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:

On Thursday, the Senate will vote on a resolution proposed by Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, that would scuttle the Environmental Protection Agency’s plans to limit emissions of greenhouse gases by American businesses.

And he closes with this piece of advice:

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.

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You would think that a conference that features some of the world’s leading scientists talking about a hot-button issue like global warming would attract a bit of old media attention. The Heartland Institute’s Fourth International Conference on Climate Change, currently being held in Chicago, features distinguished scientists like the University of Colorado’s Dr. William Gray, Astrophysicist Dr. Willie Soon, MIT atmospheric physicist Dr. Richard Lindzen, former astronaut and United States Senator Dr. Harrison Schmitt and the guy who broke the hockey stick, Steve McIntyre. But, while there are a number of bloggers here, while Pajamas Media is here, while the European press is here – including the BBC – and while I’m here, the MSM is nowhere to be found.

What are they so afraid of – that they might learn something? It’s not like everyone is singing in chorus. For example, on Sunday night Steve McIntyre told the fascinating story of how and why Michael Mann and his cohorts “hid the decline,” complete with the relevant e-mails and published charts that irrefutably show how Mann, Jones and the rest of the climategate gang consciously discarded relevant data and then tried to cover their actions up.

The mainstream media meme, with regards to hiding the decline, is that while that this revelation was regrettable, it does nothing to disprove the theory that mankind is responsible for global warming. Guess what? McIntyre agrees. In fact, he went out of his way to say that he’s not your “go to” guy with respect to carbon dioxide’s effect on the climate. There are others who have that particular expertise. But, anyone who listens to McIntyre recount this story of scientific malpractice could not help but be deeply troubled and wonder: what else have they been hiding? (more…)

Global warming skeptics like me are often asked how the mainstream media could have been so wrong about the “climate change” issue for so long. The answer is that the MSM’s fascination with global warming alarmism is nothing out the ordinary; it’s part of a decades-old pattern. The old media has been consistently, often laughably, wrong when it comes to covering environmental topics because they invariably stick to the green narrative: anyone associated with industry is ill-informed at best, or –- more often –-  just plain lying. On the other hand, the environmental movement is, in their world, the only reliable source of information.

An example of this phenomenon came to my attention recently. In a March 21 story the Chicago Tribune and the paper’s chief industry hit-man, environmental reporter Michael Hawthorne, slammed a small business located in a poor Chicago suburb over supposed ecological transgressions that make the plant sound like the second-coming of Chernobyl. For the benefit of those of you who are not fellow technological weenies, I’ll limit this summation to a couple of the broad themes. But, should you be a fellow propeller-head, a few scientific details will follow as well.

Hawthorne attacked Geneva Energy, a small power plant located in Ford Heights, which is, as he admits, “one of the poorest suburbs in the U.S.” The plant burns old tires and, while recovering energy from worn-out rubber might seem like a pretty good idea to you and me, it represents a grave threat to the citizens of Ford Heights and mother earth as far as Hawthorne and the environmental groups he champions are concerned. The supposed “problems” fit into two broad categories: (more…)

When even the New York Times finally picks up the pungent aroma of a scandal, you’ve gotta figure that the stench is overwhelming. Recently, the Times decided this bit of news was finally fit to repeat: that the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been playing fast and loose with scientific data regarding “climate change.” That story has only been buzzing about the blogosphere for weeks now, so hats off to the “newspaper of record” for taking notice of the situation with such alacrity.

This is a milestone of sorts. The Times has – finally – chosen to publish a story about global warming that did not primarily consist of Andrew Revkin’s fawning assurances that alarmists were the guardians of holy writ and skeptics are alchemists in the employ of Exxon-Mobil. Prior to this happy event, I thought the chances of the Senate passing a cap and trade bill were slim, but that the possibility still existed. Now that the New York Times has finally acknowledged that global warming skeptics may have a point or two after all, we may administer last rites to Waxman-Markey. Good riddance.

But how did we get here? Al Gore’s hucksterism and that silly movie of his, which any legitimate scientist – even among the alarmist crowd – has to laugh at, deserve a lot of the blame. But the biggest problem was the way that the old media and policy makers embraced the collectivist agenda of the IPCC. This shameful episode has been an object lesson of what happens when we follow Obama’s doctrine of following the lead of the would-be global government crowd, rather than letting America and her allies lead the globe toward a bright future. (more…)