Dennis Avery fails to correct Right Wing Echo Machine

onApr 2, 2009 @ 17:11 PDT

Dennis Avery at the Hudson Institute pushed out a story the other day claiming that: “The atmospheric CO2 levels at Hawaii’s Mauna Loa observatory have declined since 2004.” He’s totally wrong and admitted he was, but has failed to correct this mistruth and now the story is bouncing around the right-wing media echo chamber.

Here’s the graph from the Mauna Loa observatory:

First off, how could Avery, who claims to be an “environmental economist” get this so wrong?

I’m not a scientist or an economist, but it seems to me that this graph is pretty darn clear. This is far from an innocent mistake and Avery is doing nothing to stop the echo machine. If Avery had any sense of ethics he would make sure that every single outlet who carried this blatant misrepresentation corrected him on the record.

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By Kevin Grandia

Kevin is a contributor and strategic adviser to DeSmog. He runs the digital marketing agency Spake Media House. Named a “Green Hero” by Rolling Stone Magazine and one of the “Top 50 Tweeters” on climate change and environment issues, Kevin has appeared in major news media outlets around the world for his work on digital campaigning. Kevin has been involved in the public policy arena in both the United States and Canada for more than a decade. For five years he was the managing editor of DeSmogBlog.com. In this role, Kevin’s research into the “climate denial industry” and the right-wing think tank networks was featured in news media articles around the world. He is most well known for his ground-breaking research into David and Charles Koch’s massive financial investments in the Republican and tea party networks. Kevin is the first person to be designated a “Certified Expert” on the political and community organizing platform NationBuilder. Prior to DeSmog, Kevin worked in various political and government roles. He was Senior Advisor to the Minister of State for Multiculturalism and a Special Assistant to the Minister of State for Asia Pacific, Foreign Affairs for the Government of Canada. Kevin also worked in various roles in the British Columbia provincial government in the Office of the Premier and the Ministry of Health. In 2008 Kevin co-founded a groundbreaking new online election tool called Vote for Environment which was later nominated for a World Summit Award in recognition of the world’s best e-Content and innovative ICT applications. Kevin moved to Washington, DC in 2010 where he worked for two years as the Director of Online Strategy for Greenpeace USA and has since returned to his hometown of Vancouver, Canada.