Global Warming

I’m sure I’m speaking for millions of anthropogenic global warming skeptics when I say that virtually nothing brightens my day more than an article written by a climate expert exposing the Global Warmingist-in-Chief, soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore, as nothing more than a snake oil selling charlatan.

All those who agree say "Aye."

With that in mind, the sun came out brightly this morning when I received the following article in my inbox.

As published at the Muskogee Phoenix Sunday evening, a former military meteorologist named Paul Becker wrote a marvelous letter to the editor (emphasis added throughout):

Most climate change watchers are aware that leaders from the eight most developed nations will be meeting in Germany this week to discuss, among other things, issues related to global warming.

With a delicious sense of irony, former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt put his two cents into this debate with comments that will surely not be reported by America’s alarmist media even though he was somewhat speaking to them.

As reported by Deutsche Welle (emphasis added, h/t Benny Peiser):

In April, NewsBusters commended HBO for actually having a balanced panel on “Real Time”: “Maher ought to try this format of having two liberals (including himself) and two conservatives more often, for a much more balanced discussion ensued than normal, making for one of the most interesting 'Real Times' of the season so far.”

For a change, Tim Russert employed the same strategy on Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” inviting on Democrat strategists James Carville and Bob Shrum, and Republican strategists Mary Matalin and Mike Murphy.

What ensued was an absolutely marvelous discussion largely centering on presidential candidates from both sides of the aisle without the normal vitriol and inflammatory rhetoric we observe when there are either only liberals on the panel or a sole conservative.

There’s a huge financial scam being cynically perpetrated on the people of the world that, for the most part, American media are not reporting: the Kyoto Carbon Con.

What makes this silence so astounding is that the press love stories about corporations and governments bilking people out of their life savings.

Take for example the media’s fascination with Enron in the early part of this decade, or more recently all of the focus on oil company profits and supposed price gouging at the pumps.

Yet, despite the predictable media mania for such financial schemes, press outlets have largely ignored the con game involved with anthropogenic global warming irrespective of the billions of dollars at stake.

Fortunately, as has been addressed before, foreign media seem much more willing to expose the charlatan behind the curtain. For example, England’s the Guardian reported Saturday in an article entitled “Truth About Kyoto: Huge Profits, Little Carbon Saved” (emphasis added throughout, h/t Benny Peiser):

As NewsBusters reported Thursday, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin did an interview with NPR wherein he stated, “I am not sure that it is fair to say that [global warming] is a problem we must wrestle with.”

Friday, ABC News’ Bill Blakemore wrote a piece for that network’s website asserting, “NASA administrator Michael Griffin continues to draw the ire of preeminent climate scientists inside and outside of NASA, as well as members of Congress, after apparently downplaying the need to combat global warming.”

In the article, Blakemore and co-author Clayton Sandell chose not to interview anyone that agreed with Griffin’s views, even as a press release was being distributed by “scientists from around the world who came to Griffin's support”:

Reporting how President Bush “called on 15 other nations to join the U.S. in taking new steps to reverse climate change” by reducing “greenhouse gas emissions,” the NBC Nightly News demonstrated how caving in to liberal demands will not generate positive press coverage as NBC focused on those who complained Bush's plan “doesn't go far enough.” From Chicago, anchor Brian Williams marveled Thursday night at how “President Bush today underwent something of a conversion. He called for new action on global warming, something he resisted doing for a long time.” Williams proceeded to devote an entire report to how “the reaction to the President's global warming speech today was cold in some quarters.” Anne Thompson, identified as NBC's “chief environmental correspondent,” relayed how “environmental leaders I talked to today certainly weren't impressed. One said it was worse than too little, too late, and several agreed that it was a PR strategy, designed to keep President Bush from looking like an obstructionist at next week's G-8 meeting.”

Alexander Cockburn of Counterpunch and The Nation recently published another article highly skeptical of man’s role in global warming.

Wonderfully titled “Explosion of the Fearmongers; Greenhousers Strike Back, and Strike Out,” the piece started with a great introduction to the real problem facing our nation (emphasis added throughout):

I began this series of critiques of the greenhouse fearmongers with an evocation of the papal indulgences of the Middle Ages as precursors of the "carbon credits"-ready relief for carbon sinners, burdened, because all humans exhale carbon, with original sin. In the Middle Ages they burned heretics, and after reading through the hefty pile of abusive comments and supposed refutations of my initial article on global warming I'm fairly sure that the critics would be only to happy to cash in whatever carbon credits they have and torch me without further ado.

Yes, Alex, it is quite certain that the fearmongers as you aptly refer to them would happily burn all of the skeptics around the world at the stake. Then they’d really have the consensus they regularly attest to:

It seems almost a metaphysical certitude that the following will not be raised in this evening’s nightly newscasts, or the headlines of tomorrow’s papers.

Regardless, Dr. Michael Griffin, the Administrator of NASA since April 2005, told NPR Thursday morning, “I am not sure that it is fair to say that [global warming] is a problem we must wrestle with” (audio available here).

As ABCNews.com reported Thursday, this has drawn “the ire of his agency's preeminent climate scientists,” in particular, global warming alarmist James Hansen (h/t NBer Sick-n-Tired).

More on that later. First, here are some of Griffin’s remarks as reported by NPR.com (emphasis added throughout):

ABC’s Bill Blakemore wrote an article posted at the network’s website Tuesday citing global warming alarmist and NASA scientist James Hansen as stating that the earth is at a tipping point “with dangerous consequences to the planet” (emphasis added):

With just 10 more years of "business as usual" emissions from the burning of coal, oil and gas, says the NASA/Columbia paper, "it becomes impractical" to avoid "disastrous effects."

Unfortunately, Blakemore chose to completely ignore decades of hysterical predictions by Hansen that have already proven wrong, and that this is not the first time the NASA scientist has referred to ten years before disaster strikes.

For instance, here is what the Washington Post reported last January (emphasis added):

Al Gore’s new book "The Assault on Reason" has definitively established one fact: Al Gore is still the sorest loser in American politics. Even liberal book reviewers are wincing at the tone of his jeremiad against the Bush administration. The book should have been titled "They Should Have Elected Me Instead: How Much Better America Would Fare With President Gore."

He seems to believe his own silly "Saturday Night Live" skit from last year, the one in which he pretended to be president and gas was 19 cents a gallon and the budget surplus was $11 trillion. He even implies he would prevented 9/11.

Like many liberals with the itch to micromanage our lives, Gore clearly believes the American people are ignorant to the point of endangerment. So he’s become a media scholar, and unloaded his communications theories in a book excerpt hyped by his friends at Time magazine.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may have said she saw evidence of climate change in a recent trip to Greenland, but leave it to CNN to press her and other Democrats from the left for not doing enough to stop greenhouse gas emissions "in their own backyard." Both "American Morning" and "The Situation Room" on Tuesday featured CNN congressional correspondent Andrea Koppel's segment on how the heating and cooling power supplied to the U.S. Capitol building comes from the Capitol Power Plant, which is half-fueled by coal, and emits "tens of thousands of tons of greenhouse gases into the air." The blame for these emissions is placed on the politics of Senators Robert Byrd and Mitch McConnell, both of whom come from "two of the biggest coal-producing states."

Koppel interviewed two people for her segment, both of whom have left-wing affiliations. The first was Pelosi's chief administrative officer for the House, Dan Beard, who talked about the massive environmental advantage of switching to compact fluorescent bulbs. The second, Frank O'Donnell of the group Clean Air Watch, was given two sound bites in the segment. O'Donnell compared Senators Byrd and McConnell to a famous television mobster. "It's as if Tony Soprano had a seat in the Senate. They're saying this plant must stay alive. It must keep burning coal, even though it is causing pollution and global warming."

Updated with video (13:50 EDT).

Is "Early Show" anchor Harry Smith stumping for an Al Gore presidency? On the May 30 edition of the show, it appeared like he did as he tried to place a "Gore 2008" pin on the former vice president’s suit. Before a tee ball interview, Smith demonstrated his desire for a Gore presidency to co-anchor Hannah Storm.

Video (0:29): Real (798 kB) or Windows Media (906 kB), plus MP3 (130 kB)

This is really getting hysterical. As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) tours Europe to discuss the imminent doom to the planet at the hands of the left’s recent bogeyman anthropogenic global warming, late-May snows are falling all around her.

Honestly, folks, you can’t make this stuff up.

As she set out on her journey, such late-season white stuff hit parts of America, Canada, and Great Britain as reported by NewsBusters Tuesday.

Even better, as she met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a late-season snowstorm rocked Germany, Switzerland, Austria, France, and Italy.

As reported by England’s Daily Mail (hilarious emphasis added throughout):

Better stow all potables, combustibles, and sharp objects, sports fans, because climatologist/environmental consultant Dr. Tim Ball and mechanical engineer Tom Harris wrote an op-ed for the Toronto Sun Monday that is destined to evoke untimely bouts of laughter.

Titled “Prove It! Environmental Do-gooders,” the piece marvelously took aim at governments deciding to prevent the use of consumer products – in the name of saving the planet – without any proof that their recommendations actually will benefit anyone (emphasis added throughout, grateful h/t Rush Limbaugh):

As global warming alarmists in the media and on tour buses enflame hysteria concerning a nonexistent climate crisis, there is an inconvenient truth they routinely ignore: carbon dioxide emission reductions will hurt economies across the globe while worsening poverty.

This seemingly immutable fact, which continually eludes the deluded such as soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore and his band of not so merry sycophants, is understood by India which has up to this point refused to participate in any emissions requirements set forth by the United Nations.

As reported by Australia’s Herald Sun Tuesday (h/t Benny Peiser):

Yes, folks, it’s Memorial Day weekend, snow is still falling in parts of America, England, and Canada, and our House Speaker is traveling abroad to discuss the global warming crisis.

You really can't make this stuff up!

What’s potentially more comical is that Nancy Pelosi probably doesn’t get the joke, and the press will likely hide the delicious irony so as not to allow the citizenry to get distracted from all the climate change hysteria.

Thankfully, the folks at NewsBusters are more than happy to share a little vaudeville with their readers to brighten up the holiday.

Without further ado, the set up as reported by the Associated Press:

Readers rarely get the truth about the US economy's performance from Old Media business reporters without having to sift through a litany of "yeah, buts" and "what ifs" designed to water down anything that might make the Bush economy appear successful. But if you look hard enough, you sometimes stumble across stories in other areas that indicate how things really are.

Stories on the environment are good candidates for finding economic truth, because the writer has to establish that continued economic growth without what the writer believes are appropriate environmental constraints is a bad thing. That means that the writer has to somehow acknowledge that economic growth exists.

Such is the case in a story buried on Page A14 of Thursday's Washington Post about lower CO2 emissions in the US last year (you read that right). In it, writer Juliet Eilperin let the reality of how the economy is performing slip in (bold is mine):

U.S. Carbon Emissions Fell 1.3% in 2006

U.S. carbon dioxide emissions dropped slightly last year even as the economy grew, according to an initial estimate released yesterday by the Energy Information Administration.

The 1.3 percent drop in CO2 emissions marks the first time that U.S. pollution linked to global warming has declined in absolute terms since 2001 and the first time it has gone down since 1990 while the economy was thriving. Carbon dioxide emissions declined in both 2001 and 1991, in large part because of economic slowdowns during those years.

Whoa. At what other time has the Post informed its readers that the economy is "thriving"?

The Global Warmingist-in-Chief was Jon Stewart’s guest on “The Daily Show” Thursday evening. And, right out of the starting blocks, soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore made a statement that marvelously epitomized his career:

Yeah, logic, reason, facts play less of a role now in the way we make decisions in America.

Granted, in his typically smug manner, Gore was pointing fingers at others. However, as veracity has never been his strong suit, this was clearly an inconvenient truth that could have been a mea culpa if he was capable of actually being honest with both himself and his viewers.

That was just the beginning of the insanity on display, and not the last time during his ten minutes in front of the camera that we would be laughing at the former vice president instead of with him (video available here):

Here’s an item the anthropogenic global warming alarmists in the media aren’t going to share with the citizenry: Colorado’s Pikes Peak is having its snowiest spring in at least ten years.

Doesn't really fit into a "The Planet is Facing Imminent Doom as a Result of Climate Change" agenda, does it?

Regardless, the Colorado Springs Gazette reported Thursday (emphasis added throughout):

Last May, Teresa Taylor was watching climbers pad up to the summit of Pikes Peak in shorts and sneakers. This year, she’s warning everyone that beyond Barr Camp, you’d better be dressed for the worst.

How delicious. The article frigidly continued:

This is way too funny, folks, and requires all potables, combustibles, and sharp objects to be properly stowed.

There was a meeting of Al Gore sycophants in Marin, California, on Wednesday. And, rather than liberal, Northern California attendees coming on environmentally-friendly bicycles, by horseback, or in hybrid vehicles, the parking lot at the Marin Civic Center was filled with gas-guzzling SUVs, trucks, and minivans.

Was this just another example of the party to the left living the “Do as I Say, Not as I Do” good life?

Well, judge for yourself based on the following pictures courtesy of zombietime (h/t LGF):

Will global warming eventually mean that all skiing is on water, not snow?

A May 24 hearing of the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee seemed to be concerned about that prospect, but didn’t include any of the summer sports and tourism groups who might celebrate it.

Several witnesses testified that climate change is going to economically harm winter tourism and sporting businesses. But the committee did not consider the costs to recreation if green activists get their way – or what Congress could possibly do to protect winter sports. Pass a mandate on snowfall perhaps?

“The recreation industry’s true threats come not from climate change – which has always changed and will always change – but from the so-called global warming ‘solutions’ being proposed by government policymakers,” said Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) in a press release about the hearing.

On May 15, NewsBusters noted that the press were missing the seemingly obvious connection between higher gasoline prices and the federally mandated use of ethanol.

In doing so, they were also mysteriously passing on a fine opportunity to bash the Bush administration, something that obviously defied logic and precedent.

Well, it appears nine days later the folks at the New York Times recognized this oversight, and published a front-page business section article entitled “Oil Industry Says Biofuel Push May Hurt at Pump” (emphasis added throughout):

Last week, NewsBusters readers were introduced to Portland, Maine’s fabulous fifteen-year-old, Kristen Byrnes, whose website “Ponder the Maunder” marvelously takes on anthropogenic global warming myths including those being advanced by soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore.

As will be revealed post haste, this newest – and likely youngest – member of the growing list of folks skeptical about man’s role in climate change actually walks the walk better than she talks the talk.

Yet, despite her youth and precocious scientific acumen, it seems quite unlikely that she’ll be sitting down with Matt Lauer or Diane Sawyer any time soon to discuss her research concerning one of the most popular subjects on the media’s front-burner. Why?

Because a prediction that she made last month concerning Australia's drought has marvelously borne fruit making the scientists employed by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change look a bit foolish.

To set this up, here’s what the IPCC Summary for Policymakers report released on April 7 predicted regarding Australia (emphasis added):

The “American Morning” team was more than a little confused on May 23.

First, they offered a report on the prediction of an “above normal” hurricane season. CNN Severe Weather Expert Chad Myers provided a rare media perspective as he told viewers that global warming is not to blame, but rather natural cycles.

“The numbers are still high still,” said Myers, referring to the NOAA prediction. “The numbers are not high because of global warming, they don’t think. The numbers are still high because of this multi-decadal cycle.”

If you were planning on a backyard barbeque this Memorial Day weekend, the media want you to cancel it. Unless of course, boiled tofu is on the menu.

Grilling, steaks, chicken, burgers, hot dogs, not to mention most of the other fixins’ are just too bad for you or the environment according to journalists.

We can’t broil and grill anymore?” replied “Today” co-host Ann Curry after a nutritionist said grilling is dangerous. She was talking to Joy Bauer, who said people need to avoid salty foods, grilling, frying and whole milk dairy products.

For the second time in two days, "Good Morning America" co-anchor Diane Sawyer interviewed Al Gore about his thesis that the media are obsessed with celebrity, while "politicians are heard in sound bites." That point may be undercut by the fact that, by Tuesday, the ex Vice President has received 15 and a half minutes of air time to complain about the subject.

After prompting Gore to compare Americans to chickens on a farm, the co-host allowed herself to be interrogated and challenged over how the media operates. But first, Sawyer and GMA helped Gore along with his analogy that Americans are like frightened chickens in the way they allow themselves to be manipulated:

Sawyer: "You even talk about chickens when, when you were young and on the farm, that you could hypnotize chickens this way."

Clip of 50s instructional video: "It's no trick to keep a chicken from straying through the fence if you know how."

The British showed it in March. The Swedes in April. Now, the Aussies are going to air it.

When will American television?

In this case, “it” refers to the British documentary “The Great Global Warming Swindle” (video available here) which presents the other side of the climate change debate the media and folks like soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore don’t want you to hear.

As reported by News.com.au (emphasis added throughout):

I’m not sure which is worse: using the Greensburg, Kansas, tornado disaster from last month to bash President Bush and the war in Iraq, or using it to further global warming alarmism.

Regardless of the answer, one of soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore’s primary sycophants, Laurie David, actually wrote an article for the Huffington Post Sunday tying the devastation to this small town to climate change and green principles.

I kid you not.

In a piece entitled “Putting the Green in Greensburg,” David sickeningly used a natural disaster to further her goal of destroying the American economy in the name of protecting the environment (emphasis added throughout, h/t NBer Sick-n-Tired):

As Al Gore and his band of not so merry global warming alarmists in buses and in the press try to convince Americans that they need to alter behaviors in order to save the planet, an inconvenient truth is being cynically withheld: this is going to cost a lot of money.

Of course, one of the delicious hypocrisies is that these are the same people who decry the current economic boom as only helping the rich, and state regularly and fervently that the poor and middle-class are being left behind.

At the same time, such mid- to lower-level wage earners should be saddled with exorbitant additional expenses to shelter them from a wolf that might never come knocking at their doors.

Makes sense, right?

With that in mind, the Chicago Tribune’s Laurie Goering wrote a fabulous piece recently exposing some of the potential costs of this exercise that most media don’t want you to know (emphasis added throughout, h/t Benny Peiser):

Have you noticed that most of the articles you see that are skeptical about man’s role in climate change come from foreign publications based in countries like Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada?

Why do you think that is?

Are the American press too emotionally attached to the issue -- and, in particular, the chief spokesman, soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore -- to even consider the possibility that the debate isn't over, and that their role as journalists is supposed to be to further discussion rather than squelch it?

While you ponder, an editor for Australia’s The Age, Melanie Griffin, published an absolutely delicious article Sunday slamming the upcoming "Live Earth" concerts about to be thrown in the name of global warming alarmism (emphasis added throughout):