NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams on Monday evening gave credibility to the extremist environmental theory that the Earth is reacting to mankind's mistreatment by spawning a rash of tornadoes. Williams reported how “this has been one of the most active, deadly tornado seasons in a long time” with more tornadoes so far this year than through August last year. He then forwarded to NBC Weather Plus meteorologist Bill Karins the kind of reasoning he hears during his daily routine:

I talked to three people, casual conversation today, all of them smart, saying “I don't know, we must be doing something to our Earth.”

Karins gently corrected him: “Well, there are correlations that can be made. Global warming not quite one of them. La Nina, more likely.”

If there were a Society of Global Warming Alarmists, Bill McKibben might get kicked out for being too much of a worry wart . . .

You've probably seen those phone-message forms with check boxes in ascending order of urgency from "FYI—no need to return call" all the way up to "the future of civilization hangs in the balance." We might see that last category as light-hearted exaggeration, but it's no laughing matter to McKibben. In his jeremiad in today's LA Times literally entitled "Civilization's last chance," McKibben solemnly declares that "the world looks a little terminal right now" and "it isn't morning in America, it's dusk on planet Earth." OK. Just so long as it's nothing serious.

McKibben's lament is based in important part on a paper that James Hansen and several co-authors have submitted to Science magazine which concludes that "if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm."

Since Nobel Laureate Al Gore first started his campaign to frighten people into thinking they're destroying the planet every time they drive their cars, climate realists around the world have wondered just how much of the global warming myth the former Vice President actually believes.

On Sunday, syndicated columnist Jay Ambrose, in a satirical piece entitled "A Gore Confession," might have identified the really inconvenient truth at the heart of the matter: "the warming has fried [Gore's] brain."

Fortunately for us, that was just the delicious appetizer (emphasis added throughout):

"So far some 730 tornadoes have touched down this year, more than double the number for all of last year."—ABC's Bill Weir, GMA 05-10-08, as this graphic was displayed in a segment blaming global warming for increased tornado incidence.

Dispatch from the Department of Glass Houses . . .

The Good Morning America crew had a bunch of yucks today at the expense of the Sparks, NV streets department employee who spelled "scool" on the asphalt. But within minutes, two ABCers made math mistakes of their own, one of a political sort, the other climate-related.

RON CLAIBORNE: In Sparks, Nevada, someone in the streets department could use a spelling lesson. A sign painted on the street announces a nearby facility is a "s-c-o-o-l" [sound of Claiborne chuckle]. The city plans to fix the sign as soon as possible. That's a first look at the headlines, back to Bill and Kate. Everybody knows school is spelled with a "k."

Great guffaws ensue.

View video here.

In last week's installment of "Sting's Eco-hypocrisy," we learned that the frontman for the rock band the Police, though supposedly an environmentalist, has a bigger carbon footprint than most third world nations.

In Sunday's episode, we found out that Sting's charity, the Rainforest Foundation, gives only 41 percent of the money raised to the programs it supports, and, as a result, "is rated one of New York City's worst charities, according to Charity Navigator."

Honestly, you can't make this stuff up!

As reported by the New York Post Sunday (emphasis added throughout):

Since calling global warming "the greatest scam in history," the founder of The Weather Channel John Coleman has been an outspoken advocate for climate realism.

This weekend, Coleman posted at his KUSI-San Diego blog an "Open Letter to Environmentalists" challenging them to campaign for "environmental goals on the basis of their own merit" while urging alarmists to "[l]et go of the global warming frenzy before it leaves [them] discredited and embarrassed."

Although readers are strongly encouraged to review the entire piece, here are some of the highlights:

Despite all the global warming hysteria emanating from the usual media suspects and Nobel Laureate Al Gore, it's been a cold, harsh, long winter throughout most of America.

Apparently, some of the citizens in the small, Idaho panhandle town of Craigmont are so fed up with the cold weather that they placed a request to "Bring Back Global Warming" on the marquee of their local high school.

With this in mind, the following hysterical picture was first published in the Lewiston Tribune, and reprinted Friday by the San Francisco Chronicle with the caption "Burn more fossil fuels so we don't have to wear sweaters: It's 35 degrees in Craigmont, Idaho, in May. What more proof do you need that global warming has ended?":

In the past couple of weeks, NewsBusters has been noting that as food prices around the world have soared causing an international crisis, typically green press members have been surprisingly reporting a rather pessimistic view of ethanol.

Without question, the most comprehensive and daring commentary I've seen on this subject to date comes from a program north of the border called The National.

Though not a household name here in the States, the CBC's Rex Murphy is willing to address the heart of this issue in a fashion so honest and unconcerned with the currently in vogue climate alarmism that it is a metaphysical certitude viewers will want to see and read more of his opinions.

Frankly, I'd doubt any American broadcaster would have the nerve to say the following with cameras rolling and microphones switched on (absolutely must-see video available here, transcript follows, enthusiastic h/t to NBer Par for the Course):

Some more pieces of the "How Al Gore is Going to Become Amazingly Wealthy by Selling Climate Hysteria" puzzle came together Friday when the Silicon Valley venture capital firm he's now a part of announced a $500 million investment in green technologies.

Making matters more delicious, the firm already has investments in many of the same companies Gore admitted in March he has a stake in.

To begin untangling this web, let's first take a gander at what was reported Friday by the San Francisco Chronicle (emphasis added):

The Weather Channel's Heidi Cullen says one of the steps to fight global warming is using images to affect people's outlook.

At the "Covering a Changing Climate: The Media Challenge" forum held at Harvard University in Boston, Mass. on April 30, Cullen suggested using Weather.com and Google Earth to add visual elements to promote the cause.

"[I] split my time between The Weather Channel and this think tank in Princeton and one of the things we've been trying to do is work with Google Earth essentially. And for me, coming from The Weather Channel, the most powerful tool that exists is Weather.com and you type in your zip code and you get a forecast out five days."

The blogosphere was abuzz Wednesday evening with a new study indicating that "global warming will stop until at least 2015 because of natural variations in the climate."

New York Times environment reporter Andrew C. Revkin wrote an article about this Thursday, although it appears mostly to point out to his readers that this hardly disproves man is destroying the planet by burning fossil fuels.

Before we get there, here are the pertinent facts reported by the British Telegraph Wednesday (emphasis added throughout):

Last week, NewsBusters reported the peculiar occurrence of former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich appearing alongside current Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a global warming ad funded by Nobel Laureate Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection.

Included in this piece was an explanation the former Speaker offered at his website regarding this matter which sparked largely uncomplimentary reactions in the rightosphere as well as from conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh.

Two days later, Gingrich appeared on Fox News's "O'Reilly Factor," and answered Rush (video embedded right):

As food prices soar, and international experts as well as media members call for action, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), the ranking Republican on the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee, took to the Senate floor Tuesday calling for a Congressional review of biofuel policy, and for the Environmental Protection Agency to waive the current ethanol mandates.

Coincidentally, this occurred minutes after President Bush told reporters that he believes ethanol and biofuels are key to solving the nation's long-term energy problems.

With that in mind, given the amount of press coverage biofuels have been given in the past few weeks, it will be interesting to see which side of this story media will report this evening and in the days to come.

After all, what Inhofe called for today was for Congress to "revisit the recently enacted biofuel mandate," and for the EPA to exercise its waiver provision granted in the 2007 Energy Bill "that offers protection to consumers if corn prices or availability become unsustainable."

What follows is the full prepared text of Inhofe's speech (fvideo embedded upper-right):

In the past couple of weeks, NewsBusters has reported the media's sudden negative opinion of ethanol as a result of rising food prices and rationing of rice by certain retailors.

You can now add NBC to the list, and, in particular, the host of CNBC's "Mad Money," Jim Cramer, who on Friday's "Today" show actually blamed ethanol for the current crisis while stating emphatically, "You drop the mandate, prices plummet."

How delicious.

With this in mind, strap your seatbelt tightly across your waist, and prepare yourself for an alternate ungreen reality (video embedded upper right, use scroll bars to properly center):

The hypocrisy surrounding the global warming positions of actors and rock stars is certainly not news, except when one of them actually admits it.

With that in mind, when the wife of the environmentally outspoken leader of the Police discusses the huge carbon footprint she and her husband have, sycophantic green media should pay attention and recognize that virtually all such wealthy alarmists are advocating policies for the masses that they themselves will NEVER adhere to.

As deliciously reported Friday by England's Daily Mail (emphasis added throughout, h/t NBer MastersofDeceit, picture courtesy Daily Mail):

A remarkable thing happened Thursday: a press member wanted to ask Nobel Laureate Al Gore about the growing international food crisis and how it relates to ethanol and global warming hysteria.

Not surprisingly, the man who cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate fourteen years ago mandating the use of ethanol wasn't available, and a spokesman for his hysteria-driving Alliance for Climate Protection declined to comment.

Isn't that convenient?

Regardless, the good news is that press outlets continue to recognize this unholy connection, and that someone, even at the conservative New York Sun, would deign to report it (emphasis added throughout):

As food prices soar, and rationing of such things as rice begin, America's media are finally starting to wake up to the inconvenient truth that ethanol is not the energy panacea folks like Nobel Laureate Al Gore proclaim.

Leading the charge is conservative talk radio host Glenn Beck, who invited the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Iain Murray on his program Tuesday to discuss the looming crisis.

What follows is a partial transcript of this interview provided by the Science and Public Policy Institute:

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich recently did a global warming ad with Nancy Pelosi that was sponsored by Nobel Laureate Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection (embedded right).

Obviously, he has taken a lot of heat -- no pun intended -- from conservatives for not only staking out a seemingly unconservative position on this controversial issue, but doing so in such a high-profile way with the likes of Pelosi and Gore.

Update: Sheppard responds to his critics at end of post.

With that in mind, Gingrich posted the following explanation at his blog (emphasis added, h/t Terra Rossa):