On Tuesday, CBS Evening News promoted a new study by global warming alarmist and NASA’s former climate chief James Hansen that predicts a “dire forecast about the climate in the years ahead.”
Fill-in host Charlie Rose introduced the broadcast by fretting “[a]n ominous forecast for more scenes likes this, surging floodwaters and rising sea levels.”
Rose continued to warn that “[i]n the future, there could be major flooding along every coast, so says a new study that warns the world's seas are rising.” The CBS anchor turned to reporter Jim Axelrod who eagerly touted the new climate change report:
Ever-warming oceans melting polar ice could raise sea levels 15 feet in the next 50 to 100 years. NASA's former climate chief now says, five times higher than previous predictions.
Axelrod played a clip of Hansen who insisted “[t]his is the biggest threat that the planet faces...If we get sea level rise of several meters, all costal cities become dysfunctional.” The CBS reporter proceeded to show a map of several major cities submerged in water, a result of Hansen’s apocalyptic climate change scenario:
If ocean levels rise just ten feet, look what happens to Miami, Seattle and New York City. Just six feet of water would do this to Fulton Street in Lower Manhattan, this to Harvard University in Massachusetts, and this to Galveston, Texas. The melting ice would cool ocean surfaces at the poles even more, while the overall climate continues to warm. The temperature difference would fuel even more volatile weather.
Later in the alarmist segment, Axelrod played a clip of Hansen's appearance on CBS’s 60 Minutes a decade ago in which he suggested climate change “will be a situation that is out of our control.” During that interview, Axelrod agreed that “we would reach a tipping point” a sentiment that Hansen peddled during Tuesday night’s segment: “We're essentially at the edge of that. That's why this year is a critical year.”
Nowhere in CBS’s one-sided climate change segment did Axelrod bother to offer up any opposing viewpoints or skepticism that Hansen’s dire predictions were over-the-top or questionable. Instead, Axelrod end the segment by piggy-backing on the former NASA climate scientist’s insistence that 2015 was a “critical year”:
Critical because of the United Nations meeting in Paris in December designed to reach legally binding agreements on carbon emissions, Charlie, those greenhouse gasses that create global warming.
For years, Hansen has been a vocal advocate in the climate change alarmism community, repeatedly predicting disastrous things for the world’s climate, and the media has happily given him a platform to promote his agenda:
In 1971, Hansen was quoted in a 1971 Washington Post article warning of an impending ice age within 50 years.
In 2008, CBS’s 60 Minutes was preempted in order to give Hansen and other scientists a global warming hysteria platform
In 2009, Hansen urged President Obama to use global warming as an excuse to redistribute wealth
See relevant transcript below.
CBS Evening News
07/21/15
CHARLIE ROSE: An ominous forecast for more scenes like this, surging floodwaters and rising sea levels.
(....)
ROSE: In the future, there could be major flooding along every coast, so says a new study that warns the world's seas are rising. Jim Axelrod has that part of the story.
JIM AXELROD: Ever-warming oceans melting polar ice could raise sea levels 15 feet in the next 50 to 100 years. NASA's former climate chief now says, five times higher than previous predictions.
JAMES HANSEN: This is the biggest threat that the planet faces.
AXELROD: James Hansen co-authored the new journal article raising that alarming scenario.
HANSEN: If we get sea level rise of several meters, all costal cities become dysfunctional.
AXELROD: If ocean levels rise just ten feet, look what happens to Miami, Seattle and New York City. Just six feet of water would do this to Fulton Street in Lower Manhattan, this to Harvard University in Massachusetts, and this to Galveston, Texas. The melting ice would cool ocean surfaces at the poles even more, while the overall climate continues to warm. The temperature difference would fuel even more volatile weather.
HANSEN: As the atmosphere gets warmer and holds more water vapor, that's going to drive stronger thunderstorms, stronger hurricanes, stronger tornadoes because they all get their energy from the water vapor.
AXELROD: Nearly a decade ago, Hansen told 60 Minutes we had ten years to get a handle on global warming.
HANSEN: It will be a situation that is out of our control.
AXELROD: We would reach a tipping point.
HANSEN [TUESDAY]: We're essentially at the edge of that. That's why this year is a critical year.
AXELROD: Critical because of the United Nations meeting in Paris in December designed to reach legally binding agreements on carbon emissions, Charlie, those greenhouse gasses that create global warming.
