previous post.

It is hard for me to believe that you would expect a serious person to accept that using this sort of invective in a magazine that has the kind of demographics like CT&L is a good editorial decision.

[cavedogg]

Survey: Less Than Half of All Published Scientests Endorse Global Warming Theory
Comprehensive survey of published climate research reveals changing viewpoints.

In 2004, history professor Naomi Oreskes performed a survey of research papers on climate change. Examining peer-reviewed papers published on the ISI Web of Science database from 1993 to 2003, she found a majority supported the "consensus view," defined as humans were having at least some effect on global climate change. Oreskes' work has been repeatedly cited, but as some of its data is now nearly 15 years old, its conclusions are becoming somewhat dated.

Medical researcher Dr. Klaus-Martin Schulte recently updated this research. Using the same database and search terms as Oreskes, he examined all papers published from 2004 to February 2007. The results have been submitted to the journal Energy and Environment, of which DailyTech has obtained a pre-publication copy. The figures are surprising.

Of 528 total papers on climate change, only 38 (7%) gave an explicit endorsement of the consensus. If one considers "implicit" endorsement (accepting the consensus without explicit statement), the figure rises to 45%. However, while only 32 papers (6%) reject the consensus outright, the largest category (48%) are neutral papers, refusing to either accept or reject the hypothesis. This is no "consensus."

The figures are even more shocking when one remembers the watered-down definition of consensus here. Not only does it not require supporting that man is the "primary" cause of warming, but it doesn't require any belief or support for "catastrophic" global warming. In fact of all papers published in this period (2004 to February 2007), only a single one makes any reference to climate change leading to catastrophic results.

These changing viewpoints represent the advances in climate science over the past decade. While today we are even more certain the earth is warming, we are less certain about the root causes. More importantly, research has shown us that -- whatever the cause may be -- the amount of warming is unlikely to cause any great calamity for mankind or the planet itself.

Schulte's survey contradicts the United Nation IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report (2007), which gave a figure of "90% likely" man was having an impact on world temperatures. But does the IPCC represent a consensus view of world scientists? Despite media claims of "thousands of scientists" involved in the report, the actual text is written by a much smaller number of "lead authors." The introductory "Summary for Policymakers" -- the only portion usually quoted in the media -- is written not by scientists at all, but by politicians, and approved, word-by-word, by political representatives from member nations. By IPCC policy, the individual report chapters -- the only text actually written by scientists -- are edited to "ensure compliance" with the summary, which is typically published months before the actual report itself.

By contrast, the ISI Web of Science database covers 8,700 journals and publications.

http://www.dailytech.com/Survey+Less+Than+Half+of+all+Published+Scientists+ Endorse+Global+Warming+Theory/article8641.htm

[SCChuck]

Dr. Bob,
Time for an update. I'm pretty sure hurricanes in the Caribbean are a more relevant topic than global warming. But read this article and see if you agree.



http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=c9554887-802a-23ad-4303-68f67ebd151c

[badwing]

Here we are. Six months later and what are we talking about ? Global warming ? Nope, now it's global cooling and only SIX MONTHS have passed. The scientists falling on the side of "Increased solar activity" now greatly outnumber the scientists decrying "Manmade global warming". Laughable. Hope you didn't dump too much dough into carbon credits....

[badwing]

http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/387743.html