Yesterday, Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma took to the floor of the United States Senate and gave a passionate and informed speech about Global Warming and the American media's coverage of it. He noted that
During the past year, the American people have been served up an unprecedented parade of environmental alarmism by the media and entertainment industry, which link every possible weather event to global warming. The year 2006 saw many major organs of the media dismiss any pretense of balance and objectivity on climate change coverage and instead crossed squarely into global warming advocacy.
Well, ABC's Good Morning America addressed the Global Warming issue this morning. One might think that the entire point of this morning's report was to prove Inhofe right.
The segment was hosted by Robin Roberts, and she introduced passionate global warming alarmist - excuse me, "unbiased journalist" - Bill Blakemore, with the following:
Now a wake up call, our series "Global Warming/Global Warning." There is disturbing new research about the earth's soaring temperatures, approaching temperatures hotter than the earth has been in 1 million years. We're just two degrees away from that record. Experts say there's little chance of stopping that.
All experts? Some experts? Apparently, only the important experts. Any experts who disagree with that point (and they do exist) need not apply at ABC. But that's OK, because they don't just have experts - they've got "scientists," too. And those scientists, apparently all scientists from the sound of this report, have some fairly apocalyptic views of the near future.
...Another 2 degrees doesn't sound like much, but scientists say that it means over the next four or five decades at least, the world will suffer increasingly frequent heat waves, more wildfires, droughts as even more mountain glaciers and snow pack vanish, no longer sending water to the valleys below. As we approach 2 degrees hotter, it will mean mass extinctions, say many scientists. Animals and plants simply unable to adjust.
(The footage behind the voiceover? Tremendous lightning storms, raging wildfires, stunted corn stalks in dust. Not for the faint-of-heart.) And then we go to one of the scientists, who somberly tells us that, "it's going to be a real challenge to my grandchildren to live in this world."
And there's more, just in case you aren't sufficiently frightened to give up your automobile and air conditioning yet.
Diseases that almost always spread to where it's hot enough, such as mosquito-borne Malaria and West Nile and water born bacterial infections will likely spread, including further north in the United States and into Canada.
There are scientists who disagree with this take, of course. Back in April, a group of 60 scientists wrote to the Prime Minister of Canada, saying
"Climate change is real" is a meaningless phrase used repeatedly by activists to convince the public that a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause. Neither of these fears is justified. Global climate changes all the time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural "noise." ... It was only 30 years ago that many of today's global-warming alarmists were telling us that the world was in the midst of a global-cooling catastrophe. But the science continued to evolve, and still does, even though so many choose to ignore it when it does not fit with predetermined political agendas.
But a "predetermined political agenda" is precisely what ABC has, and demonstrates repeatedly. There was not a hint of any neutral, unbiased journalism in this report. It wasn't a news report - it was issue advocacy, plain and simple. (Just in case you missed the point, the banner at the bottom of the screen read, "WILL EARTH BECOME TOO HOT? ARE OUR CHILDREN IN DANGER?" Very subtle, don't you know...)
The entire report runs just under 3 minutes and can be seen here. But if you tend to frighten easily, you'd probably do just as well to avoid it...
