I don't know if the author has noticed it has been a tiny bit warm lately. Perhaps we should burn less coal and save the forests.

Ah, the irony.

A completely over-the-top, almost hysterical reaction to a fairly silly stunt.

Think for a moment of an alternative scenario. The journalist receives the "press release", and either a) recognizes it instantly for the fraud that it is, or b) makes a single, simple, fact-checking phone call. The story - because journalists need stories just as much as obscure activists need the oxygen of publicity to feed their ego - would then be nothing more than a ten-centimeter filler at the bottom of page seven.

But for the panic that exists in the mainstream media in their fight for relevance in the age of instant news and dissemination-by-social-media, this would be a non-story.

Unfortunately, it has set the tut-tutters into an orgy of self-righteous finger-wagging, using half-truths and exaggeration as their only weapons.

"The fall in share price effectively wiped about $314 million from the value of Whitehaven, a significant blow for many shareholders with a stake in the company."

Ummm... Ms Novak, when requoted after the exchange-enforced trading halt, the shares returned to within two cents of their pre-hoax price. There is no evidence that any pensioners suffered, only the clients of a couple of stockbrokers who, like the journalists, failed in their due diligence. If fingers are to be pointed and wagged, surely these reptiles should be first up against the wall for failing in their duty of care to their clients.

And what about the smarties who picked up the shares at a discount, benefitting their own set of little old ladies and their pensions? What should be our reaction to them? Should they be excoriated for taking advantage of an obvious howler, or praised for being smart enough to spot an opportunity that justified their obscene salaries?

They are after all two sides of exactly the same coin.

Personally, I blame the journalists. In their panic not to be outdone in the news stakes, they knee-jerked an unchecked "fact" into the media. Surely, in the sober light of day, it is they who should be pilloried, not an insignificant little fellow with a God-complex?

The author of this rant is a research fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs. This is a right wing, corporate funded think tank. It has a history of denying the science of climate change and other environmental issues. A full report on them, with links, can be found here:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs

The fossil fuel industry and its lobbyists are making the world uninhabitable. They have deliberately stopped action on decarbonising the economy for decades as it would interfere with their profits. As James Hansen, head of NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies said to the US congress in 2008:

''CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of long-term consequences of continued business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.''

Let's put the right people in the dock - CEOs.

I wonder if Moylan or her associates bought shares when they bottomed?Now that would be fraud.

Well lillian, James Hansen LOL. Google "James Hansen fraud".

Atman,

This is much more interesting:

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2012/20120803_DicePopSci.pdf