Among major media figures in Canada, few people can claim as much credit as the National Post’s Terrance Corcoran in the prolonged and woefully effective campaign to mislead the Canadian public on the science and policies regarding climate change.
As a business columnist in the Globe and Mail in the 1990s, Corcoran was reported to run shrieking into the managing editor’s office any time a (well-documented) science story crept into the pages of what was then the nation’s only national newspaper. As a result, the mid-level editors lived in fear and the environment reporters threw up their hands when asked why the Globe wasn’t covering the story
Corcoran went on to act as the Business Lobbyist (sorry, Business Editor) at Conrad Black’s National Post (technically, his title is Editor of the Financial Post, the NP‘s business sheet). In the British tradition of newspapers that declare their political bias up front and then defend those biases – against reason and logic where necessary – the Post joined the Toronto Sun as the most flagrant; and Corcoran is its most agenda-driven denizen.
Accordingly, any Canadian, American or European who has wanted to undermine the global consensus on climate science has had a warm and welcoming home in the pages of the FP.
For an excellent sense of the quality of logic that Corcoran brings to his task, check the attached piece, in which he sets out to argue that Stephen Harper’s new Conservative government must abbrogate Canada’s international commitment to Kyoto. Corcoran gives three reasons: First, he says, Kyoto is already dead. Second, he claims that the Anti-Kyoto Asia Pacific Partnership is a perfectly reasonable alternative. And third, he says Kyoto is too expensive.
Same old, same old: Kyoto is “dead” because Corcoran’s heros have successfully gutted the penalty section that would have applied to those countries – like Canada – that failed to meet their targets. And if it’s not dead yet, the promoters of the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate are determined to kill it. Finally, while it might be a nice planet, Corcoran sees no reason to invest in saving it for subsequent generations.
It rankles to give him such praise, but Corcoran deserves recognition as the most prominent and effective roadblock to good climate police in Canada.
