Global Hot Air: Part III (Thomas Sowell)

If you take the mainstream media seriously, you might think that every important scientist believes that "global warming" poses a great threat, and that we need to make drastic changes in the way we live, in order to avoid catastrophes to the environment, to various species, and to ourselves.

The media play a key role in perpetuating such beliefs. Often they seize upon every heat wave to hype global warming, but see no implications in record-setting cold weather, such as many places have been experiencing lately.

Remember how the unusually large number of hurricanes a couple of years ago was hyped in the media as being a result of global warming, with more such hurricanes being predicted to return the following year and the years thereafter?

But, when not one hurricane struck the United States all last year, the media had little or nothing to say about the false predictions they had hyped. It's heads I win and tails you lose.

Are there serious scientists who specialize in weather and climate who have serious doubts about the doomsday scenarios being pushed by global warming advocates? Yes, there are.

There is Dr. S. Fred Singer, who set up the American weather satellite system, and who published some years ago a book titled "Hot Talk, Cold Science." More recently, he has co-authored another book on the subject, "Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years."

There have been periods of global warming that lasted for centuries -- and periods of global cooling that also lasted for centuries. So the issue is not whether the world is warmer now than at some time in the past but how much of that warming is due to human beings and how much can we reduce future warming, even if we drastically reduce our standard of living in the attempt.

Other serious scientists who are not on the global warming bandwagon include a professor of meteorology at MIT, Richard S. Lindzen.

His name was big enough for the National Academy of Sciences to list it among the names of other experts on its 2001 report that was supposed to end the debate by declaring the dangers of global warming proven scientifically.

Professor Lindzen then objected and pointed out that neither he nor any of the other scientists listed ever saw that report before it was published. It was in fact written by government bureaucrats -- as was the more recently published summary report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that is also touted as the final proof and the end of the discussion.

You want more experts who think otherwise? Try a professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, Patrick J. Michaels, who refers to the much ballyhooed 2001 IPCC summary as having "misstatements and errors" that he calls "egregious."

A professor of climatology at the University of Delaware, David R. Legates, likewise referred to the 2001 IPCC summary as being "often in direct contrast with the scientific report that accompanies it." It is the summaries that the media hype. The full 2007 report has not even been published yet.

Skeptical experts in other countries around the world include Duncan Wingham, a professor of climate physics at the University College, London, and Nigel Weiss of Cambridge University.

The very attempt to silence all who disagree about global warming ought to raise red flags.

Anyone who remembers the 1970s should remember the Club of Rome report that was supposed to be the last word on economic growth grinding to a halt, "overpopulation" and a rapidly approaching era of mass starvation in the 1980s.

In reality, the 1980s saw increased economic growth around the world and, far from mass starvation, an increase in obesity and agricultural surpluses in many countries. But much of the media went for the Club of Rome report and hyped the hysteria.

Many in the media resent any suggestion that they are either shilling for an ideological agenda or hyping whatever will sell newspapers or get higher ratings on TV.

Here is their chance to check out some heavyweight scientists specializing in weather and climate, instead of taking Al Gore's movie or the pronouncements of government bureaucrats and politicians as the last word.

Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His Web site is www.tsowell.com.

Oregon Petition Project

19,700 credentialed scientists have signed a petition stating that the basis for man made global warming is flawed. So far 17,200 have been independently verified that they are who andwhat they say they are.

2,660 physicists, geophysicists, climatologists, meteorologists, oceanographers, and environmental scientists who are especially well qualified to evaluate the effects of carbon dioxide on the Earth's atmosphere and climate.

Signers of this petition also include 5,017 scientists whose fields of specialization in chemistry, biochemistry, biology, and other life sciences make them especially well qualified to evaluate the effects of carbon dioxide upon the Earth's plant and animal life.

Nearly all of the initial 17,100 scientist signers have technical training suitable for the evaluation of the relevant research data, and many are trained in related fields. In addition to these 17,100, approximately 2,400 individuals have signed the petition who are trained in fields other than science or whose field of specialization was not specified on their returned petition.

The first of the three parts of this multi-part series, Global Hot Air, was also excellent (well, it Thomas Sowell writing . . .).

Anyone who remembers the 1970s should remember the Club of Rome report that was supposed to be the last word on economic growth grinding to a halt, "overpopulation" and a rapidly approaching era of mass starvation in the 1980s. In reality, the 1980s saw increased economic growth around the world and, far from mass starvation, an increase in obesity and agricultural surpluses in many countries. But much of the media went for the Club of Rome report and hyped the hysteria.

Many in the media resent any suggestion that they are either shilling for an ideological agenda or hyping whatever will sell newspapers or get higher ratings on TV.

Clearly it's one or the other, or both.
IMHO it would only be logical to predict that Big Journalism would "hype whatever will sell newspapers or get higher ratings on TV" even if that did not imply "shilling for an ideological agenda" - which I also hold to be true.
Why Broadcast Journalism is
Unnecessary and Illegitimate

Many in the media resent any suggestion that they are either shilling for an ideological agenda or hyping whatever will sell newspapers or get higher ratings on TV.

They resent it because their bluff has been called for what it is.

Resenting having their bluff called is one of the things Big Journalism does best.
The thing that is most amazing to me is that, as acute as Professor Sowell is - to say nothing of Ann Coulter, and Rush Limbaugh - none of them has latched onto what seems the obvious question Sowell poses above. Namely, why is journalism tendentious - is it because they are evil, because the just wanna and they can, or is it because it is profitable?
IMHO it is obvious (after a lot of consideration) that latching onto scary scenarios like Global Warming, or The Population Bomb - or Alar poisoning apples, or Republicans wanting people to die in wars, etc, etc, etc - is simply the easy way for Big Journalism to make it look like they are doing the important job which they claim is their mission. And that their actual mission is making it look like they are telling people what is important.
Simply doing their supposed mission by accurately defining the actual problems most important to the country, and the necessary solutions to those problems, might not actually be profitable. It might not be exciting, and it might entail telling truths that people don't want to hear. For example, in the run up to WWII Winston Churchill was Cassandra, telling everyone that stopping Hitler was necessary. He was right - but right up to the invasion of Poland he was in a very small minority in believing that. If all journalists had agreed with Churchill, and pushed that POV, WWII would have been averted - but the trouble was that if any journalist took the pacifist line, that was far more popular and far more profitable.
It seems to me as an economic proposition that all you have to do is assume that journalists do what is easy and profitable, and you explain their behavior quite well. Their actual job is to mass produce stories which promote the idea that they are saving humanity by pointing out crucial dangers and pointing the way to "salvation." In order to do so they find nice, safe villains like orchardists putting Alar on apples. It isn't as though orchardists are going to hurt The New York Times, so it is perfectly safe for journalism to destroy their reputations.
Let an actual threat to First Amendment freedom arise - let a militant religion demand that certain things not be printed lest they offend, or else heads literally will roll - and suddenly Big Journalism is a pacifist. But let a Republican senator who has limited influence raise an actual issue of importance - communist penetration of the Truman Administration - and that is the end of the world as we have known it. It was safe to attack and destroy Joe McCarthy. If McCarthy had actually been the threat to Civil Liberties that Big Journalism claimed, Big Journalism would have folded like a cheap camera.
So the question is, why doesn't Thomas Sowell - why doesn't anybody - examine the behavior of Big Journalism from an economic POV? Sowell has a book entitled "The Economics and Politics of Race." He should write another entitled "The Economics and Politics of Journalism." Maybe he should coauthor it with Ann Coulter, and let her do the publicity for it. Since he is unwilling to do much media, notwithstanding that he is excellent at it.

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