The latest installment of the Associated Press's "Divided America" series on Monday focused on "climate change," aka "global warming." AP reporter Seth Borenstein mourned growing division over established "science."
Tempers are rising in America, along with the temperatures.
Two decades ago, the issue of climate change wasn't as contentious. The leading U.S. Senate proponent of taking action on global warming was Republican John McCain. George W. Bush wasn't as zealous on the issue as his Democratic opponent for president in 2000, Al Gore, but he, too, talked of regulating carbon dioxide.
Then the Earth got even hotter, repeatedly breaking temperature records. But instead of drawing closer together, politicians polarized.
Borenstein cited Northeastern professor Matthew Nisbet to suggest, "we see partisan polarization or ideological polarization" and the implications of science "are intuitively recognized as threatening to one side and their world view."
Not surprisingly, even though there are only 17 percent of Americans (allegedly "the fastest-growing group," which seems doubtful given that getting to that tiny minority level has required at least a quarter-century) who "are alarmed by climate change and want action now," Borenstein portrayed them most favorably, and burned a great deal of verbiage quoting outsiders trying to explain away climate skeptics as tribalists, conservatives and Tea Party types. He also accepted the supposedly settled climate science, which isn't settled at all, and ignored recent developments throwing the entire idea that the temperatures on earth will increase in the future into serious doubt.
Borenstein insists that after 2000, when George W. Bush "talked of regulating carbon dioxide" (if he did, he didn't do it much), "the Earth got even hotter."
If it has, the effect has been far smaller than climate alarmists predicted. We're well into the 20th year of a warming hiatus or near-hiatus going back to January 1997. About the only people who don't recognize this are at the U.S. Government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which manipulated data to create previously unreported warming and to reinforce the alarm needed to foster the left's wish to have ironclad control over worldwide economic development. Almost no one believes them – nor should they, as they will not provide the data they created to Congress.
In late February, even Michael "Hockey Stick" Mann was involved in co-authoring a paper which observed there was "a real reduction in the surface warming rate in the early twenty-first century relative to the 1970s–1990s," and that "climate models did not (on average) reproduce the observed temperature trend over the early twenty-first century, in spite of the continued increase in anthropogenic forcing." Mann & Co. weren't conceding the pause, but they were conceding that the predicted dire increases in warming simply weren't happening.
The AP's Borenstein insists that "Overwhelmingly, scientists who study the issue say it is man-made and a real problem."
Sorry, Seth, no they don't (bolds are mine throughout this post):
... according to a study of 1,868 scientists working in climate-related fields, conducted just this year by the PBL Netherlands Environment Assessment Agency, three in ten respondents said that less than half of global warming since 1951 could be attributed to human activity, or that they did not know.
Let me repeat, no they don't:
The 97 percent (scientific consensus) claim is a deliberate misrepresentation designed to intimidate the public—and numerous scientists whose papers were classified by (John) Cook (who runs the warmist advocacy website SkepticalScience.com) protested ...
Finally, scientists studying the sun's activities are publishing findings that run counter to the warmists' alarmism. Naturally, their work is being treated with full professional respect ...
That was sarcasm. Those involved are being treated as pariahs. The AP's Borenstein did his part by failing to consider any of what the sun studiers have found worthy of mention.
An Investor's Business Daily editorial on Thursday succinctly described a situation the vast majority of the establishment press has ignored (links are in original):
Global Warming Extremists Try To Silence Science — Again
... Professor Valentina Zharkova of Britain's Northumbria University ... and a team of researchers conducted a study on sunspots, which are known to have a strong effect on solar radiation and thus on the Earth's climate.
What they found was remarkable: solar activity, based on models that closely fit past trends, looks to be headed for a sharp downward turn. Indeed, activity could decline to levels not seen since the so-called "Little Ice Age," an unusually cold period that stretched across the Northern Hemisphere and lasted from roughly 1650 to 1850.
As such, a study of this kind, you might think, would be incredibly important. But instead of being greeted with scientific questions or open curiosity about her group's study, Zharkova's team was met with a most unscientific hostility.
... "They (some of them — Ed.) were trying to actually silence us," said Zharkova. "Some of them contacted the Royal Astronomical Society, demanding, behind our back, that they withdraw our news release."
... For the record, Zharkova isn't alone in her conclusions. Other recent studies, including ones found here and here, suggest the Sun is headed for a period of extremely low activity — which means, all other things being equal, lower temperatures for much of the Earth.
No, the problem isn't the science. The problem is such research is an uncomfortable impediment of the global warming complex's unholy alliance of green interest groups, clueless movie stars, bought-and-paid-for scientists, big government politicians, and even some major corporations that see new global warming regulations as an easy way to crush their smaller competitors.
With global governments spending billions of dollars a year on climate change, almost all of it on those who believe the global warming dogma, there's too much at stake to allow a heretic to question the orthodoxy. That's why Zharkova and others are greeted with unscientific hostility.
Anyone who thinks this type of behavior is "science" is wrong.
Getting back to AP's "Divided America" theme: On one side of the divide we find those on the left-dominated warmist side, perfectly described by IBD, who are playing the public, fellow travelers like Borenstein in the press who assist them, and those who have been duped. On the other side are those on the center-right who recognize what their game is all about, and won't roll over.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
