AFP Promotes Poorly Sourced GW Alarmism
In one of their latest articles, Agence France-Presse (or AFP) advances the Global Warming alarmism narrative with a bit of low-calorie journalism. This is the AFP that is billed as delivering "fast, accurate, in-depth news from every corner of the world..." Also note that Yahoo News is carrying the story.
The article begins by informing us of a "polar research team's" findings based on data gathered from "adventurer" Pen Hadow, his photographer and navigator. Together they managed to pool their backgrounds into something that must obviously pass for a credible scientific mission while destroying the gear used to collect the data. According to some, these folks are a trio of real pros at work. Some snippets, though the whole is worth a read:
"Explorers like me have been paddling and swimming to the North Pole for decades, and now we'd like to know how come we don't get to speak to the US Congress about “climate change and security.”
...
"The decreasing arctic ice coverage and thickness is a problem, but we are not helped by fake explorers getting million dollar sponsorship and a mass of resupplies to prove a lie or at the best something we already know. And by themselves adding to the "arctic meltdown."
...
""He's [Hadow] the same dude who pretended to be the first person to swim at the North Pole, by the way..." wrote the reader who sent us the original alert. We know buddy. Long live the Queen - and God Bless the Internet!"
The AFP article closes with a leap of faith, if not an absolute slap to the face of common sense:
"[Arctic Icecap melting] could lead to flooding affecting one quarter of the world's population, substantial increases in greenhouse gas emission from massive carbon pools and extreme global weather changes."
"Today's findings provide yet another urgent call for action to world leaders ahead of the United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen in December to rapidly and effectively curb global greenhouse gas emissions."
Nevermind the questions about the periods in the Earth's history when the Arctic was ice free and how it got that way when man's greatest achievement to that point may have been The Wheel. Ignore the fact that March 2009 was the coldest since March 2000, and colder than March 1998 or 1990. Pretend we actually know what's been going on in the Arctic and why. Let's just forget for the moment any other question that this article may spawn. We're being told that melting of the Arctic icecap will lead to flooding affecting around 2 billion people.
Will this be right about the time sodas overflow worldwide because their icecubes melted?
It's showtime before Copenhagen - The Hockey Stick™ is now The Hockey Schtick, climate data supporting AGW has been memory-holed, and this is the best the Alarmists can muster?
How can anything else these folks produce be taken seriously?
