Anchor Brian Williams had teased: “ClimateGate, they're calling it. A new scandal over global warming and it's burning up the Internet. Have the books been cooked on climate change?” But neither Williams nor Thompson ever again used the “ClimateGate” term as Thompson's story assured viewers the threat remains while she saw -- not a major scientific scandal -- but merely how “those who doubt that manmade greenhouse gases are changing the climate say” the e-mails “show climate scientists massaging data and suppressing studies by those who disagree.”
Thompson, who in 2007 declared “the scientific debate is no longer over society's role in global warming. It is now a matter of degrees,” allowed soundbites from a Republican Congressman and Patrick Michaels of the Cato Institute, but countered with how “25 leading U.S. scientists accused climate change opponents of misrepresenting the e-mails' significance” and, after a clip of left-wing activist Michael Oppenheimer, she fretted over how, as quoted above, the e-mails will “delay” vital action. Thompson concluded with NOAA's administrator: “Climate change is not a theory. It is a documented set of observations about the world.”
(The Media Research Center on Friday issued a press release mocking the network silence on ClimateGate: "Day Fourteen and Counting.")
And there’s weather in the news tonight. Snow today in Houston, Texas. Weather experts say it is the earliest snowfall on record in that city. As much as four inches fell in some places, snarling travel. And in a city on the Gulf of Mexico with no salt spreaders, Houstonians are being warned to stay indoors tonight as it gets colder there. Already a big mess at the airport. A lot of preemptively cancelled flights.
President Obama didn't go far enough for Thompson when he addressed the UN in September, as reported in a NewsBusters post:
Reporter Anne Thompson wistfully recalled that “when Barack Obama became President, many in the world hoped the U.S. would take a leadership role in stopping climate change” and so “that led to big expectations for today's speech -- expectations that were quickly dashed.” Thompson asserted “the world wanted to hear President Obama make a commitment to specific cuts in carbon dioxide emissions. Instead of action, it got talk” and, in the ultimate insult a journalist can deliver, she rued how Obama had “one line that sounded a lot like his predecessor, George W. Bush, who refused to agree to emission cuts without similar actions from India and China.”
An August 16, 2007 NewsBusters item, “NBC News Joins Newsweek in Smearing Global Warming 'Deniers,'” recounted:
Touting Michael Oppenheimer as an expert, whom NBC identified only as an "atmospheric scientist" with Princeton University, Thompson asserted that "climate experts say whether hired guns or honest dissenters, deniers are confusing the issue and delaying solutions." Oppenheimer, who NBC failed to note is "science adviser" to the left-wing Environmental Defense organization, ominously warned: "This is a problem that needs to be attended to very soon, immediately, or else it threatens to get out of control." Thompson's conclusion echoed: "The scientific debate is no longer over society's role in global warming. It is now a matter of degrees."
The MRC's Brad Wilmouth corrected the closed-captioning against the video to provide this transcript of the story on the Friday, December 4 NBC Nightly News:
BRIAN WILLIAMS: There was a surprising announcement just a short time ago from the White House. President Obama has changed his plans, now says he won’t attend the beginning of that U.N. conference on climate change next week in Copenhagen. Instead, he’ll attend at the end of the conference when leaders from China and India will be there. And, as the world prepares to tackle this issue, there’s a new scandal that’s burning up the Net these days. It began with emails that were stolen, and the scandal has to do with climate change. Our chief environmental affairs correspondent, Anne Thompson, has our report.
REP. JAMES SENSENBRENNER (R-WI): It’s junk science, and it is a part of a massive international scientific fraud.
PATRICK MICHAELS, CATO INSTITUTE: There are clear problems with these records that deserve investigation, and not providing them to people because they’re, quote, “going to find something wrong with it,” is just not the way we’re supposed to do science.
THOMPSON: Today, in a letter to Congress, 25 leading U.S. scientists accused climate change opponents of misrepresenting the emails’ significance.
PROFESSOR MICHAEL OPPENHEIMER, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY: I think the e-mail scandal is being used as a political side show to deflect interest in actually dealing with climate change. I think, in that regard, it will fail.
JANE LUBCHENCO, NOAA ADMINISTRATOR: I emphasize that climate change is not a theory. It is a documented set of observations about the world.
THOMPSON: An ever-changing world still debating how much it is changing. Anne Thompson, NBC News, New York.
MSNBC.com video of the story.
