October 2007

Notable and Quotable

by Julie Walsh on October 26, 2007

John Christy of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (co-recipient of this year's Nobel Peace Prize) responds to questions by CNN anchor Miles O'Brien.

Warming Scares and Wildfires

by Julie Walsh on October 26, 2007

Columnist Paul Simon at the London Times is blaming global warming for the fires in Southern California.

The Week in Congress

by William Yeatman on October 26, 2007

Last week I wrote about the Climate Security Act being introduced by Senators Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John Warner (R-Va.). The bill's number is S. 2191. Their cap-and-trade bill had a hearing on Wednesday, October 24 before Lieberman's subcommittee of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, which has jurisdiction over global warming. Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont.) made it clear he will vote for it. Baucus, who tries to appear moderate but usually votes left, has until now tried to be careful on the issue because his State relies heavily on coal-fired power plants. His support almost certainly means that the Lieberman-Warner bill has enough votes to get out of committee. However, Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), the committee's ranking Republican and the Congress's leading opponent of global warming alarmism, has vowed to fight it, and Inhofe is determined and able. He has already forced Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) to drop her plan to mark up the bill next week. Boxer has now agreed to hold several hearings on the bill before the committee votes on it.

 

Two weeks ago I wrote about looming Senate ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty, which would be a backdoor way of forcing the United States to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions.  Opposition from conservative leaders and grassroots is starting to make a difference. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Wednesday announced his opposition. This comes after McConnell heard (thanks to the leadership of Paul Weyrich) that the conservative movement is unequivocally opposed. The Senate may still ratify LOST, but it will be much harder now that McConnell and the entire Republican leadership are opposed.

 

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is trying to appoint conferees to reconcile the Senate (H. R. 6) and House (H. R. 3221) anti-energy bills, but that requires unanimous consent in the Senate. As I write this, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) is holding out.

CNN’s Anderson Cooper reached a new low in slash and burn environmental journalism with his four hour Planet in Peril (PIP) special. CNN should consider the moniker Journalism in Peril because much of the science presented was clearly at odds with the latest peer-reviewed research.

 

Sadly, Cooper and his team’s complete lack of perspective and alternative views makes the PIP slop fest on a fast track to winning top journalisms awards. Such is the sad sate of what passes for journalism today. Stunning photography and interesting scrappy narration and segments do not offset (to use a nice green term) really shoddy journalism. And Cooper, Jeff Corwin and Dr. Sanjay Gupta should be ashamed of their lack of balance.

 

School Kids Beware

 

Cooper’s mistakes and lack of balance should serve as a cautionary tale for teachers and students who will have this 4 hour special foisted on them.

 

Cooper announced he was striving for objectivity when he said: “We set out to report, not be advocates, no agenda. You've seen the front lines, the facts on the ground. Overpopulation, deforestation, species lost, climate change. Nothing happens in a vacuum. What happens in one place now affects us all.”

 

But, Anderson and company sadly chose to do what almost every mainstream media outlet has done and promote questionable science peppered with computer model predictions of what ‘could’ ‘may’ or ‘might’ happen. Note to Cooper and company: Unproven computer model predictions are not evidence.

 

Polar Bear Silliness

 

This computer model hysteria reached its height during the polar bear segment. CNN viewers were never told that according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, polar bear populations are at historical high, up from an estimated 5000 in 1950’s to a current 25,000. Further, Canadian arctic biologist Mitch Taylor reports that in warmer southern areas of their range in Canada, bear populations are exploding with some of the biggest cubs born on record. The Polar Bear extinction fears rest entirely in unproven computer models.

 

Cooper and his colleagues often resorted to really labored poetry and prose that would make most middle school children blush. Corwin did his best impersonation of Alfred Hitchcock’s Jupiter Jones of the Three Investigator’s book series when he was tracking polar bears: “Our helicopter hugs the ground as we trace the footprints through the snowy expanse over the rubbled ice, until finally we spot them,” Corwin said.

 

CNN Goes Poltical

 

The most striking and bizarre moment of the four hour two night special was when CNN decided to resort to cheap political tactics and attempt to smear Senator James Inhofe.

 

Video images of Senator James Inhofe with ominous music playing in the background, revealed how schlock won out over substance during Planet in Peril. The entire four hours was all on science and speculation of computer models, but suddenly, as if on a dime, CNN changed course and turned their special into a political hit piece.

Cooper claimed that Senator Inhofe agreed to be interviewed but then cancelled. But Senator Inhofe has publicly said many times, he only agrees to go on live on CNN, not a pre-taped segment that Cooper was pedaling.

 

PIP reached its low point and most humorous when it featured NASA’s resident alarmist James Hansen to debunk the claim that proponents of global warming are well funded. Cooper must have been woefully ignorant or intentionally deceptive to not inform CNN viewers that Hansen has received $250,000 from the left-wing Teresa Heinz Kerry’s Heinz Foundation in 2001 and then subsequently endorsed her husband John Kerry for president in 2004.

 

CNN viewers were also not informed that Hansen may have reportedly benefited from more than $100,000 of money from George Soros to help promote Hansen’s silly claims of “censorship” by the current Administration. (Note: despite the fact Hansen did over 1400 on-the-job media interviews.

 

Cooper’s insinuation that funding from oil and gas was somehow a motivating factor was truly the most baseless of all his assertions. As EPW blog has pointed out, funding to proponents of man-made warming receive dramatically more money than any skeptical organizations have ever received. Some estimates range from tens of billions to climate fear promoters vs. paltry millions to skeptical organization.

Nature: Kyoto a Failure

by William Yeatman on October 25, 2007

The Kyoto Protocol is a symbolically important expression of governments' concern about climate change. But as an instrument for achieving emissions reductions, it has failed1. It has produced no demonstrable reductions in emissions or even in anticipated emissions growth. And it pays no more than token attention to the needs of societies to adapt to existing climate change. The impending United Nations Climate Change Conference being held in Bali in December — to decide international policy after 2012 — needs to radically rethink climate policy.

[youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NNuVamVG0w 285 234]

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ar_qYqoFA1U 285 234]

Are the massive fires burning across Southern California a product of global warming?

Scientists said it would be difficult to make that case, given the dangerous mix of drought and wind that has plagued the region for centuries or more.

It's time for a radical rethink on climate change, says a report in the journal "Nature" this week. Echoing sentiments long associated with politicians such as Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and U.S. President George Bush, the report says it is time to ditch the Kyoto Protocol because the United Nations treaty has "failed."

In a study published in the American Geophysical Union's "Geophysical Research Letters" on August 9th, researchers at the University of Alabama-Huntsville provide more real-world evidence of the self-regulating nature of the Earth's atmosphere.