Global Warming

This Sunday marks the 42nd anniversary of Earth Day and for 25 of those years the MRC has documented the liberal media’s role in advancing the left’s green agenda. From fretting about overpopulation to scaring viewers about global warming, for over 25 years the media have championed the capitalism-killing agenda of the modern environmentalist movement.

So sacrosanct the liberal media believes its mission to be, that they haven’t even bothered to hide their bias. CNN’s environmental editor Barbara Pyle, as quoted in the July 1990 issue of American Spectator, actually bragged: “I do have an axe to grind...I want to be the little subversive person in television.” Time magazine’s science editor Charles Alexander, at a September 16, 1989 global warming conference, confessed: “I would freely admit on this issue we have crossed the boundary from news reporting to advocacy.”

(Top 25 Countdown with videos after the jump)

Since scientists are not alarmist enough for New York Times's apocalyptic climate reporter Justin Gillis, he is now relying on surveys done by computer to make the case for dangerous "climate change." "In Poll, Many Link Weather Extremes to Climate Change."

Gillis proudly confessed his global warming activism in an April 2 interview with The Columbia Journalism Review. He wrote on Wednesday:

On Monday, both NBC's Nightly News and ABC's World News hyped a finding by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that, in the panicked words of NBC environmental correspondent Anne Thompson, "Extreme weather blew March 2012 into the record books....It saw almost three times the average number of reported tornadoes."

ABC weather editor Sam Champion noted how some enjoyed the unseasonably warm weather, but then ominously warned of a "potential downside" being "so much darker." He proclaimed: "Local governments are racing to meet these challenges head on. Los Angeles today hosting a meeting of top scientists and public heath officials to plan for what they're calling, 'extreme climate risks.'"

New York Times environmental reporter Justin Gillis's interview with the Columbia Journalism Review put his unapologetic "climate change" activism on display, and compared climate-change skeptics to people who don't believe in evolution.

(Environmental scientist Roger Pielke Jr., who nominated Gillis's December 2011 piece accusing Republicans of blocking measures to document "climate change" as perhaps "the worst piece of reporting I've ever seen in the Times on climate change," says the interview unmasks Gillis as more advocate than journalist.)

For the umpteenth time, news unfavorable or embarrassing to the left comes from the UK instead of the USA.

In this instance, it was an unbylined item in Saturday's Daily Mail. For years, Oregon University Sociology and environmental studies professor Kari Norgaard has been spewing forth bigoted characterizations of anyone who dares not surrender to the gospel of global warming. But her bizarre outlook didn't get meaningful notice from the press all these years until she presented her, uh, work at the annual four-day ‘Planet Under Pressure’ international conference in London. Here is some of what the Daily Mail found, and which Rush Limbaugh for all practical purposes broke in the U.S. media. I hear echoes of the former Soviet Union's serial abuse of psychiatry just around the bend (bolds are mine throughout this post):

At the top of Saturday's NBC Nightly News, anchor Lester Holt scared viewers with an ominous declaration: "Disaster warning. Scientists sound the alarm. If you think this season's wild weather is extreme, wait until you hear what's to come." Introducing the later report, Holt wondered: "...what has been causing all this strange and extreme weather we've been seeing in recent months?"  

Holt predicted "a lot more come" as he touted a "new report out this week brought deepening concern about climate change." Environmental correspondent Anne Thompson described the "wacky and unpredictable winter" with "more than 6,000 daily record highs broken" in the U.S. and "an arctic blasts killing hundreds" in Europe.

One of ABC's chief global warming alarmists Bill Blakemore was at it again Sunday.

At the network's Nature and Environment website, Blakemore actually wrote, "America’s Prestige Damaged by Its Climate Denialism":

Movie reviewer A.O. Scott on Wednesday applied his expertise to the scientific ssue of global warming and rising sea levels, in his sarcasm-laden review of "The Island President," a documentary about "climate change" and the danger it supposedly poses to the island of Maldives: "In Paradise, and Closer Than Ever to Disaster."

"Effective World Government Will Be Needed to Stave Off Climate Catastrophe."

So read Saturday's headline to Senior Editor Gary Stix's piece at one of the nation's most popular science magazines Scientific American:

On Friday, Darren Samuelsohn at the Politico (HT Hot Air), the place where it seems that inconvenient stories go so the Associated Press, the New York Times and the rest of the establishment press can claim they have an excuse not to cover them (respective proofs as of about 3:30 p.m. in the current instance are here and here), covering -- or I should say attempting to cover -- the latest of the White House's ritual Friday document dumps, reported that a White House communications official rejected an apparent proposal to seat Solyndra executives at the President's January 2011 State of the Union address, and that others within the White House already knew that Solyndra was in deep trouble before then.

And he almost got to the real meat of the story, but not quite. In this instance, not quite isn't anywhere near good enough (bolds are mine throughout this post), nor is the "nothing new here, you really don't need to read this" headline:

During an interview with Sen. James Inhofe (R-Ok.) Thursday, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow referenced the wrong segment in her December 3, 2009, show to accuse her guest of having a hand in Uganda's "Kill the Gays" bill.

Ironically, she did so to also accuse the Senator of taking HER out of context in his new book "The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future" (videos follow with transcripts and commentary):

Seizing on warmer than usual temperatures across the country on Wednesday's NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams ominously warned viewers: "Much warmer weather can have a dark side, of course. And tonight there is a new projection that rising seas due to climate change could cause a whole lot of damage much sooner than anyone had previously thought."

Correspondent Anne Thompson used recent weather events to drive the point home: "The ferocious surge of the Atlantic powered by Hurricane Irene last August moved a lifeguard tower...broke through a sea wall, and sent water rushing into the streets of New York's Long Beach. A scene that will become more commonplace, a new study says, because of rising sea levels caused by global warming."

The New York Times most apocalyptic environmental reporter Justin Gillis returned with another scary front-page story Wednesday. Last Christmas, Gillis penned a warning about Republicans imperiling climate research funding that environmental scientist Roger Pielke Jr.called "perhaps the worst piece of reporting I've ever seen in the Times on climate change."

His latest is even more urgent: "Sea Level Rise Seen as Threat to 3.7 Million." The story is based on research from Climate Central, which employs Heidi Cullen as chief climatologist. Cullen is notorious for suggesting in 2007 that meteorologists who doubt global warming should have their credentials revoked.

As is the case with so much that is being reported in other countries about how much of the rest of the world is walking itself back from the extreme statist agenda supposedly necessitated by "climate change," a presentation at the British House of Commons made by MIT Professor Richard Lindzen, whom James Delingpole at the UK Telegraph describes as "one of the world's greatest atmospheric physicists: perhaps the greatest," has gone virtually unreported in the U.S. establishment press.

There's a reason for this. As Delingpole notes ("Lindzen totally pwns the alarmists"): "... even if you'd come to the talk he gave in the House of Commons this week without prejudice or expectation, I can pretty much guarantee you would have been blown away by his elegant dismissal of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming theory." Here are excerpts from the PDF supporting Lindzen's appearance, followed by proof that the self-described outlets of record in the America have ignored it (bolds are mine):

An AP report by Rachel Zoll brought to our attention by a NewsBusters tipster headlines a truly weird assertion about GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum ("Santorum benefits from mistaken religious identity"), and submits as evidence an item in a Christian magazine which in turn has its own weird headline ("Catholic Politicians You Thought Were Evangelical").

It turns out that the Christianity Today item tells us that it's not evangelical Christians who misidentify Santorum, whose Roman Catholic faith is well-known. The entity which committed the misidentification by deliberately including the former Pennsylvania senator on a list of "The 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America" while acknowledging that he is a Catholic was ... Time Magazine, in February 2005. Thus, there is no support for Zoll's headline claiming that many people "mistake" Santorum's "religious identity," and that he somehow "benefits." Zheesh.

On Thursday, over 40 hours after the Pacific Institute's Peter Gleick (pictured here) revealed that he stole documents from the Heartland Institute by posing as one of that organization's board members, Seth Borenstein at the Associated Press finally broke the ice and filed a related three-paragraph "this is boring, you don't need to read it" dispatch. Two hours later, the AP science writer extended it to 500-plus words, but kept the headline as uninformative as possible -- "Scientist admits taking, leaking think-tank papers."

The "clever" failure to describe Gleick as a "climate scientist" (which he is) will dissuade many of those who see the headline from clicking through or reading further. By contrast, the headline at Borenstein's report on February 16 after Gleick (whom Borenstein did not name) disseminated the documents was: "INFLUENCE GAME: Leaks show group's climate efforts." In his longer item, Borenstein (or is it now "Boring-stein," Seth?) posits the howler that what Gleick did "mirrors" the Climategate email revelations which occurred in late 2009 and 2011. In your dreams, pal. The initial item plus excerpts from the longer one are after the jump.

Andrew Revkin, former New York Times environmental reporter who now blogs at Dot Earth on nytimes.com, is in a spat with fellow global warming believers, over fraud committed by environmental ideologue Peter Gleick against the Heartland Institute, a skeptical group.

Revkin’s initial coverage of the documents stolen from Heartland -- tax forms and donor lists, along with a “climate strategy” memo now known to be a fake -- was called out for hypocrisy by Times Watch for showing no moral disapproval over the theft.

On Monday, the editorial board at the Los Angeles Times was so mad that they fell victim to a corollary of Godwin's Law (he who mentions Hitler or the Nazis has automatically lost the argument) by the third paragraph.

What has them so upset? The very idea that K-12 classroom instruction might not teach human-caused global warming and the need for massive and radical government intervention in the marketplace to deal with it as established, irrefutable facts. In their fever-swamp view, the battle is between "credentialed climatologists around the globe" and "fossil-fuel-industry-funded 'experts.'" The editorial's language is so over at the top it makes one legitimately wonder how anyone who doesn't toe the line on climate change can remain employed anywhere at the Times. Here are the last four of the editorial's five paragraphs; I tried to select particular items to bold, but the whole thing is such an offensive, fabricated assemblage that I would have had to bold the whole thing (HT to Gary Hall):

While the Associated Press and the wire service's Seth Borenstein dither on what to report or whether to report anything about confessed document theft from the Heartland Institute by the Pacific Institute's Peter Gleick (a search on Gleick's last name at the AP's main national site at noon came up empty), Neela Banerjee at the Los Angeles Times incompletely reported the facts and fretted that the confession would "further deepen the uncertainty of many Americans" concerning "the scientific consensus on climate change."

What follows are the first five plus three other paragraphs from Banerjee's Tuesday evening report (bolds are mine):

The Associated Press's Seth Borenstein, his wire service, and most of the globaloney-advocating establishment press have a problem relating to development NB's Iris Somberg noted a short time ago.

Peter Gleick, described in a related UK Guardian story as "a water scientist and president of the Pacific Institute," said last week that he "obtained" documents from the Heartland Institute about its strategy to, in part and in Borenstein's words (from his 1,000-word dispatch), "teach schoolchildren skepticism about global warming." Now, Gleick has admitted that he stole them (Gleick's description: "I solicited and received additional materials directly ... under someone else’s name"). Oops. It get worse for Borenstein and the wire service on at least two levels.

Head of the George Soros-funded Pacific Institute admitted to releasing documents from the Heartland Institute that he falsely obtained. The group’s sleazy attack was then promoted by liberal bloggers and quickly gained steam. The story was picked up by the New York Times, Politico and other media outlets.

Pacific Institute, the group that lied in order to obtain the documents, received $275,000 from Soros’s Open Society Foundations since 2006. This vicious attack by the left resulted in the release of information on the Heartland Institute’s fundraising strategy, budget, and plans to combat global warming alarmism.

One thing I’ve learned in the year I have spent tracking General Motors cum Government Motors (GM) - and all its Crony Socialist, green non-energy “energy”, flammable absurdities - is the fact that the car media are every bit the Leftist open-channel steno pool as are the political media.  

And with President Barack Obama running for reelection in large part on the utterly failed “success” of the $85 billion auto bailout, the car and political media have by now achieved fully melded fusion.

The examples are myriad.

While former environmental reporter Andrew Revkin showed a double standard in his Wednesday coverage of Climategate versus his coverage of documents swiped from climate-change skeptics, he looked positively fair compared to the hostile reporting on the stolen documents Thursday by Times colleagues Justin Gillis and Leslie Kaufman, “In Documents, a Plan to Discredit Climate Teaching.” The reporters suggest a highly dubious two-page "Climate Strategy" memo "closely matched that of other documents" in tone and content, reminiscent of the paper's September 15, 2004 headline in defense of the infamous Rathergate fraud: "Memos on Bush Are Fake But Accurate, Typist Says."

Gillis and Kaufman accuse Heartland of fighting “climate science,” and cast its opponents as noble “defenders of science education.” Skeptics would accuse them of using classrooms to spread global-warming hysteria. (Last Christmas, a piece by Gillis was eviscerated by a climate scientist as “perhaps the worst piece of reporting I've ever seen in the Times on climate change.”)

Unlike the Times’s arms-length treatment of the “Climategate” emails, the Times embraced these stolen documents in much the same way it welcomed the secret and classified diplomatic cables from Wikileaks, while giving only lip service acknowledgment to Heartland pointing out at least one of the trove is a fake:

Andrew Revkin, former environmental reporter for the New York Times, and now “Dot Earth” blogger for the paper, showed a stark double standard in his reporting Wednesday on a batch of documents obtained by fraud from the Heartland Institute, a group skeptical of human-based global warming hysteria. Revkin even blamed the victim of the fraud for failing to condemn the previous leak of the "Climategate" emails.

At first glance the incident is similar to Climategate -- the leaked emails from the East Anglia Climatic Research Unit that rocked the scientific world in November 2009 and helped erode support for apocalyptic predictions of global warming. The Climategate emails included some shockingly shoddy science and venomous attacks on climate-change dissenters by ostensibly objective climate scientists, and documented attempts to avoid legal Freedom of Information Act requests.

Hawking his new novel on Wednesday's NBC Today, author Josh Bazell launched into a rant against the GOP and Rick Santorum specifically: "If I were to create a character who, say, had been the senator from Pennsylvania...get up at a debate and say that global warming was a hoax and that we had to change the Constitution to limit the rights of gay people. No one would believe that." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Bazell, son of NBC medical correspondent Robert Bazell, further proclaimed: "And if I said then, you know, that the entire Republican establishment sat quietly through this, no one stood up and said, 'You know, that's a crazy man talking,' it would just seem like I was being biased." For his part, weatherman Al Roker simply nodded along with the liberal screed, offering no objection.  

On Wednesday, Kyle Drennen at NewsBusters noted how NBC news anchor Brian Williams, chief environmental correspondent Anne Thompson, and old reliable global warming proponent Dr. Gerald Meehl of the National Center for Atmospheric Research took advantage of this year's mild winter in the lower 48 U.S. states as an excuse to argue that "our warming world is shifting the odds against a traditional winter, winters as we have known them."

Well folks, winterize this report about Eastern Europe's deadly serious cold spell carried at a German web site (HT Expatica; bolds are mine):

On Tuesday's NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams fretted over winter doing a "disappearing act" and proclaimed: "It was so warm today across much of the country, as you know, they're calling it June-uary. It's got a lot of people wondering whatever happened to winter?" The headline on screen pondered: "Where's Winter?"

In the report that followed, chief environmental affairs correspondent Anne Thompson added to the alarmism as she declared: "This most unusual January ending on a remarkably mild note across the country....2,890 daily high temperature records broken or tied." She later cited climatologist and global warming proponent Dr. Gerald Meehl of the National Center for Atmospheric Research: "Add to that a world warming because of climate change and it stacks the deck, Dr. Meehl says, against a traditional winter."