The Australian, and please after the jaffas, hit me with the fair and balanced kool-aid ...

(Above: ah the memories, back when smoking was a way of life, and hand in hand with being fair and balanced).

In other news today, The Australian continues down the path of righteousness triumphalism, with its brand new editorial and philosophy of life, encapsulated in Vigorous climate debate a plus.

Some might take it for snidery and astonishing hubris, and an outrageous distortion of the truth, or even a case of assigning its editorial practices to others, but The Australian, with its self-congratulatory navel gazing, takes the view that it's fair and balanced, especially in the matter of climate change.

But what's provoked this amazing bout of wankery, such that the palms on the editorial team's hands should be checked immediately? What could have lead to this delusionary self-image?

Well you see, the Royal Society recently published a layperson's guide to climate change:

So it is puzzling that a supposedly liberal broadsheet newspaper, The Age, not only failed to cover the Royal Society's revision of its Guide to the Science of Climate Change but took a swipe at those who did. The story, which The Age ignored when it broke in this and major British newspapers on October 2, was significant because the Royal Society is regarded as the world's most authoritative scientific body. It was clear from our report and commentary that the society was not dismissing climate change -- far from it. The need for co-ordinated global action is no less pressing. But the Royal Society guide undercuts many of the exaggerated claims of looming ecological disaster, spun in order to scare the public into supporting various political positions.

Umm not really. If you read The Guardian's Royal Society's climate change guide cuts confusion out of the hard science, you'll read this:

The Royal Society's new report, by contrast, limits itself entirely to the physical science of climate change, and it is careful to lay out every qualification and uncertainty. But Pethica stresses that this approach does not signify an acceptance of criticisms that scientists had overstated their case in the past. "If the report sounds cautious, that's because the IPCC is cautious … There is no change in the science."

Uh huh. Steady as she goes, there is no change in the science, move along people, nothing to see that you haven't already seen before ...

The document entirely supports the mainstream scientific view of man-made climate change as summarised by the UN's climate science body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In previous years, the Royal Society has lent its weight to joint communiqués on climate change issued by leading science academies around the world, and these have even extended to making policy suggestions, such as calling on world leaders to agree emission reductions at the climate change summit held in Copenhagen in December.

Entirely supports ... joint communiqués ... policy suggestions ... Oh dear lord, that sounds suspiciously like the Royal Society has supported certain political positions.

From this regrettable distortion of the implications of the Royal Society report, The Australian then proceeds to jump the shark, nuke the fridge, and take a slap at The Age, for not taking a broad liberal approach:

The Age, regrettably, does not take such a broad, liberal approach, and its readers have been badly served. The first they would have learned of the Royal Society's new guide was when they read of it a week late in a piece criticising our coverage.

The Australian a broad liberal paper? And fair and balanced, especially when it comes to climate change? Roll another jaffa down the aisle, and roll me with it, and let's all have a good laugh.

The lizard Oz is so full of huffing and puffing self-regard that it proceeds to disappear up its fundament as it abuses The Age:

There was a time when The Age took a broader view of national debate rather than the narrow, monocultural outlook that has permeated its columns in recent years, which has tended to exclude more-mainstream opinion. It is not the media's role to play quasi-censor in an unfolding debate in which so much is at stake economically and socially.

The signs of defensive paranoia emanating from the Oz bunker get more and more remarkable on a daily basis. It's got so the pond only needs to read the daily editorial to have a ready made example of squawking commentariat bias, dressed with a garnish of self-delusion ...

This latest bit of blithe editorial self-justification is of course just another variant on 'never mind the science, print the controversy', an approach which sees intelligent design given the same weight and credibility as the theory of evolution.

And sure enough, while distorting the implications of the Royal Society report, The Australian finds time to detail the way a physicist, 87 year old Harold Lewis, has resigned from the American Physical Society. Lewis of course is right at the heart of the science ...

Meanwhile, it's easy to judge The Australian's fair and balanced approach to the subject.

Why there's Des Moore, director of the Institute for Private Enterprise, a well known body of free thinkers, offering up more FUD, confusion and chaotic arguments, in No consensus among climate scientists, revisiting Climategate yet again, and peddling the same self serving nonsense as trotted out in The Australian's editorial by repeating exactly the same talking points about The Age, Lewis and the Royal Society ...

I guess when drinking the kool aid, it's always fair to share ...

And naturally there's always room for Bjorn Lomborg, peddling First do the research, then make deep carbon cuts ...

It's all part of a rich climate debate controversy which curiously always seems to result in the notion that nothing needs to be done, or if anything needs to be done, then very little needs to be done, and always mixed with a high degree of paranoia, fear and loathing:

It is also reasonable to question the true motivation of the most vociferous advocates of radical action on climate change, who would destroy economic activity but pay scant attention to the benefits of extensive tree planting and carbon sinks as an antidote to carbon.

Yes, it's always reasonable to describe opponents in an argument as fundamentalist ratbag radicals intent on destroying the world in order to save it.

And to suggest that greenies are against the benefits of extensive tree planting ... Why only last week I saw a greenie carrying a sign, 'chop down a tree today and instead institute a carbon tax to save the planet'. And next to him was another one with a sign saying 'Clear fell the Amazon basin and don't worry about planting trees to save it'.

So what's a fair and balanced, thoughtful and broadly liberal rag to do?

As concerns over the impact of greenhouses gases have intensified over the past 20 years, the case for pricing carbon through a market-based scheme, in tandem with other nations, has firmed.

Oh dear, that sounds alarmingly dangerous, and could quite likely ruin the economy. Has someone told Tim Blair and Andrew Bolt? Has anyone told Tony Abbott and the Liberal party?

The cautious, responsible approach we advocate, however, does not preclude us from providing a platform for well-qualified voices who favour either more extensive action or those who are more sceptical.

Well qualified voices.

Like Des Moore. Cultivating his scientific expertise by working for 28 years in the Commonwealth treasury ... to add to the scientific expertise garnered while collecting degrees in law and economics ...

Uh huh. Pass that broadly liberal fair and balanced lime green kool aid to me ...

I need a long and hearty drink ...

Yep, provided they read other rags besides The Australian ... And these days almost any rag will do given the editorial standards on view in the indolent lizard Oz ...

(Below: the debate continues).