Journalists protest Global Warming spin cycle

American Thinker ^ | July 03, 2009 | William Tate

[neverdem]

Even journalists are beginning to revolt at tactics the government is now using to spin the Global Warming myth.

Controversy erupted this week at the World Conference of Science Journalists over the National Science Foundation's "underwriting" of media projects. It turns out that the NSF, which is heavily invested in propagating the Global Warming party line, has been quietly producing content for news outlets, content which the casual observer might not recognize for the propaganda it is.

According to the Columbia Journalism Review, the NSF's Jeff Nesbit was met with "consternation" at the London conference for "attempting to 'disguise' publicity as objective reporting."

As stated earlier, the NSF is a major player in the Global Warming cult, having funded studies which claim that, despite cooling temperatures, warming is inevitable this century, and that it will impact everything from vintners who produce Pinot Noir to the world's largest freshwater lake in Siberia. 

The NSF provides about twenty percent of all federal funding for scientific research.  It is now also providing media outlets with content, such as the below from U.S. News & Report: 

NSF Releases Comprehensive Report on Global Impacts of Climate Change

Agency proposes to double climate research portfolio in 2010

Posted May 14, 2009

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has released a report on global climate change, entitled "Solving the Puzzle: Researching the Impacts of Climate Change around the World," that describes how, over nearly 60 years, NSF-funded researchers have found signs of a changing climate in nearly every corner of the globe, from the icy expanses of Earth's polar regions to its equatorial ecosystems.

The article does note, "content provided by the National Science Foundation." However, there is no such disclaimer posted for the Discovery Files podcasts available there, one of which states:

"the time for just talking about Global Warming is over. The good news is that action now could stabilize the threat of climate change."

The NSF also provides content to LiveScience, which published a piece in February announcing the agency's request for a budget increase, doubling funding for "basic research" over the next decade, and:

"Making climate change research and education a priority. The budget supports research to improve our ability to predict future environmental conditions and to develop strategies for responding to global environmental change. The budget establishes a climate change education program to help develop the next generation of environmentally engaged scientists and engineers."

It is not clear from the report if the budget increase would also include more content to be placed in media outlets.

This particular article states that it was written by LiveScience staff; still senior editor Robin Lloyd conceded that accepting other content produced by the NSF as other articles isn't "ideal." According to the CJR, she admitted, "We are throwing up their press stuff."

Although some of the NSF's propaganda activities are more traditional, such as underwriting PBS science programming, how can news organizations objectively cover a government agency for which said outlets are also "throwing up their (the NSF's) press stuff"?

It should be pointed out that the journalists who objected at the London conference -- many of whom are Global Warming true believers -- were not complaining about the NSF's promotion of Global Warming, but rather, as the CJR reported, "that the NSF is dangerously blurring the lines between journalism and PR."

But it still could be a step in the right direction.

The late Michael Crichton, in an appendix to his novel, State of Fear, compared the 'science' behind man-made Global Warming to the similarly questionable research behind eugenics, the specious theory floated a little over a century ago that the human gene pool was being weakened by supposedly inferior peoples, leading eventually to a supposedly-scientific basis for Adolf Hitler's evils. Crichton pointed out that eugenics was once supported by the American Medical Association, the National Academy of Sciences and the National Research Council and that opponents of this "psuedoscience" were called reactionary and shouted down.

Crichton quoted Ute Deichman's Biologists Under Hitler:

"Scientists, including those who were not members of the (Nazi) party, helped to get funding for their work through their modified behavior and direct cooperation with the state."

In other words, in order to get funding, scientists played along voluntarily.

Another theory advanced by the Nazis was the Big Lie: 

"(T)he broad masses ... more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods"

A big part of telling the Big Lie was using propaganda.

Neither Crichton meant then -- nor I mean now -- to imply that supporters of Global Warming are racist, or totalitarian, or even evil. Rather, Crichton intended his analysis, based on three years of research, as a warning of the dangers of mis-using science as a crutch to prop up political ambitions.

My warning is similar. Just as scientists were wrong in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to jettison scientific principles for a popular theory. Journalists, and journalistic organizations, are now wrong to sacrifice ethics for the current hot scientific craze. Pun intended.

William Tate is an award-winning journalist and author

[neverdem]

Columbia Journalism Review, that's a real start!

[piytar]

The high in Ohio where I am visiting was 71. This is in July! AGW is BULLSCHIST, and even the dumbed down indoctrinated US population is figuring that out.

[smellmygunpowder]

We call it ‘climate change’ now.

[M-cubed]

No Way!.............U throwing Al gore under the bus??

[barb-tex]

Climate Change makes it a year round sport. Climate Change!, you can believe in.
barbra ann

[this_ol_patriot]

The Weather Channel is being used as a propaganda outlet. People see it on The Weather Channel is must be true they think.

Just the other night they had on about "Hot" hurricane model overprediction to CTA if the monster 'canes don't appear, then went right on explaining how CO2 causes high pressure ridges to appear in Europe. You know they were being coerced to say that you could see that I'm lying look on their faces.

[D-fendr]

Excellent.

I think the walls around man made global warming are continuing to crumble.

Hopefully in time...

[xcamel]

FReepmail me to get on or off

Ping me if you find one I've missed.

---

[wildbill]

Anyone wanting to refute some of the global warming “facts” or propaganda pedlars HAS to read Micheal Critchton’s State of Fear.

An incredible book with lots of notes on scientific studies that the Gorbots never let appear in the major media

[Freedom'sWorthIt]

Do we have a chart from a climate scientist showing the actual temps of the globe DECLINING for two decades, not warming?

I have found a sentence but not a chsrt.....please ping me if you find it.

thanks

[dennisw]

http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/comparison.html

[Old Professer]

From the NSF:

“The article does note, “content provided by the National Science Foundation.” However, there is no such disclaimer posted for the Discovery Files podcasts available there, one of which states:

“the time for just talking about Global Warming is over. The good news is that action now could stabilize the threat of climate change.”

I see, “The wolf is at the door, run out and put a leash on him, please...”

[Old Professer]

The Met office, NASA and NOAA are in charge of making public the observed data and dilligently involved in running that data through their “smoothing” filters; by the time it gets to the lay public, it resembles more a tofu burger than a rib-eye steak.

[Freedom'sWorthIt]

LOL - ok thanks for that bit of info.

[Freedom'sWorthIt]

thanks - for the chart link.

[AFPhys]

I have not seen anyone claim that there has been cooling for two decades. The claim is that there has been cooling during the last eight years (Bush's fault!). I think it is too soon to claim the data prove that yet, but it is clearly possible since the lastest solar cycle was 152 months long, 27 months longer than the average cycle. According to Lassen's analysis, this would be associated with a 0.7C/ 1.25F DROP of Earth's temperature.

Here is a link to a display of the MOST ACCURATE records we have of Earth's temperatures: the Satellite data since 1978. Notice that temperatures may well have leveled off around 2001-2003 after rising 0.2C the previous two decades, and it is easily supportable that we are in a cooling trend since then, which would be consistent with Lassen.

Here are some historical charts from his article, which is also consistent with the Met Office data already linked by someone else, but show the solar activity:

This is completely ignored by the Alarmists because they don't understand how "minor" increased solar activity (which cycle length is a proxy for) can be "amplified" in its initial, trivial effects. Svensmark's proposal of cosmic ray influences are likely to solve at least part of that, though Cristy's analysis of feedback involving equatorial cloud formations have a similar amplification effect. The alarmists have mysterious multipliers for CO2's influence built in to their models, which appear to several factors too high, but they refuse to allow a similar mysterious multiplier for solar influence despite Lassen's clear demonstration in this paper.

[Freedom'sWorthIt]

Thank you very much!

[neverdem]

Washington Post sells access, $25,000+ For $25,000 to $250,000, now withdrawn and a new title!

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Some noteworthy articles about politics, foreign or military affairs, IMHO, FReepmail me if you want on or off my list.

[Bean Counter]

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!