CNN: Climate Conference Attendees Are Like Flat Earthers

As NewsBusters reported, there's an international conference on climate change happening in New York City wherein well-renowned scientists from all over the world are meeting to discuss anthropogenic global warming.

On Monday, climate alarmist Miles O'Brien of CNN actually had the gall to imply that speakers and attendees of this conference are Flat Earthers.

I kid you not.

During Monday evening's "Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees," O'Brien concluded his videotaped report concerning this conference (video available here at end of blog post):

Even the Flat Earth Society didn't fold its tent in 1493.

How disgraceful.

Of course, O'Brien didn't mention that the leaders of the anthropogenic global warming movement, Nobel Laureate Al Gore and Goddard Institute for Space Studies chief James Hansen, were both invited to speak at the conference, but refused.

Nor did he mention that the founder of The Weather Channel, John Coleman, said at the conference that folks involved in the marketing and sale of carbon credits -- including Al Gore -- should be sued "to finally put some light on the fraud of global warming.”

No. Instead, O'Brien, who firmly believes in the global warming myth, chose to equate all the esteemed scientists attending this conference to those that continued to believe the earth was flat AFTER Christopher Columbus sailed across it.

This from a man who in December 2006, as the Senate was debating this very issue, fell asleep.

For those that can stand it, what follows is a partial transcript of this segment:

ANDERSON COOPER, HOST: Snow in Jordan, certainly not expected and very out of the ordinary. It's been a wild winter all around the globe. Aside from the snow in the Middle East, there's been a freak blizzard in China; record gains in the amount of ice in the arctic.

Does it mean global warming is, well, over? Not exactly. Many scientists say these are weather phenomenon, not overall changes of climate. This season's weather, however, hasn't stopped a group of academics and scientists from getting together and telling anyone who'll listen that climate change is the theory that never was.

Here's Miles O'Brien continuing our "Planet in Peril" series.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The heartland is no place for a polar bear to take refuge. The Heartland Institute, that is.

DENNIS AVERY, SENIOR FELLOW, THE HUDSON INSTITUTE: Because this cycle is natural, because the wildlife has been through it before, we will not lose species to global warming.

O'BRIEN: The conservative think-tank is staging a three-day summit for global warming skeptics in New York. Halls and conference rooms bristling with what amounts to scientific trash talks.

LORD CHRISTOPHER MONCKTON, THE SCIENCE AND PUBLIC POLICY INSTITUTE: Here is the graph that started the scare.

FRED SINGER: A warmer climate is better than a colder climate. Something people tend to overlook.

O'BRIEN: That's Fred Singer, a superstar among the climate change skeptics here. The gist of his argument? Sure, the climate is changing and the ice is melting, but it's not our fault. And so we shouldn't do anything about it.

You firmly believe it's natural, don't you?

SINGER: I do. And it's not a matter of belief. It's a matter of evidence. I go by data. O'BRIEN: Where are you getting your data from?

SINGER: That's a good question. I get it from the IPCC.

O'BRIEN: You know the IPCC, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the U.N. organization that distills the work of thousands of climate scientists all over the world and issues all those increasingly dire warnings about global warming and its likely link to our use of fossil fuels.

So how can the people here look at the same data and reach such a different conclusion?

JOE BAST (ph), HEARTLAND: I think what we are is the junk science busters.

O'BRIEN: Joe Bast is president of Heartland. He says the public is skeptical about global warming.

A recent poll from Yale found a vast majority of Americans believe global warming is real and a serious threat.

I can't help but think you're living on a different planet than I am.

BAST: I probably am. I think your planet is very small and echo chamber sort of thing.

O'BRIEN: But Dan Fagin says this might be the echo chamber.

DAN FAGIN: I think at this point they're largely talking to each other.

O'BRIEN: Fagin teaches journalism and writes on the environment. He says skeptics have changed their tune as evidence started stacking up against them. A decade ago they denied global warming even existed.

FAGIN: They're getting closer to the scientific reality, although they're certainly not there yet. The only way that they could be right is if there was some kind of grand conspiracy.

O'BRIEN: But that is what Heartland desperately wants us to believe. Even the Flat Earth Society didn't fold its tent in 1493.

Miles O'Brien, CNN, New York.