EnviroSpin Watch

Waiting on both Socialism and Melanie.....

One blog that is always interesting to read and which has been kind enough to recommend EnviroSpin (if, understandably, with significant caveats entered) is Socialism in an Age of Waiting (SIAW).

Here SIAW takes both Harry's Place and EnviroSpin to task for daring to link to Melanie Phillip's uncompromising blog on 'The global warming scam' (January 9): 'Butterflies and Bees' (January 11). There is also a neat comment about Ophelia Benson of Butterflies and Wheels.

And here is SIAW's original comment on EnviroSpin, with which, funnily enough, I have some sympathy: 'EnviroSpin Watch Watch' (January 4):

"All that said, in the absence of a Marxist alternative (we are not specially qualified or well-informed enough to provide one), EnviroSpin Watch performs a useful function - if only to make those who disagree with Stott, as we often do, clarify exactly why they disagree."

That seems fair enough to me. One of the striking features of the blogging world is the availability of a wide range of comment that so often falls between the editorial cracks of the media. Likewise, I find SIAW of value, because it helps me to understand why a significant portion of the 'left' remains somewhat queasy about many 'green' constructs.

Luckily, there are now a range of blogs, 'left' to 'right', 'libertarian' to 'authoritarian', that really do make the internet something of value. Many are by folk who would be far better commentators than most of those currently writing in the hard-copy press (Norman Geras and Oliver Kamm spring to mind). Moreover, they often represent excluded voices, those lying outside the febrile and self-referential world of the metropolitan beltway and North London.

Blogging can thus create a nexus of understanding that is impossible either through stereotypical newspapers (e.g., Telegraph readers hardly ever read the Guardian) or through more formal, campaigning web sites. I see this as a genuine advance in interactive democracy, and a challenge to old-fashioned journalism.

I am thus grateful to both Melanie Phillips and SIAW, and I will link to both, as occasion fits. And, I fear, Melanie is absolutely right on so much about the 'global warming' grand narrative.

Philip, very much enjoying our brave new world that has such bloggers in it. Lunch!