Irene and Climate Change: Liberal Media Won't Let a Good Crisis Go to Waste
In the days leading up to Hurricane Irene's march through the Northeast, journalists repeatedly suggested that the storm was yet more evidence of climate change.
"The scale of Hurricane Irene, which could cause more extensive damage along the Eastern Seaboard than any storm in decades, is reviving an old question: are hurricanes getting worse because of human-induced climate change?" asked the New York Times' Justin Gillis in his August 28 piece.
HLN guest host Don Lemon asked scientist Bill Nye on Wednesday if the storm was proof of climate change. Nye answered that it was "consistent with all the predictions of climate change models" and added that the United States is behind the times in taking action on climate change. "There's no other developed world country that isn't very concerned about climate change," Nye asserted, and ABC's weatherman Sam Champion agreed.
[Video below the break.]
MSNBC's guest host Chris Hayes teed up environmental activist Bill McKibben with this dour question on Thursday: "How do you maintain hope? Because sometimes I read about the climate, and I just sort of despair, or I want to throw in the towel." McKibben predictably answered that the hurricane's middle name was "global warming."
On Friday's Dylan Ratigan Show, as NewsBusters reported, MSNBC contributor Toure asked Stephen Flynn from the Center for National Policy if such a "massive storm" in New York City would be evidence of global warming. Flynn answered in the affirmative.
A transcript of the segments is as follows:
MSNBC
THE LAST WORD
8/25/2011
CHRIS HAYES: How do you maintain hope? Because sometimes I read about the climate, and I just sort of despair, or I want to throw in the towel. And I wonder since you're out there every day, you're here talking to me now, how do you avoid that?"
BILL MCKIBBEN, environmental activist: It's easy to despair. It's easy to despair today watching Irene come up the coast. It's going to come over the warmest water that's ever been recorded off the shores of New Jersey and New York. I mean, Irene's middle name is global warming.
HLN
THE JOY BEHAR SHOW
8/24/2011
DON LEMON: Let's talk about the things now that people find highly controversial and we're talking about climate change. First to Bill. Have there been stronger hurricanes lately, you believe – is climate change behind this?"
BILL NYE, "The Science Guy": Well, you know, I – I accept all the evidence for climate change and more violent storms are part of that....Now these are not in themselves proof of climate change, but they are absolutely consistent with all the predictions of climate change models. So – and I remind everybody, the United States is unique in this. There's no other developed world country that isn't very concerned about climate change....
SAM CHAMPION, weatherman, ABC's Good Morning America: I'm on board for climate change. I think again, just as Bill pointed out, I can't think of another country as advanced as we are that hasn't made a policy about it and hasn't signed on to it.
MSNBC
THE DYLAN RATIGAN SHOW
8/26/2011
TOURE, MSNBC contributor: When you talk about an unusual weather event happening in New York and this sort of thing, is this really evidence of global warming, to see this sort of a massive storm happening here?"
JUSTIN GILLIS, "Green" blogger, New York Times: The scale of Hurricane Irene, which could cause more extensive damage along the Eastern Seaboard than any storm in decades, is reviving an old question: are hurricanes getting worse because of human-induced climate change?
-- Lead paragraph of Justin Gillis August 28 New York Times story, "Seeing Irene as Harbinger of a Change in Climate."
- Matt Hadro's blog
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Comments
Couldn't They Just Look It Up?
Submitted by HardRightTurn on Mon, 08/29/2011 - 5:43pm.
"In viewing actual data on a short time horizon, sparse experience would suggest the frequency of major hurricanes is not strongly correlated with the AMO. During warm phases of the AMO, the number of minor hurricanes (category 1 and 2) saw a modest increase.[5] With full consideration of meteorological science, the number of tropical storms that can mature into severe hurricanes is much greater during warm phases of the AMO than during cool phases, at least twice as many; the AMO is reflected in the frequency of severe Atlantic hurricanes.[2] The hurricane activity index is found to be highly correlated with the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation.[5] If there is an increase in hurricane activity connected to global warming, it is currently obscured by the AMO quasi-periodic cycle.[5] The AMO alternately obscures and exaggerates the global increase in temperatures due to human-induced global warming.[2] Based on the typical duration of negative and positive phases of the AMO, the current warm regime is expected to persist at least until 2015 and possibly as late as 2035. Enfield et al. assume a peak around 2020.[6]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_multidecadal_oscillation
To more fully comprehend the Left, one must read “Leftism As Psychopathy” by John Ray, M.A., Ph.D. Caution, it might scare you a little bit.
http://jonjayray.tripod.com/psycho.html
There is not one type of
Submitted by tcm14 on Mon, 08/29/2011 - 5:48pm.
There is not one type of weather that is not caused by global warming. I am so sick of it. 365 days a year, whatever the weather is doing on that day, they will blame it on global warming.
god vs algore
Submitted by right of way on Mon, 08/29/2011 - 5:54pm.
i would believe that god had a hand in this rather than algore.
It's annoying how the global
Submitted by Kenny Bunkport on Mon, 08/29/2011 - 6:35pm.
It's annoying how the global warmists cite anecdotal evidence when it supports their position, but in the same breath tell you that isolated or single year events mean nothing when those events refute AWG.
Even within the same phenomenon, they want it both ways. Global Warming theory predicts BOTH bigger hurricanes AND more active seasons. So since Irene was briefly big and strong that proves AWG. However, 2011 has been a slow hurricane season, but that doesn't disprove AWG. Heads we win, tails you lose.
I also love when they claim a
Submitted by HypocriteHater on Mon, 08/29/2011 - 9:37pm.
I also love when they claim a lack of snow during the winter is a sign of global warming, but blizzards are also a sign of global warming. Huh??
Scarry Dude!
Submitted by Dave81 on Mon, 08/29/2011 - 8:55pm.
I literally thought Bill McKibben was going to eat me! When they interview him, they should do one of those siloutte interviews where you can't see his face to spare their viewers. That is one scarry dude!!
Science Guy?
Submitted by deadeyedan on Mon, 08/29/2011 - 9:27pm.
Bill Nye was on CNN on the night after the great Indian Ocean tsunami of Christmas, 2004 when the anchorman (I forget who) asked him if it had been caused by global warming. Nye's grimaced expression answered the anchorman, but that question underscored one of the real difficulties here.
Though scientists are assumed to be disciplined and adhere to objectivity at all levels, what about the politicians, high profile media professionals and glamor-seeking grant foundation managers who the scientists owe their allegiance to?
The result is another CNN type (Rick Sanchez) thinking there couldn't be volcanoes in high latitudes (ever hear of Mt. Erebus?) which was followed by a flurry of reports stating that volcanoes in higher latitudes are able to erupt easier if their glacial packs are melted off by global warming - the thinking being that the mass of the ice keeps them held down.
There is available on Netflix an Academy Award nominated documentary on Mt. St. Helens directed by George Casey that eerily describes how craters were formed in the landslide/pyroclastic flow shortly after the event. There was no evidence of large boulders or rocky shrapnel to account for them; instead, only mud from melted ice was observed.
Scientists surmised that the mountain blew its glaciers to the stratosphere and when they landed the craters were formed. So much for glaciers holding down volcanoes!
When so many non-scientists with a mission and/or agenda enter the fray and the scientists' pay checks rely on them, do not expect much genuine science.
Global warming - authoritarian, rather than authoritative, science
ClimateGate - the revelation that the pseudo-scientists of East Anglia University know just as much about the atmosphere as Harvard law professors know about the Constitution
Bill Nye is an engineer and holds no earned doctorate.
Submitted by drsamherman on Tue, 08/30/2011 - 3:57pm.
By training, he is an engineer. He has no earned doctorate in any physical science based on any biography that I can find of him online. His knowledge of science would therefore be limited to whatever he had in his formal courses or any scientific advisers he uses for his programs and articles. Of his advisers, I am willing to bet more than a few of them are glowbull warming cultists riding the AGW funding bandwagon.
I prefer Alton Brown
Submitted by Blonde on Tue, 08/30/2011 - 4:51pm.
....for TV science facts (of course I do!).
Handy Reference Guide to Obama's Gaffes and Goofs ~ Currently Numbering 200 (and Counting)
Bill Nye is a disgrace. He
Submitted by Van Halen on Mon, 08/29/2011 - 11:29pm.
Bill Nye is a disgrace. He used to have a great science show for kids and then suddenly he saw $$ and went all environmentalist wacko. Now he's almost as bad as Gore ranting on and on with his pseudoscience and alarmist nonsense. He needs to go back to his first year science textbooks and study the Scientific Method. If he did, he might realize how much of an ass he is making of himself.
Gov. Chris Christie is a strong believer in Global Warming.
Submitted by Rush Fan on Tue, 08/30/2011 - 12:10am.
So if an intelligent and seemingly of sound judgment Republican agrees with Nobel Prize winner Al Gore that Global Warming is real, I guess it must be a FACT. After all, would Gov. Christie ban new coal plants in New Jersey, and plan to shut down current coal plants, if Global Warming i.e. Climate Change, was not a fact of life?
Pseudoscience
Submitted by Phryj1 on Tue, 08/30/2011 - 3:55am.
Once again, a warming scaremonger claims a weather event is 'consistent with all predictions of climate change models'. They say that about everything. Too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry, too rainy, too snowy, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, EVEN WHEN IT'S NICE AND MILD.
This is how it works: non-falsifiable=NON-SCIENTIFIC. Pretty sure these models can be completely disregarded.
Just a question, but have any scientists outside of the AGW establishment ever had a chance to review these models and the methodology used to make them, including how the data was sourced and compiled? From what I've gathered, climate researchers have been stonewalling and blocking every attempt to scrutinize their methods and conclusions.
Also, you'll notice how the MSM only brings on guys who will tie whatever recent weather event to man-made climate change, and doesn't bother with the weather experts who can show it was just a natural event. Puts the whole "don't give climate skeptics any airtime" thing into perspective. Suppress the facts, advance The Narrative™, the MSM's raison d'être. What more proof would anyone need?
Progressives seem to be completely averse to facts and logic. Apparently, reality has a conservative bias.
The media defined the
Submitted by Kenny Bunkport on Tue, 08/30/2011 - 10:21am.
The media defined the narrative regarding the Y2K scare as well. There were plenty of experts who thought nothing much would come of that too. As now, they were dismissed as head in the sand know nothings. When they were proven right, no mea culpa from the media. Business spent billions on unnecessary computer buys. Arguably this might have contributed to the tech bubble and subsequent recession of 2001.
Y2K and AGW
Submitted by Phryj1 on Tue, 08/30/2011 - 2:55pm.
Another overhyped and overblown non-issue that was spun into a full blown panic. And while the early 2000's tech bubble recession was largely because of internet start-ups with big investments and no actual business plans, everyone running out and wasting money on new computers/servers and 'Y2K compliant' software certainly didn't help anything. It ended up making the tech bubble far larger and more destructive than it would've been otherwise.
I'm not going to hold my breath for any apologies from the media, any more than I would expect them to admit they were wrong about Obama and the Dem policies they've been hyping for the past few years.
The silver lining is that the media has managed to destroy much of it's own credibility, and most people aren't buying the AGW scam.
Progressives seem to be completely averse to facts and logic. Apparently, reality has a conservative bias.
Full blown panic?
Submitted by mandrake on Tue, 08/30/2011 - 3:26pm.
You have an interesting definiition of the term 'panic' I was one of those engineers who had to stay home new years eve on Y2K cause I was 'on call'..nothing happened. Later that year I was out camping with the family in BC when a bear wandered on to our campsite. Now that is panic:)
Here's MY prediction:
Submitted by Phryj1 on Tue, 08/30/2011 - 4:05am.
If this hurricane season is exceptionally active, they'll blame climate change, and claim it's consistent with their models. If it's a comparatively mild hurricane season, they'll blame climate change, and claim it's consistent with their models. If there's a particularly bad hurricane this season...they'll blame climate change, and claim it's consistent with their models. AND, even if it's a completely average hurricane season, without any really destructive storms...YOU GUESSED IT!...they'll blame climate change, and claim it's consistent with their models!
See, I can do it too!
Progressives seem to be completely averse to facts and logic. Apparently, reality has a conservative bias.
I challenge the "climate
Submitted by Beukeboom on Tue, 08/30/2011 - 9:29am.
I challenge the "climate change" proponents to show conclusive evidence of any point in recorded history where the climate didn't change by any level. The climate is always changing...always has been and always will. That is the inherent nature of climate.
That's the reason AlGore and Co. call it 'climate change'...
Submitted by Phryj1 on Tue, 08/30/2011 - 3:12pm.
...it gives them a lot more wiggle room. Notice they tend to leave out the word 'man-made' when they talk about climate change, even though debunked anthropogenic global warming theory is what they are referring to and has always been their justification for CO2 taxes and regulations. They're still selling the same snake oil, but they've slapped on a different label.
The real scientists have torpedoed AGW theory, so the new game is spinning every weather event into the latest 'climate change' related disaster.
Scientific facts: weather happens and the climate changes NATURALLY all the time, but AlGore wants that carbon money, so he'd appreciate it if you kept those facts to yourself.
Progressives seem to be completely averse to facts and logic. Apparently, reality has a conservative bias.
Education?
Submitted by Nonanon on Tue, 08/30/2011 - 7:31am.
It is astounding how successful liberals have been at indoctrinating logic, thought, and even intelligence out of so many people. This is just another example of it.
If you learn a lot but it is wrong, are you still considered educated?
It this storm had tracked 100 miles to the east, would they still be attributing it to GW/CC? What would the dollar amount of damage be then? The storms are not getting worse, there is just more people to hurt or kill and more stuff to damage or destroy if the storm path takes it over population or developed areas.
And they call us stupid.
Bottom line: the documented
Submitted by Beukeboom on Tue, 08/30/2011 - 9:27am.
Bottom line: the documented evidence does not support the global warming theories being promoted by Al Gore and similarly-minded liberals. And the buzz-phrase "climate change" is really an irrelevant term since the climate is always changing, always has been and always will be. The errors include attributing human influences where there is no evidence supporting such a claim and overstating sometimes to the point of brazen fabrication what actually has occurred (Irene being a good example of this -- making it sound like a fierce storm when in reality it was only a minimal Cat 1 at landfall near Cape Lookout, N.C. with maximum sustained winds of 85 miles per hour -- hardly evidence of "climate change" as the libs would try to espouse).
Global warming findings refuted
Submitted by Ben Blankenship on Tue, 08/30/2011 - 1:05pm.
Accoring to the 8/27 Financial Post: New, convincing evidence indicates global warming is caused by cosmic rays and the sun — not humans.The science is now all-but-settled on global warming, convincing new evidence demonstrates, but Al Gore, the IPCC and other global warming doomsayers won’t be celebrating. The new findings point to cosmic rays and the sun — not human activities — as the dominant controller of climate on Earth.
The research, published with little fanfare this week in the prestigious journal Nature, comes from über-prestigious CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research...63 CERN scientists from 17 European and American institutes have done what global warming doomsayers said could never be done — demonstrate that cosmic rays promote the formation of molecules that in Earth’s atmosphere can grow and seed clouds, the cloudier and thus cooler it will be. Because the sun’s magnetic field controls how many cosmic rays reach Earth’s atmosphere (the stronger the sun’s magnetic field, the more it shields Earth.
CERN 1, Al Gore 0. Game over.