Global Warming

If you deny global warming, you are on par with those who believe the Earth is flat or the moon landing never happened, at least, according to Jeffrey Kluger, TIME Magazine senior editor for science and technology. Kluger appeared on Saturday’s CBS This Morning to discuss the recent trend toward warmer weather.

Co-host Jim Axelrod asked Kluger if the record-setting temperatures of the past year would finally end the debate among scientists over global warming. Kluger responded by slamming those who question manmade climate change: “Well, I think of the folks who are the climate deniers as the flat Earthers and the people who say the moon landings never happened.”  [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Former Vice President Al Gore is at it again, pushing the eco- agenda in his latest book entitled “The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change.” In this installment, he defended his sale of Current TV to the terror-friendly Al Jazeera network, while pushing his perpetual campaign to prevent the climate change apocalypse.

Gore’s “six drivers” include Global Economy, Instant Communication, Shifts in Power, Growth, Genetic Manipulation and Humans & the Ecosystem. From the looks of the promotional video, the book is a typical Al Gore “humans are killing the earth” rant. “Consumption of good has also grown beyond the capacity of the earth’s resources like water and topsoil to sustain that growth.”

It hasn't been a good few days for media members devoted to Al Gore's money-making scam called anthropogenic global warming.

Prior to Monday's revelation that heat from megacities is making for warmer winters on some parts of the planet, the Research Council of Norway issued a report last week titled "Global Warming Less Extreme Than Feared?":

America's climate change-obsessed media love to point to warmer winters in our country as proof of Al Gore's infamous money-making scam.

A new study from the journal Nature Climate Change reported by the Los Angeles Times Monday finds that in North America and Asia, heat from megacities is playing a larger part than anyone previously thought.

Climate alarmist-in-chief Al Gore is going to appear on the CBS Late Show next Tuesday coincidentally on the same day his new book comes out.

TVByTheNumbers.com posted the following press release moments ago:

If you’ve ever watched MSNBC’s Politics Nation w/ Al Sharpton, you know that it is a bizarre hour-long program disguised as serious political analysis.  Host Reverend Al Sharpton, who hammed it up last year with his ‘Revvie Awards’ aimed at trashing GOP politicians, has a new segment entitled "Science Lab" where he criticizes Republicans as supposedly anti-science.

Sharpton began the January 23 segment by lumping in skepticism about manmade global warming with the likes of disgraced Congressman Todd Akin as a way to demonize conservatives.  Sharpton hilariously opened his segment by saying:

It’s easy to miss $14 trillion dollars if nobody reports on it. The World Economic Forum called for $14 trillion in environmental initiatives, yet none of the three major networks even mentioned it in their evening news segments from January 22, or their morning news segments from January 23. They even failed to mention that there was a conference at all.

As Barack Obama enters his second term, his inaugural address delivered today, showed an undeniably strong shift to the left.  The mentions of climate change and gay rights were much more overt, and was music to the ears of liberal media cheerleaders. One such commenter, MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, seized on the occasion to hail the president for noticing that we’re on the “frontier of climate disaster.”

Hayes was adamant that we’re at zero hour on this issue:

Appearing in his role as regular panel member on Friday's Inside Washington on PBS, Politico's Evan Thomas -- formerly of Newsweek -- made known his view that the Second Amendment was meant to be "limited to muskets," but went on to undermine the talk of more gun laws as a "side show" as he asserted that "it's a diversion from what we really need to do, which is deal with bigger issues like debt and climate and things that politicians don't want to deal with."

At one point during the discussion of gun control, liberal columnist Mark Shields suggested taxing bullets to make them more expensive like the governnent did with cigarettes:

All three evening newscasts on Tuesday hyped a report that 2012 was the hottest on record for the United States. NBC actually mislead viewers into thinking the data relates to the entire planet and not just one country.  On ABC, Dan Harris blamed the study's results on Congress for failing to take "action" over global warming.

World News reporter Dan Harris lamented, "Many cities had record warmth, including Washington, D.C., where a lack of action on man made climate change is likely to mean 2012 is just a glimpse into an unpleasant future, according to many scientists."  [See video below. MP3 audio here.]  Yet, the New York Times conceded, "Even so, the last year’s record for the United States is not expected to translate into a global temperature record when figures are released in the coming weeks."

Not Even Close: 2012 Was Hottest Ever in U.S.

So declared the New York Times in an article almost dripping with self-righteous jubilation. This sentiment was also echoed at the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, Reuters, and many other media outlets. But could they all end up eating globally warmed crow?

According to Anthony Watts of Watts Up With That? that is exactly what they might be forced to do. The source upon which this  "Hottest Ever" story is based is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). According to Watts' intensive research, it appears that the NCDC has been keeping two sets of data: one for public (and gullible MSM) consumption and the other the actual stats. Here is what Watts discovered:

Last year, New York Times reporter Elisabeth Rosenthal said air conditioning was hurting the planet. The latest Sunday Review features more left-wing activism from the paper's supposedly impartial science reporter, this time on gun control: "More Guns = More Killing," which takes on the NRA's assertion that "a good guy with a gun" is the best way to protect school children.

In the wake of the tragic shooting deaths at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., last month, the National Rifle Association proposed that the best way to protect schoolchildren was to place a guard -- a “good guy with a gun” -- in every school, part of a so-called National School Shield Emergency Response Program.

CNN media analyst Howard Kurtz isn't happy about Al Gore selling his failing Current TV to Al Jazeera.

In a piece published minutes ago at CNN.com, Kurtz elaborated while he missed potentially the greatest hypocrisy in the deal.

In their December 27 story about Lisa Jackson's resignation from atop her perch at the Environmental Protection Agency, Darren Samuelsohn and Erica Martinson at the Politico wanted readers to believe that occurred after "after four years of battling Republicans and industry while also giving the White House some heartburn along the way over her push for new clean air rules."

Please. It's not as if only Republicans oppose the EPA's energy-hostile agenda; last time I checked, most of West Virginia's national politicians, as well as many if not most of the state's coal miners who are losing their jobs as a result of out-of-control environmentalism, are Democrats. And I don't recall President Obama or the White House ever having any problems with what Jackson was saying or doing. The Politico pair also waited until the sixth paragraph of their report to mention Jackson's admitted use of an accountability-avoiding email account in the name of "Richard Windsor" to conduct official business. Excerpts from their report follow the jump:

For many Americans, ABC, NBC and CBS are the major source of news on business and the economy. Unfortunately, this is like depending on the middle school student newspaper for information about important local school board deliberations.

Network reporters are either ill-prepared to discuss complex issues of economics, finance and business or choose to be advocates for viewpoints rather than objective reporters who strive for balance. Liberal preferences for government solutions and interventionism as well as hostility toward wealth and profit dominate network coverage.

The man-made global warming movement has officially shifted from runaway global warming fears over to extreme weather fears. This strategic shift has been in the works for years as global average temperatures have stalled by up to 16 years. First there was a transition from “global warming” to “climate change” and now to “global climate disruption.” Some have suggested “global weirding” others have suggested a “new normal.”

At the opening of the 18 annual United Nations climate summit being held in Doha, Qatar, UN climate chief Christiana Figueres, urged governments around the world to “do something about” extreme weather. “We have had severe climate and weather events all over the world and everyone is beginning to understand that is exactly the future we are going to be looking about if they don't do something about it,” Figures explained at the opening of the annual UN climate summit.

Most folks dream of a white Christmas. No one, not even Elvis fans, want a blue one. But the Washington Post's Brian Palmer is fixated on how you can have a green one. Spoiler alert: He doesn't think trekking out to the local tree farm to fell your own tree is the way to go.

"Do you deserve a lump of carbon under your Christmas tree?" Palmer asked in his December 11 EcoLogic column. Apparently, the issue of tree farms during this holiday season is a point of contention within the environmentalist community.  Yes, the greenies can't give it a rest, not even for the holiday season.

New York Times climate reporter John Broder went all the way to Doha, Qatar to reveal that the United Nation's climate talks went nowhere, in Sunday's "Climate Talks Yield Commitment to Ambitious, but Unclear, Actions." Online Broder showed his respect for dissenting opinions: "Few would compare a United Nations climate change conference to a garden party, but a pair of skeptical skunks showed up on Thursday in the persons of Senator James Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, and Christopher Monckton, the Viscount Monckton of Benchley."

Broder, whose climate reporting is full of liberal assumptions that "global warming" or "climate change" is caused by man and endangers the planet, in his Sunday print story again quoted scientists who assumed the worst, with rising temperatures inevitable.

The New York Times's alarmist environmental reporter Justin Gillis made the front of Business Day Wednesday with a left-wing protest movement at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, which is apparently "at the vanguard of a national movement": "The Divestment Brigade."

A group of Swarthmore College students is asking the school administration to take a seemingly simple step to combat pollution and climate change: sell off the endowment’s holdings in large fossil fuel companies. For months, they have been getting a simple answer: no.

As they consider how to ratchet up their campaign, the students suddenly find themselves at the vanguard of a national movement.

As NewsBusters reported, global warming skeptic Marc Morano had a debate about climate change with Bill Nye the Science Guy on CNN's Piers Morgan Tonight Tuesday.

After it concluded, WeatherBell meteorologist Joe Bastardi took to Twitter to lambaste Morgan and Nye for their views on this subject:

UPDATE: Links added to transcript to give readers background regarding scientific points made by Morano.

Global warming skeptic and founder of the website Climate Depot Marc Morano debated climate change with Bill Nye the Science Guy on CNN's Piers Morgan Tonight Tuesday.

Video of the entire spirited discussion follows with full CNN transcript:

New York Times environmental reporters Justin Gillis and John Broder teamed up on Monday to unload some hot warming bias: "With Carbon Dioxide Emissions at Record high, Worries on How to Slow Warming." Gillis (pictured) in particular has a history of apocalypse-now! style climate reporting that has been ridiculed by actual scientists in the field. He and Broder certainly didn't hedge, taking as fact the theory that temperatures are rising inexorably because of man and will result in "higher seas and greater coastal flooding, more intense weather disasters like droughts and heat waves."

To paraphrase the estimable Yogi Berra - it’s like deja vu all over, and over, and over, and over again.

The Jurassic Press media is enraptured with a certain story.

In case you missed it, there's yet another United Nations climate conference in progress, this time in Doha Qatar. At the Associated Press, there is a story on a protest which organizers want to characterize as a "march for peace" by "a few hundred" climate activists demanding "climate justice." The AP's Karl Ritter warns readers that "Dangerous (global) warming effects could include flooding of coastal cities and island nations, disruptions to agriculture and drinking water, and the spread of diseases and the extinction of species" -- even though there has been no net warming in 16 years. Another AP story suggest that "SOME WISH ISLAM WOULD INFORM CLIMATE DEBATE." I'll suggest that the referenced "some" includes a few AP and other journalists and almost no one else.

But there has been no room at the AP, as confirmed in a search on the world "climate" at the wire service's website at 3:30 p.m. ET and a review of possibly relevant articles, for discussion or even recognition of a November 29 open letter sent by over 125 scientists "qualified in climate-related matters" who have informed U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon that "there is no substantiation" for the so-called "science" undergirding the meeting's agenda (produced in full after the jump; bold is in original):

In yet another example of climate change fearmongering following Hurricane Sandy, on Monday's NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams hyped a fantasy illustration from the New York Times: "...an artist's depiction of the Statue of Liberty submerged in New York Harbor, a kind of what-if warning about climate change and our new coastlines up and down the east coast." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

In the report that followed, environmental affairs correspondent Anne Thompson used Sandy to bolster the case: "...train stations in New Jersey inundated  by torrents of water from Superstorm Sandy....scientists say this kind of destruction could become far more frequent because of the heat-trapping greenhouse gases warming the planet."

It's been over a week since the Michael Bastasch at the Daily Caller exposed EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson's use of alias email accounts to conduct official business. A Monday evening Investor's Business Daily editorial noted that this practice is more than likely illegal, because "Federal law prohibits the government from using private emails for official communications unless they are appropriately stored and can be tracked" -- something which can hardly be done if non-flagged Jackson accounts are under names like "Richard Windsor."

Despite the obvious journalistic hot buttons of government secrecy and stonewalling (the Competitive Enterprise Institute has been trying through freedom of information requests since May and a lawsuit filed a few months later to get the EPA to reveal the contensts of "certain correspondence on the secondary email account assigned to" Ms. Jackson), establishment press coverage has been virtually non-existent.

Add this to the mountain of evidence that radical environmentalism is just confiscatory socialism by a different name.

In line with Bill Moyers’s practice of using his tax-payer funded show as a platform for lefty activists, climate change extremist Naomi Klein appeared on Moyers & Company on Nov. 15. Klein is the author of “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.” According to Klein, the free market approach to economics will bring about “Armageddon” if it’s not stopped. Deregulated capitalism is a “crisis creation machine.”

“We can’t leave everything to the free market. In fact, climate change is, I would argue, the greatest single free-market failure. This is what happens when you don’t regulate corporations and allow them to treat the atmosphere as an open sewer,” said Klein. Apparently, global warming is “the biggest challenge humanity has ever faced.”

At the end of an interview with Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos on Friday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer wondered: "I think it was 1999, you were named Time magazine's Person of the Year, alright? So I was just actually on a panel the other day where they're trying to figure out 2012's Person of the Year. Who should it be?... it could be Barack Obama, it can be – I mean, there are a lot of candidates. Who do you think it should be?" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

At first, Bezos dodged the question: "You have put me on the spot. I don't know." But he then agreed with Lauer's suggestion: "In an election year, you know, Obama would be a pretty good choice."

On Wednesday's CBS Evening News, anchor Scott Pelley read a brief item highlighting the view by "weather forcasters from the U.S. government" that climate change "may have intensified" Hurricane Sandy.

He did not mention the views of climate change skeptics who doubt the role of global warming.

Pelley noted "rising sea levels," "melting Arctic ice," and "record-high temperatures" as he read the item: