Science Fiction: 5 Years After, Networks Celebrate Al Gore's 'Inconvenient Truth,' Ignore Scientific Flaws, Criticism
The cause for the end of the world has been imagined by screenwriters to include everything from giant insects and malevolent robots to asteroids the size of Texas. But five year ago in May 2006, Hollywood found a new menace: carbon dioxide. This scenario was different in another respect. It was supposedly true.
The documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" wasn't intended to be the blockbuster end-of-the-world tale that "Armageddon" was, but it was intended to frighten. The new film was full of disaster footage and catastrophic predictions about climate change. Its leading man: former vice president Al Gore.
The apocalyptic warning earned nearly $50 million worldwide and turned Gore into a "movie star," according to the fawning networks. Gore won accolades, including an Oscar and a Nobel Peace Prize. Reporters and anchors on ABC, CBS and NBC also made a hero of Apocalypse Al, embracing his views and bringing on guests with the same views including one who said Gore had been busy "saving the planet - literally."
Gore received almost entirely uncritical coverage from the network morning and evening shows over global warming, despite plenty of evidence - scientific evidence - that would have discredited him and his film. Since the movie's release, nearly 98 percent of those stories have excluded criticism of the so-called "science" of the film.
Gore's film has been criticized for many errors and hyperbole regarding the past and future effects of global warming - including his exaggerated claim that sea levels will rise by 20 feet and his now-debunked assertion that Hurricane Katrina was caused by climate change. Such examples were used to scare audiences into accepting Gore's political agenda. The errors and agenda of the film prompted a British judge to rule that the film couldn't be shown in schools without a disclaimer pointing out its inaccuracies and political bias. But those critical views are regularly banished from the networks.
The Media Research Center's Business & Media Institute analyzed broadcast news coverage of Gore about climate change and mentions of "An Inconvenient Truth" between May 11, 2006, shortly before the film's release, and April 30, 2011. Here are some of BMI's findings:
The documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" wasn't intended to be the blockbuster end-of-the-world tale that "Armageddon" was, but it was intended to frighten. The new film was full of disaster footage and catastrophic predictions about climate change. Its leading man: former vice president Al Gore.
The apocalyptic warning earned nearly $50 million worldwide and turned Gore into a "movie star," according to the fawning networks. Gore won accolades, including an Oscar and a Nobel Peace Prize. Reporters and anchors on ABC, CBS and NBC also made a hero of Apocalypse Al, embracing his views and bringing on guests with the same views including one who said Gore had been busy "saving the planet - literally."
Gore received almost entirely uncritical coverage from the network morning and evening shows over global warming, despite plenty of evidence - scientific evidence - that would have discredited him and his film. Since the movie's release, nearly 98 percent of those stories have excluded criticism of the so-called "science" of the film.
Gore's film has been criticized for many errors and hyperbole regarding the past and future effects of global warming - including his exaggerated claim that sea levels will rise by 20 feet and his now-debunked assertion that Hurricane Katrina was caused by climate change. Such examples were used to scare audiences into accepting Gore's political agenda. The errors and agenda of the film prompted a British judge to rule that the film couldn't be shown in schools without a disclaimer pointing out its inaccuracies and political bias. But those critical views are regularly banished from the networks.
The Media Research Center's Business & Media Institute analyzed broadcast news coverage of Gore about climate change and mentions of "An Inconvenient Truth" between May 11, 2006, shortly before the film's release, and April 30, 2011. Here are some of BMI's findings:
- Who Needs Science?: Nearly 98 percent of broadcast stories (266 out of 272) failed to challenge the supposedly scientific claims of "An Inconvenient Truth" about global warming, including dramatic predictions of sea level rise and links between climate change and extreme weather such as tornadoes, hurricanes, fires and droughts. Many of these claims have been challenged, yet scientific criticism was barely represented by ABC, CBS and NBC.
- Gore's Way or the Highway: More than 80 percent (222 of 272) of the network stories and briefs excluded any criticism of Al Gore or his film. About one-fifth of the stories that included opposition were critical of the 2007 Live Earth concerts organized by Gore, but expressed no dissent about global warming.
- Gore For President, or VP or Czar: Gore's success with "An Inconvenient Truth," was used by all three networks to push him to run for president again or accept a position within the Obama administration. In one CBS "Early Show" interview, Harry Smith literally tried to pin a "Gore '08" campaign button on the former vice president.
- NBC the Worst: NBC has thrown objectivity out the window on the issue of global warming, preferring activism instead. In the past five years, "Nightly News" and "Today" maintained that role by including the lowest percentage of opposing views (17 percent) in its Gore/"An Inconvenient Truth" reports. Its parent company NBC/Universal also partnered with Gore for the Live Earth concerts, which were aired on its networks.
- ABC the Best: ABC news programming with "World News" and "Good Morning America," ranked best out of the three networks because they included more opposing views than the other networks. But those views were still only included roughly one-fifth of the time (20 of 95).
To improve coverage, BMI recommends:
- Don't just take Gore's word for it: Al Gore is certainly a passionate activist, but he isn't a scientist. The networks shouldn't take his interpretation of global warming science as truth. Rather, they should be skeptical because of his very real political agenda.
- Include both sides: The Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics states journalists should "Support the open exchange of views, even views they find repugnant." It is the media's job to inform the public, not persuade them by leaving out alternative viewpoints. Particularly, networks should give skeptical scientists the opportunity to share their findings - just like they include scientists who say manmade global warming is going to devastate the planet.
- Recognize that advocacy is not reporting: The SPJ Code of Ethics also says to: "Distinguish between advocacy and news reporting. Analysis and commentary should be labeled and not misrepresent fact or context."
Read BMI's new Special Report
Read the Sidebar: Live Earth: NBC Joins the Fight for 'Climate in Crisis,' Fails to Stay Objective
- Julia A. Seymour's blog
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Comments
Facts are just so....um....
Submitted by almostacowboy on Tue, 05/24/2011 - 10:44am.
...inconvenient.
Here is a riddle...
Submitted by c5then on Tue, 05/24/2011 - 10:52am.
What is the difference between Al Gore and Harrold Camping?
Answer...Harrold Camping will eventually be right.
Madison and Jefferson and Franklin built a Republic - Roberts killed it!
Nice
Submitted by Dave81 on Tue, 05/24/2011 - 11:43am.
=)
I was flipping through the TV
Submitted by killa37 on Tue, 05/24/2011 - 11:15am.
I was flipping through the TV channels last night, and I caught this line on one of the 'alphabet' channels - which I NEVER watch.............and it might have been Diane Sawyer, standing in front of a pile of tornado-caused rubble. She said 'is this what we can expect - living in the age of global warming..........or something similiar. I just about puked, and I clicked my remote as quickly as possible so that I wouldn't have a melt-down.
These people will stop at nothing to push their agenda. I don't want to downplay the horrible destruction and death of these natural catastophies ( as opposed to 'man-made catastrophies), but how are these dopes ever going to explain that these things have happened in the past - back BEFORE 'global warming'............
In the past
Submitted by jon_torlin on Tue, 05/24/2011 - 11:31am.
I seem to remember reading that there were similar twisters like this in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Long before the Automobile. Oh yeah, really strong hurricanes too.
Not to mention historical accounts of weather like this over the past centuries.
This crap really makes me sick that people fall for it.
-Jon
Sticking to their guns.
Submitted by Phryj1 on Tue, 05/24/2011 - 12:20pm.
It doesn't matter how many scientists come forward and challenge the inaccuracies in the grossly misnamed An Inconvenient Truth, the AGW scaremongers are going to keep on repeating the lies, like the good little left-wing propagandists they are.
Progressives seem to be completely averse to facts and logic. Apparently, reality has a conservative bias.
Gore States That Sea Levels Will Rise by 20 Feet...
Submitted by Conservator on Tue, 05/24/2011 - 12:35pm.
...which explains why he owns two residences in CA near the ocean. However, the models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) project that by the end of this century, the global average sea-level will rise between 7 and 23 inches (0.18 and 0.59 meters) above the 1980–1999 average. As with temperatures described above, this range is not directly comparable to the prior IPCC assessment because of the smaller number of emission scenarios evaluated and improved statistical methods. That being said, the midpoint of the scenarios used in both assessments differed by only 10 percent between the prior assessment and the current one.
Source:
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/science/finding...
So the IPCC believes that in 100 years the sea level might rise by as much as 23 inches! - a far cry from 20 feet and Gore stated last year that this 20 foot increase could come as soon as 2030. Yeah, he's an authority on the myth of Anthropogenic Global Warming.
Conservator - take a look at sea level change, here
Submitted by Gary Hall on Tue, 05/24/2011 - 2:46pm.
Now, here is what we're talking about - little factoids the national MSM will never bother to check out:
Wow - yep, just clipping along at a whopping 3 1/4 inch rise per 100 years. What's really fun to do with that chart is put your sights on the very last reading plotted - then drag the chart down the page (this creates a great visual for a straight/level line), until that last plot is on the top of your desktop taskbar. Amazing - all the way back to the 1920's the readings are higher than today.
Yet, every few weeks, or so, we pick up our local paper, the LATimes, and are informed that in the next 89 years (end of this century) sea level here in LA will rise some 55 inches. In e-mail exchanges, some of these "journalists" insist that the 55 inch number is conservative - it's very likely to be more.
When's it going to start?
Cheers,
gary
Please.....
Submitted by almostacowboy on Tue, 05/24/2011 - 5:53pm.
Hurry! C'moooooooon water!
It is and was a matter of probability
Submitted by ahusser on Tue, 05/24/2011 - 1:44pm.
That sooner or later a large tornado would devastate larger and more populated areas. It is unfortunate and tragic but more than likely coincidental that two such tornadoes took out two larger cities in the same year. I am sure there is a fluctuation of severe weather in a range which is cyclic in nature. The changing variable in all this is that there is more population and therefore more infrastructure that can be devastated in tornado prone areas. Memories are short but if the news says that this is the worst year for tornadoes since (pick a year) 1950 (one source said) then 1950 was a bad year and supposedly there wasn't any global warming then. Recall the movie "Twister". I think this movie was based on a particularly destructive year for tornadoes in the midwest during the late 80's. Liberal's don't have much of an attention span so memories of the past (or documented events even) don't come into play because the agenda and scaremongering is the real point. 'Proving" global warming based on isolated events is a fool's game.
"Somehow, I told you so, just doesn't quite say it." Will Smith in 'I, Robot.'
Congratulations Julia Seymour Watts Up With That? Posted this
Submitted by upcountrywater on Tue, 05/24/2011 - 2:20pm.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/24/five-years-of-an-inconvenient-truth/#more-40478
Good Job :-)
You Didn't Build That.
Take a look
Submitted by Kilroy on Tue, 05/24/2011 - 3:40pm.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/climate-expert-al-gore-got-d-natural...
If anyone is interested in the prophets credentials on the subject of climate. Thankfully he did invent the internet, or is that going to be dis proven also?
SMELL THY OWN.
Submitted by Villabolo on Wed, 05/25/2011 - 11:38am.
The majority here would not recognize a real climate scientist if he/she came up and bit them in their posteriors.
I've been writing articles on a Global Warming website and I'm always amazed at how people mindlessly parrot the pathological falsehoods of people like Lord Monckton, who is the supreme leader of the so called "skeptic" crowd.
If you're going to criticize Al Gore, who's not a scientist and yet is far more accurate than Lord Monckton . . . well, let's turn the table on the self-righteous accusers..
Lord Monckton is NOT the equivalent of Al Gore. Skeptics consider Monckton the supreme expert on Climate issues. Al Gore merely repeats what scientists say.
The example below shows what credibility Lord Monckton has in general. From that, one can figure out how likely he is to have anything meaningful or truthful.
1. He claims to have cured several diseases including the one he still suffers from.
From Lord Monckton's resume:
Christopher: A man of many talents
Friday, 4th June 2010
"UKIP's new joint Deputy Leader, Christopher Monckton, 58, is a true polymath with a range of knowledge and interests extending across medicine, finance, journalism and science."
". . .
"2008-present: RESURREXI Pharmaceutical: Director responsible for invention and development of a broad-spectrum cure for infectious diseases. Patents have now been filed. Patients have been cured of various infectious diseases, including Graves’ Disease, multiple sclerosis, influenza, and herpes simplex VI. Our first HIV patient had his viral titre reduced by 38% in five days, with no side-effects. Tests continue."
http://www.ukip.org/content/latest-news/1675-christopher-a-man-of-many-talents
Amazing, how Lord Monckton claims to have cured patients of several diseases including the one he still suffers from.
2. He claims to have won a Nobel Peace Prize 'Pin' made from gold recovered from a physics experiment.
"His contribution to the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report in 2007 - the correction of a table inserted by IPCC bureaucrats that had overstated tenfold the observed contribution of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets to sea-level rise - earned him the status of Nobel Peace Laureate. His Nobel prize pin, made of gold recovered from a physics experiment, was presented to him by the Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Rochester, New York, USA."
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/personnel.html
He made that claim on a radio talk show in Australia years ago. When confronted by a reporter on his statement, Monckton claimed it was a joke.
Amazing how such a joke managed to make it on his resume on his very own website. What other Global Warming related statements can we assume that this leader of the "skeptic" community has been "joking" about?
3. He has made the preposterous claim that DDT can be eaten by the tablespoon without harming you.
Yet he bizarrely says, right after, that he would not recommend even though he follows up by repeating that it's completely harmless to humans! See the 1:40 minute mark:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPa37cxlj5k
BOTTOM LINE, THIS IS THE SNAKE OIL SALESMAN THAT SO CALLED "SKEPTICS" OF GLOBAL WARMING LOOK UP TO AS A SOURCE OF INFORMATION.
Villabolo
Not many can be scientists
Submitted by ahusser on Wed, 05/25/2011 - 1:58pm.
or understand the nitty gritty of the science involved. But folks like me, and we are in the majority, have to take sides. The green side is and has been politicized towards the left and socialist spectrum there is no skepticism about that point. I personally do not trust what you non-skeptics say about anything concerning 'global warming' because there is always an underlying political agenda with you guys. Furthermore I did not read any of the above blogs which mentioned this Lord Monckton fellow. But I could have missed it. Your smug righteousness is telling. It tells me you believe anyone who does not know the science and is skeptical about man-made global warming are dolts. The non-skeptics seem to believe that there is global warming without a doubt and that this warming is man-made. The non-skeptics (or TRUE BELIEVERS if you will) have turned this "science" into a quasi-religious belief system and if you are a non-believer then you are heretic. The jury may still be out on the scientific proof of man made global warming but definitely the jury is not out on global warming as a left wing socialist political and economic shibboleth.
I will tell you what I do believe. If there is global warming how do we know it is man made? What are its true effects? Will these effects be good bad or mixed? From what I have read, the effects prophesied are from global destruction to mild climate change, which is it TRUE BELIEVERS? What if anything can we do about climate change if it comes to pass ( I believe, not much and which is it, climate change or global warming) and how far are the TRUE BELIEVERS willing to go to change something that may or may not exist and how much will all this cost and how destructive will the "CURE" be. (I believe it will be very costly and economically destructive). I believe the leftist political cure for global warming, man-made global warming or climate change (or whatever you folks are calling it these days) will be much worse than the effects of any so-called real climate change.
"Somehow, I told you so, just doesn't quite say it." Will Smith in 'I, Robot.'
Villabolo, Sniff this: Your site uses OLD DATA...
Submitted by upcountrywater on Wed, 05/25/2011 - 2:54pm.
Get up to date graph 2002 to 2011...
So you are saying 50,000,000 DEAD PEOPLE, from malaria is a good start?
Hockey stick trick
You Didn't Build That.
Lord Monckton - straw man supreme
Submitted by deadeyedan on Thu, 05/26/2011 - 11:47pm.
There are multitudes of credentialed scientists besides the aforementioned who are unconvinced of the global warming superstition. Many AGW zealots in the media have been attempting to connect the recent rash of tornadoes/floods with AGW even though the pseudo-scientists on their side are well aware that we have entered a cold Pacific Decadal Oscillation phase which would contradict such an association. Many more "La Nina" (cold) events than "El Nino" (warm) occur in such a regime.
But never mind, tornadoes are high profile events which have to be covered, they're very newsworthy and thus the link has to be made. Too many of the "faithful" have been led to believe that AGW does everything atmospheric (and even everything tectonic, such as a CNN anchor asking Bill Nye "the Science Guy" at around midnight the day after the Christmas tsunami of 2004, "Was it caused by global warming?") that they get besieged by queries wondering why they wouldn't be making the connection.
Whatever Lord Monckton says is quite superfluous when there is plenty of genuine science to support rejection of AGW mysticism.
ClimateGate - the revelation that the pseudo-scientists at East Anglia University know just as much about the atmosphere as Harvard law professors know about the Constitution - deadeyedan
Syrius AKA Villabolo LIES AGAIN. Right in your face.
Submitted by The Vet on Fri, 05/27/2011 - 7:05am.
Syrius tries to make the claim that someone is not to be believed because he made an outrageious statement.
Syrius AKA Villabolo: 3. He has made the preposterous claim that DDT can be eaten by the tablespoon without harming you.
preposterous: : contrary to nature, reason, or common sense
LIE LIE LIE LIE
DDT was banned because people were worried about the effects on bird shells. DDT was never proven particularly harmful to humans.
People did demonstrate the safety of DDT by swallowing tablespoons of DDT
Not afraid to put his mouth where his moxie was, Edwards took to swallowing a tablespoon of DDT on stage before every lecture on the subject. In September 1971, Esquire magazine pictured Edwards doing just that. The accompanying text explained that Edwards had "eaten 200 times the normal human intake of DDT." He did not even consider this gesture risky. In the one year of 1959, for instance, unprotected workmen had applied 60,000 tons of DDT to the inside walls of 100 million houses. Neither the 130,000 workmen or the 535 million people living in the sprayed houses had experienced any adverse effects.
Since this is in fact TRUE. That makes Syrius AKA Villabolo the preposterous LIAR. He is NEVER TO BE BELIEVED AGAIN ON THIS WEBSITE.
YOU LIE.
AGAIN.
The early toxicological information on DDT was very reassuring; it seemed that acute risks to health were small. If the huge amounts of DDT used are taken into account, the safety record for human beings is extremely good. In the 1940s many people were deliberately exposed to high concentrations of DDT through dusting programmes or impregnation of clothes, without any apparent ill effect.3 There are probably few other chemicals that have been studied in as much depth as has DDT, experimentally or in human beings.3 It quickly became clear that the dermal toxicity of dry DDT was very low, but even the oral toxicity depended on the composition of the diet. By contrast dieldrin caused poisoning of sprayers in many malaria-control programmes2 and is equally toxic by oral and dermal routes, the acute toxicity to rats being more than three times that of DDT.3 Ingestion of DDT, even when repeated, by volunteers or people attempting suicide has indicated low lethality, and large acute exposures can lead to vomiting, with ejection of the chemical. The earliest symptoms are hyperaesthesia of the mouth, followed by paraesthesia of the tongue, dizziness, tremors, and vomiting. Few toxicological effects due to inhalation of DDT have been reported. Some deaths attributed to DDT have been due to mixtures with other chemicals or solvents.3 Dermatitis in workers exposed to DDT was also probably due to solvents. Thus with acute or high-level exposure, DDT is probably safer than many other chemicals
Large exposures can lead to vomiting. That means a small exposure such as a tablespoon can... Oh dear. Why let's call someone preposterous AND LIE RIGHT IN OUR FACES.
Oh Mr. Preposterous Villabonehead. Who is the LIAR now?
Submitted by The Vet on Fri, 05/27/2011 - 7:35am.
Oh wait. That would be you. Never to be trusted again. Oh well. Looks like it is time for you to get to work on a new account Mr. Preposterous.
Come on milquetoast troll.
Submitted by The Vet on Fri, 05/27/2011 - 12:08pm.
You claimed a proven fact was preposterous. That makes YOU a lying little sissy that thinks he can mock people telling the truth. Let's hear you explain how we are to take you seriously now? You can't take 10 seconds out of your day to make sure you are correct before you dismiss as preposterous a man telling the truth. Tell us how we are now to believe anything you say here from this day forward.
God Gore
Submitted by mememine69 on Wed, 05/25/2011 - 5:34am.
ALGORE is my shepherd; I shall not think.
He maketh me lie down in Greenzi pastures:
He leadeth me beside the still-freezing waters.
He selleth my soul for CO2:
He leadeth me in the paths of self-righteousness for his own sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of reason,
I will fear no logic: for thou art with me and thinking for me;
Thy Gore’s family oil fortune and thy 10,000 square Gorey foot mansion, they comfort me.
Thou preparest a movie in the presence of contradictory evidence:
Thou anointest mine head with nonsense; my fear runneth over.
Surely blind faith and hysteria shall follow me all the days of my life:
and I will dwell in the house of ALGORE forever.