Weather

If you needed any more evidence as to just how far to the left NASA's James Hansen is, consider that on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of his highly-controversial testimony to Congress -- wherein he presaged gloom and doom at the hands of the naturally occurring gas carbon dioxide -- he decided to make his global warming case at the ultra-leftwing website the Huffington Post (h/t NBer NL207).

This puts him in the company of such luminaries as Alec Baldwin, John Cusack, Bill Maher, and other Hollywoodans feigning intellectual superiority.

Of course, this comes after being interviewed on the ultra-leftwing National Public Radio.

If this guy's an impartial, unbiased member of the scientific community, so's Rosie O'Donnell!

Frankly, I have absolutely no interest in quoting anything this man has to say. As such, those that can stand it should go here -- with my blessings and condolences.

Although it seems like just yesterday, Monday marks the 20th anniversary of the day James Hansen, the head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told members of Congress the world was doomed if the burning of fossil fuels didn't immediately cease.

To commemorate this inauspicious occasion, Hansen is going back to Capitol Hill to call for oil company executives to be put on trial for crimes against humanity and nature.

Can you imagine the media firestorm this is going to create?

Critical update: Audio of Hansen discussing this with NPR's Diane Rehm available here (h/t Anthony Watts).

While you ponder, the following was reported by England's Guardian Monday (emphasis added):

UPDATE: Hard to imagine, but it's even worse than originally thought. AP's go-to "historian" is, as Wikipedia shows, a shameless politically active far-leftist (HT Eric at Vocal Minority).

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Two Associated Press writers, with the help of accompanying photos at ABCnews.com, have dug down deep and reached a new low in dismal, depressive reporting.

You can be forgiven if, after reading the entire Saturday afternoon "report" by Alan Fram and Eileen Putman of the Associated Press, you worry that the two writers plan to jump from the nearest tall building -- and take their readers with them -- unless Barack Obama wins the White House.

This is how the pained pair's incredibly over-the-top report begins (note how the headline answers the question before the text begins; excerpted text is included here for fair use and discussion purposes, as are photos originally found at the ABC link that are included at the cross-post):

Everything seemingly is spinning out of control
Out-of-control weather, gas prices, economy chip away at American self-confidence

Is everything spinning out of control?

On Thursday, ABC News took global warming hysteria to a new level.

After Chris Cuomo and Bob Woodruff previewed an upcoming environmental scare piece on "Good Morning America" as previously reported by my colleague Scott Whitlock, an article was posted at the network's website asking (emphasis added throughout):

Are we living in the last century of our civilization? Is it possible that all of our technology, knowledge and wealth cannot save us from ourselves? Could our society actually be heading towards collapse?

Following this irresponsibly alarmist opening paragraph, the article continued:

This September, in Earth 2100, a dramatic ABC News 2-hour broadcast, the greatest minds across the globe will join together in a countdown to the year 2100 to tell us what we must do to survive the next century … And what may happen if we don't.

As Whitlock transcribed for your review Thursday, here were some of the key moments of hysteria on that morning's "GMA" (video available here):

The next time some New York Times reporter wants to write about how man is responsible for warming the planet, maybe he should take a look at an amazing article his paper published on July 15, 1993, largely refuting any connection between the burning of fossil fuels and rising temperatures.

Written by Walter Sullivan, "Study of Greenland Ice Finds Rapid Change in Past Climate" addressed findings that suggest "the period of stable climate in which human civilization has flourished might be unusual, and that the current climate may get either warmer or colder much more quickly than had been believed -- in spans of decades or even less."

Doesn't sound like today's hysterical press claims concerning global warming, does it? Neither does this (emphasis added throughout):

Joy Behar couldn’t call her city councilman before Senators Obama and Clinton ran for president? That is what "The View" co-host suggested on the June 11 edition. Complaining about the condition of her neighborhood sidewalk, Behar finally called her city councilman because "Obama and Hillary have empowered me to take charge of my personal politics." Sherri Shepherd enthusiastically replied "you’re ready for a change, yes."

Earlier in the show, the panel shared their experiences weathering the severe storm that hit New York City the previous night. Like clockwork, Behar blamed the storm on global warming stating "there’s a little bit of weirdness going on, you have to admit it, in the world weatherwise." When Sherri Shepherd asked if that results from "the global warming," Behar snapped "of course!" Behar has previously gone so far as to blame earthquakes on global warming.

Media have been falling all over themselves to report the recent heatwave in the East, but have been ignoring the cold spells happening in other parts of the country at virtually the same time.

For instance, did you know that the first week of June was the coldest in Seattle since 1891? Or that Aspen is actually re-opening this weekend to offer winter sports enthusiasts some rare June skiing in the area? Or how about the fact that unusually cold waters off of Nova Scotia are harming this year's lobster crop?

Aren't such unseasonal weather events just as newsworthy as heatwaves in summer? Or must they be ignored to fit the media's global warming template?

Assuming the latter, just to add some balance, let's first check in with the Seattle Times to see how Nobel Laureate Al Gore's bogeyman is impacting that part of the country (emphasis added in all subsequent articles):

Think it's hot outside? "Good Morning America" wants you to think it is your fault - at least that's why an expert featured on the June 9 show told viewers it is hotter outside.

Stanford University professor Dr. Stephen Schneider said that methane and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are making hot temperatures even hotter.

"While this heat wave like all other heat waves is made by Mother Nature, we've been fooling around by turning the knob and making a little bit hotter," Schneider said. "[W]e've already increased by 35 percent the amount of carbon dioxide which traps heat. We've added 150 percent more methane, which also traps heat."

Ironically, in 1971, Schneider co-authored a research article that explored both warming and cooling of the Earth, warning that a certain level of aerosols entering the atmosphere could trigger an ice age.

For years, NewsBusters has contended that Nobel Laureate Al Gore is spreading global warming hysteria to benefit his own wallet.

On Wednesday, despite claims by one of Gore's representatives two months ago, it was revealed that his Generation Investment Management private equity fund has taken a 9.5 percent stake in a company that has one of the largest carbon credit portfolios in the world.

Yet, on April 6, NewsBusters' Matthew Vadum reported that in response to his The Media Ignore Al Gore's Planned Global Warming Profiteering article, a GIM spokesman called his piece a "nonsense story" while claiming that neither Gore nor any other members of GIM’s board have the slightest financial vested interest in the expansion of carbon trading.

According to Thomson Financial, that's now changed (emphasis added):

For several months, NewsBusters has been reporting the new horror movie genre "Global Warming's Gonna Kill You!"

Entering the fray is M. Night Shyamalan, the writer/director of 1999's smash hit "The Sixth Sense."

Set to open coincidentally on Friday, June 13, "The Happening" is Shyamalan's move "to milk global warming for all the terror and despair it's worth."

So say USA Today's "Weather Guys" (emphasis added, trailer embedded right):

Here's a novel idea: in order to save the world from global warming, people who regularly exercise should have to pay a carbon tax for their selfish and egotistical burning of extra calories.

Sound crazy?

Well, as "Freakonomics" co-author Steven D. Levitt satirically laid out in a New York Times piece Tuesday, this actually makes about as much sense as any of the other absurd solutions being proposed by the likes of Nobel Laureate Al Gore (emphasis added):

Although Joe Bastardi is likely not a household name, most Americans probably know his face as one of the meteorologists interviewed whenever a serious climate event like a hurricane hits the mainland.

Despite such regular airtime, the senior AccuWeather.com meteorologist's open letter to presidential candidates concerning anthropogenic global warming will likely be thoroughly ignored by media far more interested in spreading the unproven junk science of Nobel Laureate Al Gore than advancing the discussion concerning this controversial issue.

This is especially true given Bastardi's suggestion that Obama "can [Gore] as an advisor on the environment."

Since green press members are almost guaranteed to boycott Bastardi's marvelous plea for some climate sanity, here are the highlights of his letter published Monday (emphasis added):

The names of over 31,000 American scientists that reject the theory of anthropogenic global warming are to be revealed on Monday.

Although this will occur at the National Press Club in Washington, DC., it seems a metaphysical certitude media will completely ignore the event.

Isn't it ironic, dontcha think?

As announced Thursday by PR Newswire via StreetInsider.com:

According to McClatchy News, if you ever want to ski the Alps or dive the Great Barrier Reef, you'd better do it soon because global warming will make both impossible in the years to come.

Never mind that Europe received more snow this winter than it has in many years, as such facts are totally irrelevant to climate alarmists thanks to the propagandist practices of their hero Nobel Laureate Al Gore.

In an article entitled "10 Places to go Before Global Warming Hits Hard," McClatchy's Judy Wiley did her darnedest to get people to travel the world regardless of the obvious hypocrisy in such behavior adding to the so-called problem (emphasis added):

Do you ever get the feeling the reason most people in the media have bought into Nobel Laureate Al Gore's global warming myth is that they are largely uneducated in matters of science, and regardless of the volume of information available at their fingertips via the Internet, such pompous folks are too lazy to take the time to do any research that might challenge their dogma?

After all, the depth of most press members' studies regarding climate matters is having watched the schlockumentary "An Inconvenient Truth" which is full of more holes than Paul McCartney's roof (kudos if you get the pun without clicking on the link!).

As such, assuming the answer to the introductory question is a resounding "Yes," might I suggest media be required to take the following tutorial offered by Professor Bob Carter of James Cook University in Australia (part one embedded right).

In it, Carter addresses five tests of the hypothesis espoused by the climate alarmists that there is "dangerous human-caused global warming":

Again today, the New York Times demonstrates that the MSM isn't opposed to America's invasion of foreign countries. There's really only one precondition: the national security interests of the United States must not be at stake.

Thus it is that the NYT op-ed page today runs Aid at the Point of a Gun by Robert D. Kaplan, a national correspondent for The Atlantic and a fellow at the Center for a New American Security. The gist is that while it could bring ongoing obligations, the armed invasion of Myanmar for purposes of bringing aid to the cyclone victims is justifiable and feasible. Extended excerpt [emphasis added]:

France’s foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, has spoken of the possibility of an armed humanitarian intervention, and there is an increasing degree of chatter about the possibility of an American-led invasion of the Irrawaddy River Delta.

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):

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):