We’ve heard it all before. Climate Change causes war and famine. Supporters of Climate Change legislation have scared us with all the plagues of Egypt for years, to trying to liberate us from fossil fuels. It’s actually been linked to every Biblical catastrophe, short of a rain of frogs.
So It should come as no big surprise that Discovery News posts this article linking “Climate Change” to wars, political unrest, famine, and generations of humans almost an inch shorter than their ancestors. (That’s a new one actually. Perhaps the oceans aren’t really rising; maybe we’re all just getting a lot shorter.)
But if you read the article a little more closely, you’ll notice something peculiar. The climate change the author is warning about here, isn’t global warming, it’s global cooling. According to the article, scientists writing for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences have compared historic records of famine and wars, and population, against temperature records. They have found that the cooler the planet gets, the more frequent the wars; during the warm periods, people stop fighting, and go home to make babies. Hence, warming periods coincide with population surges.
For the first time in recent media history, all the calamities listed have occurred when the Earth got colder. Consequently, a warmer climate is actually good for humanity. It’s what I’ve always suspected. Warming is much better than cooling.
This morning, Andrea Seabrook of National Public Radio cast Republican presidential candidates Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry as “against science.” Seabrook’s report cites their support for creationism being taught alongside evolution in schools, and their skepticism about anthropogenic global warming, as evidence of their “skepticism.”
Seabrook’s story sets the stage for tonight’s Republican presidential debate, hosted by NBC and Politico at the Reagan presidential library, by portraying the GOP primary race as being dominated by “socially conservative, religious Republicans.” She paints Perry and Bachmann as particularly extreme in their views, using laggard John Huntsman as a foil to demonstrate that “[t]here are many in the GOP who strongly support scientific research and evidence-based policy making”–as if Bachmann and Perry do not.
One episode Seabrook uses to illustrate Perry’s supposed lack of support for science is a campaign stop where, she says, “a child asked Perry what he thinks about evolution.”
Seabrook neglects to mention that the child was being used as a political prop by his mother, whom Perry politely ignored as she prompted her son with questions: “Ask him why he doesn’t believe in science.” Seabrook replicates the mother’s bias exactly.
The sleight of hand in Seabrook’s story is evident in her attempt to describe “skepticism” of a scientific theory as hostility to science itself. In fact, skepticism is the very essence of science. (more…)
Whenever there is an unusual weather pattern, members of the Holy Church of Global Warming Moonbats start spreading new scare-tactics. Usually it sounds something like:
This planet is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions. Old Testament real wrath of God type stuff. Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling! Forty years of Gilligan’s Island Re-runs! Earthquakes, volcanoes, another Rocky Movie rising from the grave. Human sacrifice, Elliot Spitzer and Anthony Weiner living together… mass hysteria!
And just as common is the fact that scientists dispute their contention. It happened when both Time and Newsweek blamed this spring’s tornado activity on Global Warming (contradicting earlier claims by the Magazines which blamed tornadoes on Global Cooling) and it’s happening now when Salon is blaming the extremely hot temperatures in the American West:
Arizona is burning. Texas, too. New Mexico is next. If you need a grim reminder that an already arid West is burning up and blowing away, here it is. As I write this, more than 700 square miles of Arizona and more than 4,300 square miles of Texas have been swept by monster wildfires. Consider those massive columns of acrid smoke drifting eastward as a kind of smoke signal warning us that a globally warming world is not a matter of some future worst-case scenario. It’s happening right here, right now.
…Nonetheless, we have been experiencing a historic drought for about a decade in significant parts of the region. As topsoil dries out, microbial dynamics change and native plants either die or move uphill toward cooler temperatures and more moisture. Wildlife that depends on the seeds, nuts, leaves, shade, and shelter follows the plants — if it can.
….Global warming, global weirding, climate change — whatever you prefer to call it — is not just happening in some distant, melting Arctic land out of a storybook. It is not just burning up far-away Russia. It’s here now.
The seas have warmed, ice caps are melting, and the old reliable ocean currents and atmospheric jet streams are jumping their tracks. The harbingers of a warming planet and the abruptly shifting weather patterns that result vary across the American landscape. Along the vast Mississippi River drainage in the heartland of America, epic floods, like our wildfires in the West, are becoming more frequent. In the Gulf states, it’s monster hurricanes and in the Midwest, swarms of killer tornadoes signal that things have changed. In the East it’s those killer heat waves and record-breaking blizzards.
Gee, they left out the Giligan’s Island runs and the New Rocky movie. Maybe its because what Salon is saying above is totally fraudulent.
Considering how incredibly rare it is to find balanced global warming reporting in the mainstream media, Noel Sheppard’s 4/24 NewsBusters headline was worthy of a double-take: “Retired Anchorman Apologizes for Presenting Both Sides of Global Warming Debate.” Having written an American Thinker article last year where I quantified the outright bias at the PBS NewsHour to be a ratio of 3 “skeptic” to 200+ “pro-Al Gore/IPCC” going back to 1996, I was puzzled. Who could it be?
I was disappointed to see a name I didn’t recognize – imagine it being NBC’s Tom Brokaw. The bigger disappointment for me was in Sheppard’s third and fourth paragraph reproduction of the original Duluth Budgeteer article, where it said:
The TV newsman’s mea culpa about having misreported climate change came after of years of treating the story the same as he would any other, requiring the views of two opposing parties…
….climate change is not a pro or con issue; it’s a scientific fact. And journalists who work to “balance” a story present an inaccurate picture when they give equal weight to sources promulgating inaccurate facts.
The significance of that eludes most people, but I’d been researching the origins of the fossil fuel funding accusation against skeptic scientists for 16+ months, two of my articles about it are at Breitbart pages here and here, among a pile of others I’ve written. For me, the words “equal balance”/”equal weight” in reference to people pushing “inaccurate facts” jumped right off the page as yet another repetition of 15-year old talking points consolidated by anti-skeptic book author Ross Gelbspan and his associates at the Ozone Action enviro-advocacy group in 1996. For those not familiar with that group, just think Greenpeace because its founder John Passacantando merged Ozone Action with Greenpeace USA in 2000 and took over as its new executive director. (more…)
I’m not sure where it comes from, but there seems to be an innate human need to blame natural disasters on human failings. This receives much deserved ridicule when religious fanatics blame earthquakes on a preponderance of cleavage. The non-religious crowd, however, needs a different type of moral turpitude on which to lay the blame. The obvious culprit of choice is your lifestyle of consumption which causes global warming…err climate change. Both sides try to make political hay from human suffering and both cases are pretty despicable.
This time around, Newsweek wants you to know that the tragic destruction in Joplin, Missouri is the fault of the Bush administration and its corporate task masters.
“Even those who deny the existence of global climate change are having trouble dismissing the evidence of the last year. In the U.S. alone, nearly 1,000 tornadoes have ripped across the heartland, killing more than 500 people and inflicting $9 billion in damage.”
Yes, it was a bad year for tornadoes. The visuals coming out of the areas affected have been heart wrenching. The most that can be said is that it’s an above average year. That’s what happens. Some years have more extreme weather, some less. It’s called climate and it always changes. That’s how nature works.
“From these and other extreme-weather events, one lesson is sinking in with terrifying certainty. The stable climate of the last 12,000 years is gone. Which means you haven’t seen anything yet.” (more…)
Once again, its time to add to the official Jeff Dunetz, “Stupid Things Blamed on Global Warming” list. During the past two and a half years, global warming moonbats have blamed each of the following on global warming, climate change or whatever the latest they have decided to give their over-hyped environmental calamity.
The latest addition comes from Dan Ferber and Dr. Paul Epstein, authors of a new book, Changing Planet, Changing Health: How the Climate Crisis Threatens Our Health and What We Can Do about It. Ferber is a reporter, and the good Doctor is Associate Director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School (wow, an MD and Harvard Medical School, his mother must be so proud).
Some might say the two authors simply chose something new to alarm the public about. However, I disagree. These guys may have stumbled upon a solution to climate change and the violence in the Middle East. Miraculously they their book has “killed two birds with one stone.” Allow me to explain.
Just when you think that they can’t come up with anything else, the global warming hoaxers unveil something new in their attempt to scare the public into believing their global redistribution of income scheme.
The latest claim is those horrible, massive tornadoes which caused over two-hundred deaths in America this week were spurred by global warming (a claim that was quickly refuted by both FEMA and the NOAA Storm Prediction Center among others).
The other day, Peter H. Gleick, President of the Pacific Institute wrote in theAOL/Huffington Post about the connection between the tornadoes and climate change. When his words are examined carefully it is clear that his article was simply meant to frighten not to explain. He begins:
Violent tornadoes throughout the southeastern U.S. must be a front-page reminder that no matter how successful climate deniers are in confusing the public or delaying action on climate change in Congress or globally, the science is clear: Our climate is worsening.
On first glance he is saying that there is a connection between the warming hoax and the tragic weather; that’s what he intends for the reader to think. But look again at the carefully-scripted paragraph. He argues that the weather should remind you that the climate is getting worse. Well… that and the fact that people who don’t buy into the scheme are horrible people.
The recent deadly tornadoes have killed hundreds of people. Our hearts go out to all who have lost their loved ones. It will take a long time for things to get back to normal for the affected areas and the good people of America are already lining up to help. These are times that bring out the best in us.
Unfortunately, these are also the kinds of events that bring out the worst in some. As the storms were still raging, global warming fanatics were out there linking the storms to their theory. To the members of the Global Warming (or is it Climate Change now?) cult, any severe weather is a confirmation of their dogma. ThinkProgress (shocker) put this out:
“Given that global warming is unequivocal,” climate scientist Kevin Trenberth cautioned the American Meteorological Society in January of this year, “the null hypothesis should be that all weather events are affected by global warming rather than the inane statements along the lines of ‘of course we cannot attribute any particular weather event to global warming.’”
Do you see, rubes? Don’t bother actually trying to figure out what is causing the severe weather because “the science is settled.” Interesting. I thought real science meant that it is never really settled. Sure, some things can be settled like when it was finally determined that the sun is the center of our solar system. Before that, the “settled science” was that everything revolved around the earth. When you’re talking about an incredibly complex system like the weather and climate, the science will never be “settled.” It’s the height of arrogance to suggest otherwise. Of course, Leftist talking point factories like ThinkProgress want to reinforce the conventional wisdom within the Left’s ideological Iron Curtain, but even long time residents of Leftyville, like the Washington Post, were telling people not to jump to conclusions: (more…)
Has the so-called global warming crisis been propped up in the media and on the internet as the result of a single phrase?
Astute Breitbart readers will know the IPCC theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is crumbling apart at an exponential rate, as can be seen in a daily roundup of the news at web sites like ClimateDepot.com, WattsUpWithThat, SPPIblog, and PlanetGore. That’s the skeptic scientists at work, exposing the faults of the IPCC and all the people surrounding it, but has news of this been seen anywhere in the mainstream media?
No. Why not? A single phrase made famous by an enviro-advocacy group and its anti-skeptic book author “star” may have been the primary reason the MSM felt a compulsion to exclude any news of, debates of, and discussions with skeptic scientists. What was this phrase?
“Reposition global warming as theory rather than fact.” Not exactly a smooth sounding sentence. If the average disinterested citizen was presented with compelling evidence that human activity is not causing global warming, and compared it to Al Gore declaring the debate over, he or she would probably say something more like, “We should show how the global warming debate isn’t settled yet.”
Back in late 1990, that is essentially exactly what happened, except that the specific people who wanted to counter-argue Al Gore’s surging rhetoric were members of a coal producers’ association. They formed the Information Council on the Environment (ICE) sometime around January 1991, and one of the documents used by its public relations personnel did not contain the more mundane sentence I have above. Instead, its #1 sentence on a strategies page was this verbatim version: “Reposition global warming as theory (not fact).” It’s #2 sentence was, “Target print and radio media for maximum effectiveness.” The #9 one was, “Use a spokesman from the scientific community.” Most anyone would interpret this paper to be what it is, pointers for PR workers to follow. A scan of the paper can be seen when you click on the page 10 thumbnail at Greenpeace archives here. (more…)
The New York Times has just published another in a series of establishment press missives seeking to marginalize — from the perspective of establishment press-types — tea party activists and politicians who embrace or are embraced by them.
This latest entry is an embarrassment, if a rather typical one as I detail on Chapter 1 of Red Hot Lies, “Media on a Mission.” Here are some problems with the article:
“Climate change is real, and man is causing it,” [Dem. Congressman and pro-cap-and-trade voter Baron] Hill said, echoing most climate scientists.
The author does not point to any survey of “most climate scientists,” challenge or even inquire about the source for or other evidence to support that claim. That is because there is no such survey or collective assertion by the critical masses of “climate scientists.” Period. It’s a talking point. But he’s a reporter. If he wanted to be straight about the issue he would at the very least turn to the very inconvenient statement by the Association of State Climatologists. But, again, it’s inconvenient.
When pressed, those who scribble or utter this shibboleth generally expand the universe of “climate scientist” to include anyone who is willing to go on record agreeing in return for being called one of the world’s leading climate scientists. Even if they are anthropology teaching assistants. Read on.
That is, they revert to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a collection of (as its name indicates) representatives appointed by governments, which itself appoints anthropology TAs, instructors in “the human dimension of environmental change” (bring own incense, please) and transport policy instructors, for example, to achieve great if still exaggerated (why is that necessary?) numbers of supporters who supposedly (but didn’t) write its proclamations? The IPCC’s “chief climate scientist” and chief “climatologist,” according to outlets like the New York Times and USA Today is, just for the record, actually a… railway engineer.
If you’re ever looking for an exhibit to illustrate the establishment media’s inability to view issues other than through their desired prism, look no further than last Wednesday’s Washington Post editorial page. The lead edit was a shrill tantrum about Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli amending his Civil Investigative Demand for University of Virginia records involving applications and payments for taxpayer-funded grant money, in accordance with a recent judge’s ruling (which Cuccinelli is in the meantime appealing; having read the briefs and observed argument, I think this is easily the right call).
The editorial complaints are rather strange. These are that a) Cuccinelli is using old arguments in re-filing his request for documents — though such consistency of legal theory, tailored to reflect the judge’s ruling, would make sense in this context and surely WaPo would also flip out if the AG changed his arguments; and b) that Cuccinelli is actually looking into possible fraud against the taxpayer in this action under the Virginia anti-fraud statute, and not trying to put climate science on trial! See prior reply as to WaPo’s reaction if the opposite were true.
It is unfair of me to apply standards of rational thought to the clearly emotional WaPo, but this is really taking its bias to absurd depths. And beneath the edit — I speak literally, as it would be very difficult to actually go lower than the editorial — is a cartoon portraying Cuccinelli is the judge screaming at Galileo that he wants his emails. (more…)
Two weeks ago the U.K. Guardiangleefully reported that the self-proclaimed “skeptical environmentalist” Bjorn Lomborg, the best-selling writer on the environment, professor, and director of the Copenhagen Consensus think tank, had made a serious acquiescence to the global warmingclimate changeglobal climate disruption movement that could quite possibly change the face of the entire conversation. From the article:
The world’s most high-profile climate change sceptic is to declare that global warming is “undoubtedly one of the chief concerns facing the world today” and “a challenge humanity must confront”, in an apparent U-turn that will give a huge boost to the embattled environmental lobby.
Bjørn Lomborg, the self-styled “sceptical environmentalist” once compared to Adolf Hitler by the UN’s climate chief, is famous for attacking climate scientists, campaigners, the media and others for exaggerating the rate of global warming and its effects on humans, and the costly waste of policies to stop the problem.
But in a new book to be published next month, Lomborg will call for tens of billions of dollars a year to be invested in tackling climate change. “Investing $100bn annually would mean that we could essentially resolve the climate change problem by the end of this century,” the book concludes.
Lomborg has a unique voice in the climate change debate because while he has always believed in man-made climate change, he doesn’t believe it’s catastrophic nor does he subscribe to the Leonardo DiCaprio/Laurie David school of thought that massive cut backs in carbon emissions is the one and only way to fix the problem. So a “U-turn” from this stance would mean that after years of studying and writing on the matter, he’s all of a sudden become an Inconvenient Truther. Having met Mr. Lomborg just last year and being a fan of his work, this report made me highly… skeptical.(more…)
When it comes to the way the MSM covers the news, sometimes it’s the little things that are the most annoying. The AP covered Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s decision to re-impose a six month deep water drilling moratorium in predictable fashion, using most of the piece to emphasize the administration’s fear-mongering tactics as justification for a decision that will damage the economy of the Gulf states more than the oil spill. U.S. District Court Judge Milton Feldman’s reasons for overturning the ban aren’t addressed until the last two paragraphs of the piece, and even then not before the reader has been coached to dismiss Feldman’s opinion after reading this snarky observation:
U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan and has owned stock in a number of petroleum-related companies, sided with the plaintiffs.
Has owned stock in petroleum-related companies? Really? In a financial world full of 401Ks, IRAs and money market funds, how many people haven’t owned stock in “petroleum-related” companies? More to the point, what does the person who appointed him or what investments he made have to do with Feldman’s opinion, or with the many good arguments that suggest the moratorium is a very bad idea?
The AP does a great job of recounting the death toll from the initial explosion and the magnitude of the subsequent spill. I’m not quite sure why, since I doubt if there’s anyone left on the planet who doesn’t have a pretty good idea about how bad things are in the gulf, but if they want to repeat those stats, fine. How about some other statistics though? There are statistics one rarely sees in MSM coverage of the spill on the deep water drilling moratorium, statistics the administration doesn’t like to talk about: (more…)
The IPCC consensus on climate change was phoney, says IPCC insider
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change misled the press and public into believing that thousands of scientists backed its claims on manmade global warming, according to Mike Hulme, a prominent climate scientist and IPCC insider. The actual number of scientists who backed that claim was “only a few dozen experts,” he states in a paper for Progress in Physical Geography, co-authored with student Martin Mahony.
“Claims such as ‘2,500 of the world’s leading scientists have reached a consensus that human activities are having a significant influence on the climate’ are disingenuous,” the paper states unambiguously, adding that they rendered “the IPCC vulnerable to outside criticism.”
Hulme, Professor of Climate Change in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia – the university of Climategate fame — is the founding Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and one of the UK’s most prominent climate scientists. Among his many roles in the climate change establishment, Hulme was the IPCC’s co-ordinating Lead Author for its chapter on ‘Climate scenario development’ for its Third Assessment Report and a contributing author of several other chapters.
You can read the full report after the jump: (more…)
Everybody is entitled to their opinion, but some opinions are just plain embarrassing. In a June 8 Op-Ed published in the New York Times, Stanford University professor Jon A. Krosnick postulated that the vast majority of Americans believe that global warming is both real and man-made, and – ergo – Senators would be well-advised to vote against the Murkowski Resolution when it comes to a vote today.
It’s pretty obvious that Krosnick, a professor of communication, political science and psychology, doesn’t actually understand the subject matter or what the Murkowski resolution is about. He starts his Op-Ed by declaring:
When senators vote on emissions limits on Thursday, there is one other number they might want to keep in mind: 72 percent of Americans think that most business leaders do not want the federal government to take steps to stop global warming. A vote to eliminate greenhouse gas regulation is likely to be perceived by the nation as a vote for industry, and against the will of the people.
If ignorance is truly bliss, then green-blogger Brendan DeMelle has got to be one the happiest people on the face of the earth. Attempting to ridicule the Heartland Institutes’s Fourth International Conference on Climate Change, set to kick off in Chicago this Sunday, DeMelle relied on tired arguments that might otherwise be persuasive if they were either: a) relevant, or b) accurate. The following pretty much sums up DeMelle’s take:
…this denial-a-palooza fest is dripping with oil money and represents a blatant industry effort to greenwash oil and coal while simultaneously attacking the credibility of climate scientists.
The entire conference can therefore be dismissed out of hand. Nothing to see here except a bunch of posers on the take, right? Had he been blogging during the Renaissance, no doubt DeMelle would have advanced the same kind of argument to defend the accepted version of “settled science” back then:
Pay no attention of that fraud Galileo. You know he’s part of the Accademia dei Lincei, right? And you know that group is funded by that rich aristocrat Federico Cesi, right? How can you believe a guy with those connections? How can the Pope and all those Cardinals possibly be wrong?
In case you’ve been in a coma over the last few weeks, we’ve had a bit of problem on the Gulf Coast. While the oil leak that developed after the Deepwater Horizon rig blew up is indeed a disaster, this tragic event is unprecedented and its causes complex. As is usually the case when it comes to a complex issues, the MSM has spent a lot of time finger-pointing without much of an idea what they’re pointing at.
Petrochemical giant BP didn’t file a plan to specifically handle a major oil spill from an uncontrolled blowout at its Deepwater Horizon project because the federal agency that regulates offshore rigs changed its rules two years ago to exempt certain projects in the central Gulf region, according to an Associated Press review of official records.
Sounds ominous, and while those carefully chosen words are perhaps technically true, they are also meaningless. (more…)
We hear a lot about the tea party movement’s supposed potential to inspire violence an awful lot from the left and their allies in the lamestream media. It’s a predictable response to a powerful grass-roots movement that they aren’t capable of understanding: crank up the fear machine boys! If bogus charges of racism won’t stick and if the tea parties themselves are peaceful – if passionate – protests, then you have to find some theme with which to frighten independent middle-America away from a movement to which they would otherwise instinctively sympathize with.
Bill Clinton, in his recent New York Times Op-Ed said that it’s fair to draw “…parallels to the time running up to Oklahoma City and a lot of the political discord that exists in our country today.” ABC News dutifully picked up on the theme:
“Watch your words,” warned ABC News, reporting that Clinton “weighed in on the angry anti-government rhetoric, ringing out from talk radio to Tea Party rallies.”
Got all that? Millions of Americans can band together to peacefully protest the incursions of swelling bureaucracies into their private lives and their government’s assumption of crippling debt, but they’re – by definition – dangerous, because they might inspire some lunatic into an act of violence. If that’s truly the issue, why doesn’t the MSM apply the same standard when it comes to another wildly-popular movement that, despite the fact that the vast majority of its adherents are peaceful activists, inspires violence not in theory, but in fact? (more…)
On my Twitter account, I follow a few hundred mainstream media-types (keep the enemy closer, right?), and unless I've missed it (and I hope I have), not a single one has spoken out in defense of Roland Martin. Not one. How scary is that. The politically correct Groupthink...
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