The so-called "climate emergency" is Exhibit A in the intolerance of "public" broadcasting for any opposing point of view. Either you perpetually believe we're ten years away from mass death (as PBS projected in 1990), or you cannot appear on PBS.
On Sunday's PBS News Weekend, the latest hyperbolic hangout was headlined "Earth is ‘perilously close’ to a global warming threshold. Here’s what to know". The expert doomsayer was Michael Mann, one of those Ivy League leftists from the University of Pennsylvania.
Not only did Mann fear no opponent, he knew PBS would not bring up how he was forced to pay National Review more than $500,000 in legal fees for a frivolous defamation lawsuit, in which he channeled the no-dissent spirit of PBS by saying he viewed his lawsuit as a way to “ruin National Review.”
Weekend anchor Ali Rogin ran through a puffy-pillow set of questions for Mann:
Simply put, how big a deal is it for the planet to exceed this 1.5 degree threshold?...
And what happens if we do continue to exceed this number? That'll be a sign that things are continuing to move in that direction in a more permanent way, right?...
And what is it about that 1.5 degree change? I've read that it's not so much that number itself, it's that it more about what it represents. Is that correct?
This is where Mann uncorks all his drama about how the California wildfires and the hurricane in North Carolina, it's all signs of the coming apocalypse. But then it turned to Trump, and Mann the Scientist spoke of the "climate" like it was a caring human being:
ALI ROGIN: President Trump has started the process of withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement, which set this 1.5 degree threshold, also easing restrictions on oil and gas production. How does that impact efforts to avoid further exceeding this threshold? And what about the general political climate elsewhere in the world?
MICHAEL MANN: The real problem here is that this sort of sends a signal to the rest of the world that the United States isn't willing to honor its commitments. We're the world's largest legacy carbon polluter. We've put more carbon pollution into the atmosphere than any other country, and that's all the climate cares about. It cares about the cumulative carbon emissions. Over time, we've contributed more to the warming of the planet than any other country.
This sounds a little like an old Washington Post article: "The U.S. has caused more global warming than any other country. Here’s how the Earth will get its revenge."
Rogin ended with one more softball: "And in terms of that global participation, there's long been a debate about the responsibility of developing countries and what they have to do versus developed first world countries like the United States. How does the reaching and exceeding of this 1.5 degree threshold move the needle on that debate?"
Predictably, Mann said it's sad that American "disengagement" causes poor countries to wonder why they have to sacrifice anything. So naturally, America better "pony up" for the poor.
PS:
On the "less than 10 years" business. They were saying this in 1990. Try this howler from PBS, badly predicting doom. https://t.co/FQRWrv4aQP pic.twitter.com/XR8Rryuw5V
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) March 14, 2025
