WE'RE ALL DOOMED!
Posted on 11/25/2004 5:32:31 AM PST by Maurice1962
For several years, the news media have been warning us of the impending doom of global warming. Well, they almost got it right. Forget their reports that blame everything from hot weather to cold weather on global warming. The impending doom lurking just around the corner is the Kyoto Protocol -- and Russia's decision to go along with this nonsense will make it a reality for a good bit of the globe. The U.S. is already under pressure to join in despite the potential price tag of more than $400 billion each year.
The treaty gives industrialized nations just eight years to cut their emissions of six key greenhouse gases. If the U.S. had gone along, we would have been required to cut emissions 7 percent below 1990 levels - nearly 20 percent below current estimates.
Think about that for just a second. Imagine cutting emissions 20 percent in just eight years. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that treaty could cost between $225 billion to more than $400 billion annually -- equal to every penny earned by more than 5.3 million U.S. households. It could also put between 1.1 million to 4.9 million Americans out of work.
Of course, you might not know any of this if you relied on the major media to tell you.
A new study by the Media Research Center's Free Market Project looked at how all five major news shows -- the three broadcast channels as well the Fox News Channel and CNN -- had handled the issues involving climate change. The study tracked the shows from Jan. 21, 2001, the beginning of the Bush presidency, through September 30, 2004.
What we found is that most network news shows hardly even admit there is a scientific debate on global warming. They only did so in 12 stories. That's 9 percent of the time. Sad to say, they aren't following the news. The Russian government moved ahead on Kyoto despite objections of its own Academy of Sciences that the thinking behind the treaty is faulty. Network news shows paid no attention.
Instead, they repeated the claim that global warming is a given, that mankind is to blame for this "problem" or both 55 percent (77 stories) of the time. That's roughly six times more often than they even admitted there might be some scientific objection. NBC was the worst of all five networks studied. It took this pro-Kyoto view in 30 stories (64 percent). It also had the lowest percentage of opposition to this view -- only three stories (6 percent). That's a ratio of 10 to 1.
Here is a fairly typical network comment -- from CBS Evening News reporter Jerry Bowen on August 29, 2002, "Whatever its cause, there is now abundant evidence that the Earth is having a heat wave." That claim is open to debate. Satellite and weather balloon data indicate no warming is taking place at all. Since those two different measures disagree with ground temperature results, the data deserve more investigation, not more hot air.
The networks are only seeing one side of the debate because they are only asking the questions of liberal environmental groups. The Natural Resources Defense Council is interviewed often, but they are never described as a strongly anti-Bush organization even though that is exactly what they are. According to their own website, the Bush administration, "threatens to do more damage to our environmental protections than any other in U.S. history."
No matter who the news shows interviewed, the coverage focused on the impact of global warming. The stories blamed everything from floods to drought on climate change. ABC blamed warming for "erratic" weather such as a Christmas Eve snowstorm in Buffalo of all places. Reporter Neal Karlinsky explained, "Scientists say there is a pattern here. The weather is becoming more erratic for one main reason, the earth is getting warmer."
This virtually guarantees the networks are correct on the issue of global warming. If the weather gets warmer, they were right. If it gets colder, they can blame that on warming. And lastly, if the weather simply changes and produces snow in Buffalo on Christmas Eve, then they can say the weather is changeable.
What should be changeable is how the networks handle their global warming coverage. Only the Fox News Channel made a respectable showing in our study. The other four networks need to learn to balance their coverage of this important issue. Until then, network bias is like the weather -- something we all complain about but the networks seem unable to do anything to fix.
Herman Cain, former president and chairman of Godfather's Pizza, Inc. and former Senate candidate in Georgia, is now the national chairman of the Media Research Center's Free Market Project, of which Dan Gainor is director.
I just rented and tried to watch "Day After Tomorrow".
3 attempts, I just couldn't do it. I love corny disaster movies, but the whole premise (and the acting) was SO BAD, it wasn't even comical after awhile.
What's scarier still. is that there are those who actually believe this crap. Intelligent, powerful people whose hatred of capitalism allows them to be taken in by such tripe.
I have taken an environmental science class in college (it was a requirement). What a joke! It's just a one-sided lecture.
Get this, the professor of the environmental science class actually encouraged us to watch that movie! He said it was very close to what is going to happen in the next few years. (Sort of a real life Chicken Little)
This treaty has nothing to do with global warming. This is nothing but another way to bring down the U.S. by the Marxists by the U.N.
You know what if global warming was somewhat a reality...what happenes? People would use less petro chemicals, coal, and wood to HEAT THEM SELVES.
Less energy would be used in cooking or manufacturing because the ambient temperature is already higher, there for less energy is needed to raise temperature. Air conditioning might be more of a factor in certain regions, but this would be counter balanced by less energy used in more northern climes due to reduced needs for heating.
All this leads to a new eqilibrium being reached between green house gases being produced and absorbed! The upward spike in temps would soon flatten out!
(at least if I understand the logic of the greenie scientists....I'm not really a believer of the above...just exploring their logic!)
WE'RE ALL DOOMED!
The History of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere should help the debate but you never hear anything about it.
In the early earth, greenhouse gases, CO2 and methane, made up 80% of the atmosphere.
By the time of the dinosaurs, C02 had fallen to 3% and methane was absorbed into the earth. Oxygen had risen from 0 to about 15% concentration.
At the peak of the last ice age, C02 had fallen to just 0.15% whereas today it about 0.38% (which itself is up from 0.26% about 50 years ago.)
So a measely 0.12 percentage point rise is what we are talking about which might become another 0.12 points in another 50 years. CO2 is just 3 parts per thousand in the atmosphere.
During the time of the dinosaurs it was 10 times higher than it every will be with humans adding CO2 to atmosphere.
Did the dinosaurs die from the additional heat. Nah, it was just comfortably warmer than it is today. Something like the African savanna that we evolved on. What is the problem?
I saw it on the big screen this past summer, and found it really cool to watch -- notwithstanding that the plot and characters were all stupid. I thought it was a hoot.
Global warming should be welcomed with open arms, not turned into a money making scheme for the UN. They (the UN) can turn poppycock into dollars, but I don't think this one is going to pass scientific muster, and just might be the straw that kicks the UN to Paris, where they can enjoy each others company. After we clean up Iraq, we need to clean up the festering sore the boil of the UN has become. Maybe we could multi-task, and get them both done together.
I loved the realism of the Low PRessure Systems OF Unusual Size that was sucking cold air out of the stratosphere. Never mind the fact that low pressure systems are the result of air rising. But they had that cool graphic, so I guess they just had to run with it. That professor should be fired for ignorance.
Of course, we all remember our great- and great-great-grandparent's stories about how stable the weather was in the pre-industrial age. About how, for instance, it ALWAYS snowed in Donner's Pass on December 24th, and the snowstorm would last for exactly 2 hours and 47 minutes. About how, on July 4th, they could ALWAYS count on a sunny 82F for their picnics.
Too bad we don't have that kind of predictable weather anymore.
< /sarcasm off >
Of course. Also, it always snowed on Christmas Eve when the carolers showed up. It was a wonderful life.
You just made my Thanksgiving by being there with clear fresh loyal American thought and and service to our country. Bless you and yours on this day of gratitude.
I haven't and won't see that movie, but I so desperately wish Hollywood would consult with actual scientists when they're making movies.
I'd do it, for $100K per film. That's a lot less than their overpaid actors--they can afford it. (Now, who do I market myself to?)
BTW, if leftists Hollywood were to employ real scientists in the making of their propaganda documentaries, they couldn't finish them. The only reason for all the Michael Moores of the world to make movies is to advance their wacky agenda without any rebuttal. Their arguments would fall apart with real science involved.
I just want one answer before I support any claims to global warming as being human caused.
Why is Mars warming too?
:)
Thanks, never redundant. After all we give thanks everyday, not just on Thanksgiving, but today a special thanks to those in harms way who are protecting what we give thanks for in our relatively safe environment.
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