Global Warming

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Friday cherry-picked statements from Glenn Beck's radio show to accuse him of lying about global warming.

In a brief segment on the MSNBC program bearing her name, Maddow said the Fox News star claimed the snowstorm that hit the East Coast this week disproves Al Gore's favorite myth.

Unfortunately, Maddow conveniently left out the part when Beck said "one storm does not prove anything."

But that didn't stop the MSNBC host from making the accusation (video embedded below the fold with transcript):

Poor Seth Borenstein of the Associated Press.

Since the AP science reporter wrote his December 12, 2009 defense of the alleged scientists who have promoted the alleged perils of human-caused global warming, the scandal known as ClimateGate has inexorably widened. It has deeply tarnished never-deserved reputations; revealed the entire premise to be based on fraudulent, corrupted, manipulated and/or nonexistent data; and taken the entire enterprise to the point where it is utterly without objective credibility.

Thus, it would be understandable if poor Seth might be looking for some way, any way, to inject in his two cents yet again without being forced to defend the indefensible.

He found a bit of an outlet on Friday in his coverage of this year's virtually unprecedented U.S. snowfalls. How unprecedented? This may be the first time 49 out of 50 states have snow on the ground at the same time.

Here are key factual paragraphs relating to the U.S. situation in Borenstein's report, followed by his veer-off into global warming near its end (bolded by me):

As my colleague Mark Finkelstein reported Friday, global warming-obsessed media have been hysterically blaming this year's record snowstorms on climate change under the theory that Al Gore's favorite myth will increase moisture in the atmosphere thereby raising the amount of the white stuff falling from the sky.

As Finkelstein pointed out, the problem with this postulate is that this season's storms in our nation's capital all occurred on abnormally cold days.

Another case in point: Dallas, Texas, has just seen the greatest 24-hour snow total in the city's history with temperatures nearly 20 degrees below normal (picture courtesy Story Balloon): 

After taking time out of his last few broadcasts to try to clarify his Feb. 8 remarks that the "snowpocalypse" was because of global warming, one would hope MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan would have learned his lesson.

Ratigan spent a portion of his Feb. 10 and now a portion of his Feb. 11 shows trying to clarify his statement - that "these ‘snowpocalypses' that have been going through D.C. and other extreme weather events are precisely what climate scientists have been predicting, fearing and anticipating because of global warming," as he said - but that he didn't necessarily believe that premise.

"Now, in addition to that being completely wrong on so many levels, it's also a total misrepresentation over the climate change theory that I was attempting to explain," Ratigan said. "Let me be very clear - I do not believe that this storm is proof of climate change. And I do not believe that this storm is not proof of climate change. But I do believe that you, Mr. Beck, did a tremendous disservice to your viewers by bastardizing the most basic science behind the theory, period. That's not very good."

East Anglia University, which came under fire a few months ago for the now infamous ClimateGate email scandal, announced yesterday that it is launching an independent probe into the work of its Climate Research Unit (CRU).

Wall Street Journal's Guy Chazan reports the story today  -- found on page A15 of the print edition -- noting that the independent review led by Sir Muir Russell will "reappraise the CRU's scientific conclusions."

But Chazan noted that some critics argue that a deeper problem underpinning ClimateGate is not addressed by the probe:

Update: Rush cites this article to rip global warmist hypocrisy.  On today's show, Rush Limbaugh cited NewsBusters and read from this article to demonstrate the global warmists' hypocrisy: "when there is less snow, they say it's because of global warming. When there is more snow, they say it's because of global warming.  Now you cannot have it both ways."  Rush played several clips of Dem senators in recent years attributing the lack of snow to global warming. Listen to Rush cite NewsBusters and blast the warmists here.

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By now, we're all familiar with the global warmists' attempt to explain away the record-breaking mid-Atlantic blizzards.  Take this, for example, from the New York Times [emphasis added]:

"government and academic studies had consistently predicted an increasing frequency of just these kinds of record-setting storms, because warmer air carries more moisture."

So more snow fell from Philly to DC because the temperatures were warmer than normal during the blizzards?  That got me wondering: just what were the temperatures in DC on the snow days, and how do they compare to the norm?  And guess what?

Immediately after taking shots from some conservative voices for his Feb. 8 remarks that heavy snowfall in the Mid-Atlantic is "reportedly" a result of global warming, MSNBC host Dylan Ratigan fired back at his detractors on his Feb. 10 program. 

The once seemingly rational host of CNBC's "Fast Money" voiced his frustration with the entire global warming debate as it stood in the wake of this record-setting winter weather event. Ratigan suggested neither side should use the crippling snowfall as evidence to further their respective arguments. However he did direct the lion's share of his criticism at conservatives.

"The weather we know is frightful, but my goodness me, so is the political back-and-forth over climate change in the context of these storms that are hitting D.C. especially," Ratigan said. "Both sides trying to use hometown ‘snowpocalypse' as free advertising for their chosen position on climate change, baby. Conservatives today, using the blizzard to pull a snow job on Al Gore and his liberal brethren. From South Carolina, Sen. Jim DeMint says quote, ‘It's going to keep snowing in D.C. until Al Gore cries uncle.' That was a good one. Meanwhile, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell asks ‘Where is Al Gore now?'"

Keith Olbermann Wednesday claimed that conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin are trying to kill us all by disinforming the public about the dangers of global warming.

Speaking with Newsweek's Howard Fineman about how conservatives are using the recent snowstorms in the Northeast to refute Al Gore's catastrophic climate claims, the "Countdown" host said, "[L]ife on earth is going to be threatened because the people who recognized and warned about climate change did not just go with that phrase, climate change, and instead chose global warming, opening this opportunity up for Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin to kill us all."

Earlier the factually-challenged MSNBCer declared, "And, of course, we have Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, the Wall Street water carriers, the corporate clowns, who get rich by tricking listeners into voting against their own interests, laughing about how silly it is to believe in extreme weather change in the middle of extreme weather" (video embedded below the fold with full transcript and commentary, h/t Story Balloon):

Challenging someone's patriotism is a pretty hefty charge to level in the political arena, based on the response when Barack Obama's patriotism was challenged during the 2008 election cycle.

However, there seems to be a different set of rules when it comes to questioning the authenticity of the manmade global warming argument in the wake of record-setting snowfall in the Mid-Atlantic. And this different standard applied to Bill Nye "The Science Guy," who appeared on MSNBC's Feb. 10 "Rachel Maddow Show" and aired his disapproval of manmade climate change skeptics and labeled them "unpatriotic."

"[T]here's more energy in the atmosphere and this is stirring things up," Nye said. "If you want to get serious about it, these guys claiming that the snow in Washington disproves climate change are almost unpatriotic. It's really, they're denying science. So they're very happy to have the weather forecast be accurate within a few hours, but they're displeased or un-enchanted by predictions of the world getting warmer. It's really, it shakes me up."

Hardball host Chris Matthews on Wednesday ranted that "clowns" and "hyenas" like Sean Hannity "don't care" about the awful things global warming will do to the planet. The Fox News host on Monday highlighted the winter storms that the D.C. area has been suffering and then mocked Al Gore.

After quoting similar remarks by Republicans Jim DeMint and Mitch McConnell, Matthews frothed, "It isn't something to laugh about, gentlemen, unless you don't care about what happens to this planet down the road. And I suspect that some of you folks, sadly, don't."

MSNBC's Contessa Brewer on Wednesday took issue with a meteorologist who wouldn't refute Sen. Jim DeMint's (R-S.C.) joke about snow continuing until Al Gore cries uncle.

After Raphael Miranda told viewers about the blizzard pummeling the East Coast, Brewer for some strange reason brought up DeMint's Twitter comment: "He's basically making this argument against global warming because they've had so much snow in Washington, D.C. Is this, does this have anything to do with global warming?"

When Miranda didn't give the answer Brewer was looking for, she amazingly responded, "You're playing it right down the middle. But I was taught that we're talking about climate change here and more severe weather."

The nerve of this meteorologist to not only play it "right down the middle," but also not give her the answer she wanted (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript, h/t Ed Morrissey):

Our good friends at Minnesotans for Global Warming have done it again.

This time, they've taken The Who's rock anthem Baba O'Riley (aka Teenage Wasteland) and converted it into the Al Gore-bashing "Frozen Wasteland."

As always, they're asking for some global warming, 'cause it's gosh darned cold where they live (video embedded below the fold with lyrics):

Time after time, the Obama White House has demonstrated a desire to control the message and flow of information, whether it's issues on health care, the economy, bailouts and the latest - climate science. 

With cap-and-trade legislation waiting in the wings that would come at an estimated cost of up to $200 billion, or $1,761 per household, according to the Treasury Department, the federal government recently announced a new service to "help businesses adapt to the impact of climate change."

But AccuWeather.com's chief long-range and hurricane forecaster Joe Bastardi, who appeared on the Fox Business Network's Feb. 9 "Cavuto," warned there are other implications with the government having an expanded role in climate forecasting. According to Bastardi, it could lead to an effort to shut out other opinions.

No matter what former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin does, she's not going to win any friends in the mainstream modern feminism activist movement in the United States. But that might not be a bad thing.

On HLN's Feb. 8 "The Joy Behar Show," Eve Ensler, the writer of the infamous "The Vagina Monologues" appeared on the broadcast to promote her new book "I Am an Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World." During the interview, she was asked by the show's host Joy Behar what she thought about Sarah Palin, her political prospects and her belief system.

"Back with me is a woman who has done more for the vagina than the Brazilian wax - the talented Eve Ensler," Behar said. "You know, I must talk about Sarah Palin quickly with you because you do mention her in one monologue in the book. And you say a woman running for U.S. vice president believes in creationism but not global warming. What were you driving at there? May I ask?"

With Washington, D.C. buried beneath at least 20 inches of snow, and with more in the forecast, common sense would suggest global warming alarmists look elsewhere to make the argument to raise awareness for their concerns.

But no, Dylan Ratigan thinks it's ridiculous to suggest all the snowfall totals could cast doubt on the theory of anthropogenic global warming. On MSNBC's Feb. 8 "The Dylan Ratigan Show," Ratigan criticized those who would dare express misgivings about climate change based on the so-called "snowpocalypse."

"Here's the problem - these ‘snowpocalypses' that have been going through D.C. and other extreme weather events are precisely what climate scientists have been predicting, fearing and anticipating because of global warming," Ratigan said.

On Thursday’s CBS Evening News, anchor Katie Couric lamented the impact ClimateGate and other recent scandals involving fraudulent global warming data have had on the climate change debate: “Experts insist the overall conclusion remains the same, that climate change is real, but...such errors provide ammunition to skeptics.”

In a report that followed, correspondent Mark Phillips cited accusations of data tampering against Penn State University climatologist Michael Mann, but explained: “An academic board today cleared Mann, saying his science holds up, but the damage may have already been done.” Phillips went on to detail other data errors, including a false United Nations climate panel report on melting Himalayan glaciers and the ClimateGate scandal at Britain’s East Anglia University.

Phillips observed how the “series of gaffes by climate change scientists,” has created “a frustrating time for those who believe the basic science in global warming remains true.” A clip was then played of Imperial College London climatologist Brian Hoskins fretting: “it appears the whole edifice has been undermined by these couple of bricks that are flaking a bit.”

Phillips concluded his report by explaining the real problem facing global warming advocates: “The scientists may still believe they’re winning the scientific argument, but they’re in danger of losing the public relations war.”    

The left is up in arms over the Supreme Court's recent decision in "Citizens United v. the Federal Elections Commission". But few voices have been louder than those emanating from the echo chamber at MSNBC. It seems that the cable network's talking heads feel that their parent company, General Electric, deserves a special exemption to what should be a blanket ban on unrestricted corporate speech.

First a bit of background for those unfamiliar with the Supreme Court decision. The court struck down in a 5-4 ruling a ban on corporate (or union) spending on political speech specifically endorsing or attacking a candidate for office within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election. It ruled that the ban violated the First Amendment.

Few liberals seemed to notice that in attacking corporate speech they were also effectively undermining their own employers, media corporations who employs them for the express purpose of engaging in political speech. Surely Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow would defend MSNBC's right to speak (and spend) freely without interference from the federal government--especially in the run-up to an election when free speech is most important and must be protected.

In the 8:30AM ET half hour on Tuesday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Maggie Rodriguez teased an upcoming animal segment: “...we have some visitors to the studio of the animal variety. Some of them are cute and cuddly....But they’re all in trouble due to climate change and you’re going to see these animals from the San Diego Zoo and hear about their precarious situation ahead this morning.”

Rodriguez later introduced the segment by declaring that “climate change is affecting some of the world’s most beautiful animals.” She spoke with senior animal keeper at the San Diego Zoo, Rick Schwartz, who brought out the first guest, an arctic fox. Rodriguez asked him: “How is this animal in danger now?” Schwartz explained:

Well, the problem that we’re having up in the north, mainly with the polar bears. There’s not enough ice forming up there, so the time for them to hunt for their food is being diminished.... If the polar bears can’t hunt and bring food out in the winter time for the arctic fox, we’re going to see them probably –  either their numbers decreasing also or possibly moving south and interfering with other species that would rely on the foods that they would be using.

The hot air emitted from almost a century of White House Correspondents' Association Dinners has surely done its fair share to warm the Earth. So this year, Washington's journalistic community is going green. Cue the self-congratulatory pomposity.

Of course taking dramatic measures to reduce the carbon footprint of the nation's journalistic establishment is not without cost; "the most eco-friendly dinner ever hosted by the association" will cost $225 a head, up from $200 last year. Calls for attendees to offset carbon they emit on the way to the gala fit nicely with the Association's, er, shall we say affiliation with the liberal agenda.

Yes, it's all well and good that these folks want to help out the environment. But do they really need another reason to pat themselves on the backs while the President lavishes praise upon the Association and its members satisfy what the Weekly Standard describes as a "shameless and apparently indestructible need to give awards to one another, in a kind of daisy chain without end"?

Leonardo DiCaprio and a list of Hollywood's finest have just released a public service announcement encouraging people to petition Congress to pass the Clean Energy & American Power Act aka cap and trade.

The ad was paid for by the left-leaning NRDC Action Fund, a group whose board of directors includes Ari Emanuel, the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, and John Podesta, Bill Clinton's former Chief of Staff.

The PSA encourages viewers to click on an embedded link which sends them to a petition saying the following (video embedded below the fold, h/t Story Balloon):

Two weeks after calling Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) a horrible woman, CNN's Jack Cafferty said the House Speaker's arrogance was breathtaking.

During Tuesday's "Situation Room," Cafferty addressed the report the CBS "Evening News" did the previous day on the out of control spending by members of Congress at last month's United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen.

"Her arrogance on this subject: breathtaking," said Cafferty of the Speaker's failure to "explain why it was necessary for her and her colleagues to make the trip to Copenhagen in the first place."

He marvelously continued, "I'd be curious to know where Nancy Pelosi gets her sense of entitlement to simply blow hundreds of thousands of dollars of our money at Christmas time so she and her pals can take a little trip to Copenhagen" (video embedded below the fold with transcript, h/t Story Balloon):

Yesterday, Media Research Center (MRC) President and NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell sat down in the MRC studio for a Skype interview with Breitbart.tv's "B-cast." [see video embed below the page break]

The topic: the latest MRC special report, "Omitting for Obama," which is a study of four stories --- Van Jones, Anita Dunn, ACORN, and ClimateGate -- "highlighted by the New Media in 2009 that were damaging to the Obama 'brand'" but were avoided like the plague by the old guard mainstream media.

 

CNN on Tuesday highlighted the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change use of a unsubstantiated claim about the Himalayan glaciers melting by 2035 to put pressure on politicians across the globe. Meteorologist Rob Marciano thought the “snafu” on the part of the IPCC was “inexcusable,” while anchor Rick Sanchez put the panel and its head on his “List You Don’t Want to Be On.”

Marciano brought up the week-old story during a segment 49 minutes into the 8 am Eastern hour. He played a sound bite from climatologist Jim White, who was attending the annual Steamboat Springs Weather Summit in Colorado (Marciano was on-location in Steamboat Springs). The CNN meteorologist voiced his agreement with White, who blasted the IPCC’s exaggeration:

"For 15 Democratic and six Republican congressmen, food and rooms for two nights cost $4,400 tax dollars each. That`s $2,200 a day, more than most Americans spend on their monthly mortgage payment."

So said CBS's Sharyl Attkisson Monday in a remarkable follow-up to her January 11 "Evening News" piece concerning the out of control spending by members of Congress at December's United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen. 

Anchor Katie Couric teased viewers as the program opened, "CBS News exposed it: a congressional junket to the climate summit in Copenhagen. Now we can tell you how much it cost taxpayers as we followed the money."

Minutes later, Attkisson sliced and diced well-known members of Congress for their irresponsible spending of other people's money (video embedded below the fold with transcript, h/t NB John D. Seymour):

At NewsBusters last night, Noel Sheppard posted about a UK Daily Mail report that "A scientist responsible for a key 2007 United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report warning Himalayan glaciers would be completely melted by 2035 has admitted that the claim was made to put political pressure on world leaders." Noel also noted that U.S. media coverage of this damning admission has been sparse.

The basis for the now-discredited claim was "a 2005 report by the environmental campaign group WWF (World Wildlife Fund)." Further, the WWF report contained a basic math error causing it to assert that "one glacier was retreating at the alarming rate of 134 metres a year should in fact have said 23 metres."

The Daily Mail reported that "Friday, the WWF website posted a humiliating statement recognising the claim as ‘unsound’, and saying it ‘regrets any confusion caused’."

The statement must be humiliating, because if its text is anywhere on a WWF web site, it seems to be well-hidden, and perhaps deliberately so (see Update at the end of this post).

A scientist responsible for a key 2007 United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report warning Himalayan glaciers would be completely melted by 2035 has admitted that the claim was made to put political pressure on world leaders.

Such was revealed by the British Daily Mail Sunday in an article destined to further reduce the credibility of the world's so-called leading authority on manmade global warming.

As NewsBusters reported Saturday, the IPCC acknowledged earlier this week that its claim concerning these glaciers was based on junk science.

According to the Mail, those involved were quite aware of the faulty nature of this assertion, and did so for reasons consistent with what skeptics have been saying for years is at the very heart of the global warming myth (h/t Marc Morano):

Just days after the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change admitted it used junk science to predict Himalayan glaciers would vanish by 2035, its claim that global warming is linked to increased natural disasters has also been found to be wrongly concluded.

The British Times Online reported moments ago:

THE United Nations climate science panel faces new controversy for wrongly linking global warming to an increase in the number and severity of natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods.

It based the claims on an unpublished report that had not been subjected to routine scientific scrutiny — and ignored warnings from scientific advisers that the evidence supporting the link too weak. The report's own authors later withdrew the claim because they felt the evidence was not strong enough.

The article continued:

Last Sunday, NewsBusters reported that the United Nations might be about to retract a claim its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change made back in 2007 concerning Himalayan glaciers being completely gone by 2035 as a result of global warming.

On Wednesday, the IPCC issued a statement concerning the matter:

It has, however, recently come to our attention that a paragraph in the 938-page Working Group II contribution to the underlying assessment refers to poorly substantiated estimates of rate of recession and date for the disappearance of Himalayan glaciers. In drafting the paragraph in question, the clear and well-established standards of evidence, required by the IPCC procedures, were not applied properly.

Despite the seriousness of this apology and its implications for the veracity of the entire manmade global warming myth, the announcement was completely ignored by America's major television news outlets EXCEPT Fox News (partial transcript of January 20's "Special Report" below the fold):

On Friday’s The O’Reilly Factor, FNC’s Bill O’Reilly responded to left-wing actor Danny Glover’s recent comments blaming Haiti’s problems on the U.S., invoking America’s failure to reach an agreement at the Copenhagen summit on climate change. In his show’s "Talking Points Memo," O’Reilly recounted the relatively small amount of aid pledged so far by a number of nations, in comparison to the $100 million America has already pledged to Haiti.

Later, during a segment with Columbia University Professor Marc Lamont Hill, after Hill had made his best guess at interpreting what Glover meant in his remarks, O’Reilly took particular exception with the liberal actor praising Venezuela in the same statement in which he condemned America, reminding viewers that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had only pledged one plane full of aid to Haiti. O’Reilly: "I got a kick out of Glover, who's a big friend of Hugo Chavez, saying that Venezuela is one of the countries on the point of attack. As you may have heard in the ‘Talking Points Memo,’ Venezuela has sent exactly one plane full of stuff – one – one plane to Haiti."

During the show’s "Talking Points Memo," after relaying that President Obama had so far pledged $100 million in aid, O’Reilly informed viewers of aid pledges at that point made by several other nations:

A 2007 warning from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that Himalayan glaciers would be completely gone by 2035 due to global warming may be retracted in the coming days.

New revelations concerning this claim indicate that it actually came from a 1999 article in a scientific journal that was in no way verified by any members of the IPCC.

As Britain's Sunday Times reported Sunday, in the wake of ClimateGate e-mail messages showing IPCC scientists manipulating climate data, a retraction of this Himalayan glacier warning would further undermine claims by these people that the science is settled concerning man's role in global warming (h/t Ed Morrissey):