You put it well: “Why would your real name have a bearing on the credibility of what you write here?” Exactly!! It’s completely redundant to insist on a real name on blog posts anyway – I could pretned to be all sorts of people that youw would have trouble verifying. We have equal knowledge of each other: the names that we post under.

Richard McGuire writes:
For years the right wing propaganda unit, the Institute Of Public Affairs, has been at the vanguard of climate change sceptics. Articles can still be found on the IPA web site, poo-pooing the notion of human induced climate change. Jennifer Marohasy who heads the IPA’s environmental unit, began her piece (yesterday, item 13) by rightly stating, that 2005 was the hottest year on record. Yet in a piece she wrote for the Courier Mail, on 16 February that same year she suggests “we are due for another ice age.” Eleven months on, and Marohasy is jumping on the bandwagon with the Asia Pacific Partnership, on Clean Development and Climate “AP6″. Held last week, the AP6 forum was cobbled together by the United States and Australia, as a belated response to Kyoto. Marohasy gushes that the AP6 will put pressure on Kyoto to show their model is really better. The reverse could equally apply. The problem for Marohasy and the IPA is that both Kyoto and AP6 see climate change as being real, and caused largely by the burning of fossil fuels, not by plants producing methane. Both AP6 and Kyoto set out in their own way to limit emissions from fossil fuels. Which leaves Marohasy and the IPA with a credibility problem. After all those years of denial the world has moved on. The climate change sceptics have lost the argument.

Richard Morup writes:
I am wondering whether Dr Jennifer Marohasy is Crikey’s new appointed environmental reporter? And also whether by including such flawed material in the “body” of a Crikey newsletter, than Crikey is degenerating into yet another opinion fuelled journal? Jennifer raises a valid and important point regarding the role of technologies in reducing CO2 emissions, but as usual (having read many of her other pieces on the Online Opinion website) she peppers her pieces with stats which are either “predictions” or “could be’s.” Articles on environmental issues usually rely on scientific evidence to make a case – but it is essential that the reader, who is rarely suitably trained in the sciences, be provided with sufficient context to explain the limitations in the evidence. Environmental issues should be based on facts, not opinion. Politics may warrant punditry but science deserves better treatment than this – and Crikey as the potential benchmark for high quality journalism should demand better standards from their contributors – or else just put Jennifer’s pieces into the letters section (like everyone else with an opinion).

Paul Pagani writes:
Whatever the merits of the arguments over Greenpeace’s actions and incidents involving the Japanese whalers, the contribution to the debate from Andrew Decker (13 January, comments) is magnificent in both its audacity and humour. Yeah, you tell ‘em Andrew. If anyone knows when truth has been jettisoned for expediency, it is a PR stalwart. Believe it or not Andrew, most of us look elsewhere when we search for commentary on ethics and credibility.

Mike writes:
Normally I read Christian’s rants against anything politically green and take it into account his apparent bias when trying to understand the issues. I do not understand his bias but I accept that he has the right to hold it. I also accept that in most other issues he attempts to include the facts as he knows them and tries to present a balanced view. However I feel that he slipped in to SPIN territory when first commenting on the whale wars currently in the Antarctic Ocean (10 January, item 4). The impression I got was that The Sea Shepherd Society and Greenpeace were working together, subsequent writings from both camps have clearly stated they do not. The conclusion I drew from his article was that if two organisations supposedly working hand in hand could not get their story straight then they must be lying. Therefore Greenpeace is untrustworthy (no aspersion was made about The Sea Shepherd Society’s honesty). Information from both Crikey and other sources (outside Australia) has lead me to believe that both The Sea Shepherd Society’s account and Greenpeace accounts are closer to the actual event than the whalers. Yet all that Christian can obsess on is whether Greenpeace lied. Christian never seems to get so hot under the collar when our leaders (political and corporate) appeared to have lied. Can Mr Kerr please outline in some future article where his hatred of all things politically green came from. It would help in assessing the veracity of his claims. Something he asks us to do continually when assessing any political spin.

Margaret Morgan writes:
Christian Kerr accuses Ben Oquist of “shooting the messenger” (yesterday, item 13), but he’s ignoring the point being made to him: his misleading description of Jennifer Marohasy is just the latest in his ongoing campaign to denigrate environmentalists. Christian might be surprised to know how many Greens members and supporters read Crikey. Given the demographics of Green voters (they tend to be better educated and more politically informed than the general population), it would be strange if they were not a sizeable proportion of your readership. And being comparatively politically literate, they would not be averse to reading and responding to reasoned argument against Greens policies. Christian Kerr does not provide this, though. He presents snide digs and little else whenever he refers to the party, based, it seems, on nothing but his own political biases. He claims he is “contributing more to political debate, contributing more to political outcomes and contributing more generally”, but he’d do a much better job of that if he tried a little objectivity and reason on this subject.

Ben Oquist, Greens adviser, writes:

For Christian Kerr to write about the need for objective reporting on environmentalists’ activities and then quote Jennifer Marohasy as a reliable source is unbelievable.

To call Ms Marohasy an “environmental” blogger is hilarious! Ms Marahasy works for the hard right-wing Institute of Public Affairs . She is a well known ANTI-environmentalist who believes that the health of the Murray River has not been in decline, that logging old growth forests can actually save them and that threats to the Great Barrier Reef are exaggerated.

For Crikey to quote her on two consecutive days as a credible source – while not disclosing her associations – is not only misleading, but journalism of the worst kind.

But I have realised that even the stridently anti-Green Mr Kerr wouldn’t sink that low and that he is just trying to wind me up again, but perhaps not everyone will understand the joke.

I reckon whaling is about “Free Willies”

Some Japanese men reputedly with smaller endowments need to feel more powerful.

So what could be a bigger sign of your envisioned virility than shooting a bloody big grenade tipped harpoon and then explode it violently into a large ovum shaped object i.e. whale who is trying to avoid your attempt. I mean it would turn a lot of Aussie deviates on too.

So the solution is for genetic engineering (detribe) to solve the Japanese problem and they’d wouldn’t have to kill the whales.

It’s so simple.