About 12 minutes into Thursday’s NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams warned viewers about “global warming,” but just eight minutes later NBC ran a story about the month-long “deep freeze” in Colorado. If journalists can fret about global warming every time there’s a heat wave, it’s just as legitimate to point out such a glaring contrast on a newscast even if the events are really no more contradictory than claiming above average temperatures one month are evidence of global warming.

With “Global Warming” on screen in the graphic over his shoulder, Williams promoted the “much-anticipated” upcoming report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: “Global warming, they are to say, is very likely to be caused by people, by very likely, the scientists behind this report say, that means 90 percent certain.” Williams went on to trumpet how “Al Gore has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for his work fighting global warming.” Then, 20 minutes into the program, viewers saw “Deep Freeze” on screen as Williams noted how a month ago “the devastating first wave of winter smacked into Colorado,” and as a result, “many of the cattle in Colorado are in deep trouble and suffering badly now.” Reporter Kevin Tibbles began with a newborn calf struggling “to survive in an especially brutal Colorado winter.” Tibbles highlighted how the majority of calves born to one rancher have died and the rancher blamed the temperature: “They were born in the snow and it was too cold...”

Thursday’s CBS Evening News hyped the IPCC report a day early. Katie Couric asserted:

"Now to a global threat: climate change. The world's leading scientists will release their highly-anticipated study on global warming tomorrow, and the news is not good. It says the Earth's temperature is rising and we are to blame -- humans."

Mark Phillips soon maintained: "The science of global warming, a lot of it done in the U.S., is clearer than ever. The planet is heating up and will continue to do so. The polar ice caps have been shrinking and will continue to, and sea levels will rise. Droughts will deepen, deserts will spread, causing crops to fail."

In all the media-fueled hype about the scientific “consensus” on global warming, those outside the consensus are largely ignored. As recounted in Thursday’s MRC CyberAlert, CNN's Larry King Live on Wednesday night featured a panel under the on-screen heading: "Could Global Warming Destroy Earth?" Though the panel was dominated by left-wingers who endorse Al Gore's calls for drastic government action to curb human-caused warming, CNN, unlike the other networks, included one scientist, Robert Lindzen, professor of atmospheric sciences at MIT, who doesn't buy into the "consensus." Last July, he penned an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, "Don't Believe the Hype: Al Gore is wrong. There's no 'consensus' on global warming." For an excerpt from Lindzen’s piece, check the February 1 CyberAlert.

Back to the February 1 NBC Nightly News:

Brian Williams, about 12 minutes into the newscast, with “Global Warming” on screen:

“Tomorrow, a much-anticipated international report on the controversial issue of climate change will be released. Tonight we already know what the headline will be. Global warming, they are to say, is very likely to be caused by people, by very likely, the scientists behind this report say, that means 90 percent certain. We will have a full report on their report on this broadcast here tomorrow night. We also learned today Al Gore has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for his work fighting global warming. Gore, as you may know, toured the world giving his Power Point presentation on the threat of global climate change, a mission that was turned into the documentary An Inconvenient Truth which, by the way, was nominated for an Academy Award last month.”

About 20 minutes in, with “Deep Freeze” on screen:

Williams: “It has been over a month since the devastating first wave of winter smacked into Colorado. In some spots, it hasn't stopped since. They can't dig out or even dig in to get those in trouble. And many of the cattle in Colorado are in deep trouble and suffering badly now.”

Kevin Tibbles: “A new born calf struggles to survive in an especially brutal Colorado winter.... For nearly a century, Bill Brooks' family raised cattle in this southeast corner of the-state. But today they’re still reeling from back to back blizzards, which have dumped four feet of snow here in the past six weeks. Across Colorado, more than 10,000 head of cattle have perished. Some of Brooks' cattle have been stranded a month and with calfing season underway, he says 25 of 35 newborns on his ranch haven't made it.”

Brooks: “They were born in the snow and it was too cold...”

And then Williams, back to global warming again, about 28 minutes into the program:

“Well, that’s our broadcast for this Thursday night. Thank you for being with us. We want to leave you tonight with some pictures from Paris where they dimmed the 20,000 bulbs on the Eiffel tower tonight to raise awareness of climate change. And so many French households did the same thing at the same time, power use dropped across France by one percent.”

A piddling one percent?

—Brent Baker is Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center