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):
CHRIS CUOMO (ABC NEWS) (Off-camera) All right, thank you, Sam. Now we will have a dramatic preview for you of an unprecedented ABC News event called earth 2100. We're asking you to help create a story that has yet to unfold. What our world will look like in 100 years if we don't save our troubled planet. Your reports will actually help form the backbone of a two-hour special airing this fall. ABC's Bob Woodruff will be the host, he joins us now, pleasure, Bob.
GRAPHICS: EARTH 2100
BOB WOODRUFF (ABC NEWS) (Off-camera) You too Chris. You know, this show is a countdown through the next century and shows what scientists say might very well happen if we do not change our current path. As part of the show today we are launching an interactive web game, which puts participants in the future and asks them to report back about what it is like to live in this future world. The first stop is the year 2015.
CLIP FROM "EARTH 2015"
UNIDENTIFIED MALE #1: The public is sleepwalking into the future. You know, sort of going through the motions of daily life and really not paying attention.
JAMES HANSEN (NASA/AL GORE SCIENCE ADVISOR): We can see what the prospects are and we can see that we could solve the problem but we're not doing it.
[Graphic: Welcome to 2015]
PETER GLEICK (SCIENTIST/PACIFIC INSTITUTE): In 2015, we've still failed to address the climate problem.
JOHN HOLDREN (PROFESSOR/HARVARD UNIVERSITY): We're going to see more floods, more droughts, more wildfires.
UNIDENTIFIED "REPORTER:" Flames cover hundreds of square miles.
UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: We expect more intense hurricanes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE #5: Well, how warm is it going to get? How much will sea level rise? We don't know really know where the end is.
UNIDENTIFIED VOICE #2: Temperatures have hit dangerous levels.
UNIDENTIFIED VOICE #3: Agriculture production is dropping because temperatures are rising.
HEIDI CULLEN (WEATHER CHANNEL/CLIMATE CHANGE EXPERT): There's about one billion people who are malnourished. That number just continually grows.
Interesting how only alarmists are being used as "experts." As is typical, it doesn't appear that ABC is at all interested in offering some balance to this program by getting contrary views from scientists who don't buy into the hysteria.
Maybe more important, as you can see, actual science is likely to be irrelevant in this scare piece. After all, as the current warming phase appears to have peaked in 1998, and the sun's inactivity is presaging continued cooling until solar cycle 24 begins, such cataclysmic predictions for the next seven years are completely without foundation.
This is compounded by a recent report from NASA which found that "while the La Niña was weakening, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation—a larger-scale, slower-cycling ocean pattern—had shifted to its cool phase." The study suggested that this could produce cooler ocean temperatures for the next 20 to 30 years, a concept clearly lost on "Earth 2001" producers and contributors.
And, as is typical of such alarmists, predictions of a global warming related increase in hurricanes despite evidence to the contrary are another indication of just how divorced from actual science this program will be.
Will this madness ever stop?
