is diesel smarter than the new york times?

That would be denim-inspired apparel manufacturer Diesel, and the answer is “yes.”

The scientific debate over global warming may not be entirely settled, but in the American clothing business, at least, it is over. The apparel maker Diesel ran magazine advertisements this year proclaiming that its cold-weather clothes — in one ad, a woman’s puffy coat and shorts — were “global warming ready.”

I suppose you could also ask the question this way: Is the American clothing business smarter than Times reporter Michael Barbaro? It’s hard to say who’s responsible for the obviously hedged construction “may not be entirely settled.” But, anyway, one of the two—or both—should be ashamed of themselves. You’d think, in a year where the Nobel Prize for Peace went both to a group of scientists that have demonstrated that global warming exists and is influenced by human activity (a group that is cited later in the same Times article without reference to the Nobel), and to the man that convinced popular culture to pay attention to the science, that the New York Times would get with the program. You’d think that because the facts clearly show that the scientific debate is entirely “settled,” that the paper of record would report the facts.

Now, if the Times had reported that the political debate—the one between people who believe in science and the people who believe in taking hydrocarbon industry baksheesh—was “not entirely settled,” well, that would be something. . .

. . . something called journalism.

In fact, if Barbaro had done just the tiniest bit of digging, he might have noticed this:

WASHINGTON [11/30/07] Some of the world's top business leaders are demanding that international diplomats meeting next week come up with drastic and urgent measures to cut greenhouse gas pollution at least in half by 2050.

Officials from more than 150 global companies - worth nearly $4 trillion in market capitalization - have signed a petition urging "strong, early action on climate change" when political leaders meet in Indonesia.

Maybe Friday was too near to Barbaro’s deadline. Well, uh, there was this (from the same article):

In January [of 2007], the CEO's of 10 major U.S. companies urged President Bush to support mandatory industrial greenhouse gas emission cuts. The White House is against that policy. Since their January plea, the industry group, the United States Climate Action Partnership, has grown to include 27 of the world's largest firms.

Other companies [in addition to Shell UK, GE International, Coca-Cola Co., Dupont Co., United Technologies Corp., Rolls Royce, Nestle SA, Unilever, British Airways and Volkswagen AG] signing the British-based petition include Nike Inc., Johnson & Johnson, Virgin Group, Barclays PLC, Gap, Nokia, Pacific Gas and Electric, and the Rupert Murdoch-owned News Corp., which runs the conservative Fox News Channel.

Hmmm, Nike—why, that sounds like an apparel company! Maybe someone from the Times should have called them for a quote.


(h/t gem spa for sending Barbaro’s article my way)

(cross-posted to The Seminal and Daily Kos)