Posted on 03/31/2006 2:36:43 PM PST by freemarket_kenshepherd
“Members of the Society of Professional Journalists believe that public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. The duty of the journalist is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues.” – Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) Code of Ethics
Hello, global warming. Goodbye, journalistic ethics.
The newest Time magazine/ABC News poll showed about two-thirds of Americans still believe there’s a debate about global warming, despite the media’s best efforts to convince them otherwise. Americans now face an onslaught of one-sided global warming coverage that downplays or even derides critics and skeptics.
“It’s no longer a controversy. Science tells us it’s a fact. The new issue of Time magazine tells us to worry,” proclaimed ABC’s Terry Moran on the March 27 “Nightline.”
Time devoted 24 full pages of its April 3 edition to shameless advocacy about global warming, blaming the United States and the Bush administration for destroying the world. Time called the United States “intransigent” for not joining Kyoto’s emissions mandates and the White House’s environmental record “dismal.” Simultaneously, ABC launched a series of reports on global warming.
(Excerpt) Read more at freemarketproject.org ...
The media coverage of global warming is embarrassingly bias. The media refuses to acknowledge even the most basic facts that conflict with the theory, but they let any global warming whacko blame everything from earthquakes to hang nails on global warming. Whackos on the left who shamelessly promote fear-mongering with absolutely no evidence to support it get the platform, where the even the most rational arguements against global warming are not allowed in print.
I read the Time article this afternoon. It's sickening how the media believes they can pass off a pure opinion piece as unbiased news.
Liberals, especially those who report the news, have stifled all opposing opinion on the global warming issue. From a group who claims to defend a "marketplace of ideas," this ignorance of legitimate arguments against Kyoto and other looney environmental plans is frustrating, but expected...
I read some of the highlights and threw my Time in the trash (got it free with Delta sky miles not realizing that I would only have to pay to throw them away), further proving the media hysteria to help promote liberalism and the Democratic Party, when the truth is that the ice that is melting was there because of a global climate cyclical "Little Ice Age" that occured for roughly 500+ years from 1300 to the 1800s, and that global warming is occuring as a natural cycle of the earth macro-climate, partly caused by the Sun and minutely aided by emmisions of greenhouse gases. Notice in the Time article, the table showing the "proof" of global warming, the data starts in 1880, or a time that is past the LIA. BUT, you'de better ACT NOW and elect a liberal to the Presidency before the earth burns up into a cinder, caused by apethetic Republicans, even though the vote in the Senate to turn down the Kyoto Protocol was 99-0 (bet Kerry was the absentee but I don't know).
What are the three most rational arguments against global warming, in your opinion? (Try to keep politics out of it, i.e., don't say "Kyoto isn't worth the money because it wouldn't really do anything about the problem". I already KNOW that.)
I probably won't be able to post a long reply until next week. But I'd like to have something to think about.
Democracy is the rule of fools by fools. The MSM enables the democraps and 'pubies, the cacocracy of America.
There is no argument about or against glow-bull warning. There is doubt about the anthropogenic contibution. It seems to fall between the cracks in the noise, statistical and rhetorical. Only the gullah-bull attend MSM
1. Most of the biggest fear-mongering has no basis in fact. They offer up global warming as accepted fact but then they go way beyond that and present even the most whackiest theories of gloom and doom as accepted fact.
2. Computer Models are hopelessly flawed. There is more we don't know, than we do know. Computer Model results are constantly passed off as accepted scientific proof.
3. Beyond the ridiculous fear-mongering, the basic theory itself is flawed because the historical data suggests a different relationship between warming and CO2. The data shows that warming usually preceeds the increase in atmospheric CO2 suggesting the theory has it ass-backwards.
4. The whole hockey-stick BS, trying to falsely claim as climate is stable and it was only after man created the combustion engine did the climate change, is fraud. Scientists have unrealistically discounted any natural cause and just ASSUMED that virtually all of warming is due to CO2. Recorded history proves beyond a reasonable doubt that we have had recent and significant changes in climate before this.
5. The 1/2 degree rise we have seen in the last hundred years is not unprecendented and it is ridiculous to believe that we will see anywhere close a 10 degree change over the next 100 years.
6. Even in the last hundred years where we have had continuous increasing levels of atomosheric CO2, we still had a long period where we had global cooling (1940-1970). If CO2 was the only significant factor driving climate change, that should not have happened.
It might be possible that CO2 is driving warming, but it is far from a proven fact. And the fear-mongering done in the name of science completely discredits everything else they might say. There are very few scientists in this field who come across as real scientists without an agenda and who honestly evaluate all of the facts. You come across as someone who sincerely believes in global warming and are honest in your evaluations, but I think you are blind to how much bias is in the scientific community on this issue.
If this organization threw out all of the American MSM journalists who violate this part of their creed, it would have to close its doors.
I'd bet if the U.S. ever moved to the "Fair Tax" they'll claim the North Pole just melted.
That's not a rational argument against global warming, though.
2. Computer Models are hopelessly flawed. There is more we don't know, than we do know. Computer Model results are constantly passed off as accepted scientific proof.
This point requires in-depth discussion, if you're game. To dismiss computer models as "hopelessly flawed" is merely an assertion. All models have limitations and most models are used to investigate specific aspects of climate, not the whole "thing". The main use of models is to determine if observations match predictions.
the basic theory itself is flawed because the historical data suggests a different relationship between warming and CO2. The data shows that warming usually preceeds the increase in atmospheric CO2 suggesting the theory has it ass-backwards.
This argument is an error in context, and I've had to point that out many times. Increasing CO2 during a stable interglacial period (which is the situation now) is not the same as the climate-CO2 relationship during glacial-interglacial transitions, which are driven by Milankovitch forcing. Paleoclimate science supports the role of CO2 as a first-order factor that affects Earth's radiative balance and influences global temperature.
The whole hockey-stick BS, trying to falsely claim as climate is stable and it was only after man created the combustion engine did the climate change, is fraud. Scientists have unrealistically discounted any natural cause and just ASSUMED that virtually all of warming is due to CO2. Recorded history proves beyond a reasonable doubt that we have had recent and significant changes in climate before this.
This section is conflating two separate issues. One is the examination of temperatures over the past 1-2000 years. I agree that's problematic; I wouldn't call it fraud. Most of the issue concerns the amplitude of temperature changes. Regarding cause, it's generally accepted that the Little Ice Age was related to the Maunder Minimum of solar activity, with a little help from a couple of volcanoes. And the warming in the first part of the 20th century is primarily attributed to solar variability. (Look it up!) Scientists do not discount other causes for past variability, but the warming since the the mid-1980s is pretty much pinned on CO2.
The 1/2 degree rise we have seen in the last hundred years is not unprecendented and it is ridiculous to believe that we will see anywhere close a 10 degree change over the next 100 years.
I think you're mixing Celsius and Fahrenheit here, by the way. 0.6 C in 100 years is not unprecedented; the current warming trend is three times faster than that, which is verging on unprecedented (except at glacial-interglacial transitions). And, 4.5 C as the maximum increase in the next 100 years is very unlikely. But 2-3 C in the next 100 years is quite possible. I won't assign more specific probabilities.
Even in the last hundred years where we have had continuous increasing levels of atomosheric CO2, we still had a long period where we had global cooling (1940-1970). If CO2 was the only significant factor driving climate change, that should not have happened.
Perhaps in a very simple world; but there is such a thing as climate variability. That little bit of cooling is attributed partly to natural variability and partly to SO2 aerosols -- air was a lot dirtier back then, and you might remember the London fogs of the 1950s as indicators of that. This isn't a strong argument against global warming; the real concern of the scientific community is the accelerated trend since the mid-1980s. Sorry to make that point twice, but it's true.
It might be possible that CO2 is driving warming, but it is far from a proven fact. And the fear-mongering done in the name of science completely discredits everything else they might say. There are very few scientists in this field who come across as real scientists without an agenda and who honestly evaluate all of the facts. You come across as someone who sincerely believes in global warming and are honest in your evaluations, but I think you are blind to how much bias is in the scientific community on this issue.
Thank you for that, I think. I'm aware there's bias, and much of the media is biased one way (and the media gravitates toward worst-case scenarios). On the other hand, the "mainstream" scientific community is very concerned that their attempts at clarity on the issue are being skewed and counter-argued by a repetition of inaccurate criticisms that are essentially specious (and increasingly outdated). To reach an actual understanding of the issue requires focusing on the scientific actuality. I keep trying to do that.
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