Global Warming Denial Machine

[Swamp Gas]

www.cbc.ca/fifth/denialmachine/

Click on "Watch this story online. Runs: 40:09" on right. It sums up very nicely why and who is behind these "Climate Change Skeptics" besides the usual ExxonMobil, Oil Companies, Bush administration, Nuclear Power, Coal, and Neo-Libertarians. I think that even people like Mike Rivero, Alex Jones, and Jeff Rense could be consciously pushing this agenda with the guise of "World Government" taking away your land and cars nonsense. It was weird, after 9/11, we were all on the same page, thinking that the enemy of an enemy was your friend. This is not the case. as the smoke clears, we now see the masks coming off of even people we thought were on our side, even ones who used to post at Gastronamus. It amazes me how one person or one organization with lots of money can create a Bizarro World Reality by manipulating language.

This Fred Singer is a real package. He and other Tobacco Cancer deniers are the same players now in the Climate Crisis Skeptics, funded now by energy companies instead of tobacco companies.


Here also is how the media is manipulating and changing facts of Climate Crisis

mediamatters.org/issues_topics/global_warming



A good site for people monitoring the manipulation of science by big money interests

www.desmogblog.com/

[Swamp Gas]

Another Good Climate Change Site run by Real Scientists

www.realclimate.org

[KNOWTHIS]

I recently cancelled my Coast To Coast Am subscription because they’ve been having nothing but global warming deniers on lately. I sent them a message letting them exactly know why I cut my funds. I kept hearing them say that they can’t find anyone to debate in favor of the existence of global warming. Yet they had no problems placing numerous deniers on air unchallenged. They are the ones who often declined debates. If you’re a denier you can get on air 'alone without an opposing viewpoint' but if you’re not a denier you then have to appear in a debate format. I see this same tactic being used against 9/11 truthers all of the time.

Funny to mention that after I cancelled they managed to find a non-denier to come on and speak. Not that my actions had anything to do with it. Just a funny coincidence. I wonder if they were receiving similar complaints from other subscribers?

[Swamp Gas]

There is no debate. This is like bringing in "experts" on Biblical alternatives to evolution to debate geneticists and anthropologists. In true Bizarro World Logic, the Climate Change Deniers will call us who follow the science "religious" and "cult", and "fanatics", when in fact they are those terms. It is like Bill O'Reilly calling people who question Bush "traitors", when in fact if you DON'T question Bush, you are a traitor.

I also find it sad and hilarious that the prime target of the Right-Wingers, Neo-Libertarians, and Denial Machine to be Al Gore. They don't see that on the denial side are all those former Tobacco Danger Deniers, Ann Coulter, George W Bush, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Mike Rivero, Jeff Rense, Alex Jones, George Noory, Michelle Malkin, Stephen Harper, and Dick Cheney.

All of this is a smokescreen. Debating Evolution vs Creationism, Global Warming vs Sun Spots, Bush is a Patriot vs Bush is a Traitor, and every other useless waste of time. It is like arguing with a drunk. Only a fool argues with a drunk. Perhaps the whole "alternative" news media is throwing this nonsense, to deflect serious 9/11 research. If you think Rivero and Rense are good on 9/11, but then you scratch your head with Global Warming, Flight 77 and 93, Guns, and Gay issues, then if you will also think they are nuts with 9/11. All by design.

[Swamp Gas]

3 stages of the funded controversy/denial business. Which stage are you buying?

Stage 1: Climate change is not happening.
This was the major funded opposition position initially when the scientist measured the effects that were not large enough for everyone to notice. But now that everyone can witness nearly a decade of warmer temperatures and year after year of record temperatures, this is falling out of favor in the denial/controversy business. Though there is still pockets of this. There were stories about how the Icepack in Greenland is really not melting but getting thicker. That was false, but it was put forward by the standard denier mouth pieces who are still on stage 1. But they should get the memo soon.

Stage 2: We don't know what is causing it.
This now the majority position the funded denial machine. Get enough newspaper articles published and the average layman will start to believe there is a controversy even when there isn't. This is working quite well for the controversy business. Despite the fact that nearly every reputable climate Scientist on the planet agrees that we are heating up the earth with the Billions of tons of C02 we add annually to the atmosphere (that accumulates to higher concentration). When there is no controversy that C02 is heat trapping gas, that we are dumping BILLIONS of tons into the atmosphere annually, that the concentration is rising. Somehow laymen will still buy the story that this is not causing the now obvious heat increase. That somehow magically this is not having an effect and it must be some as yet undiscovered "natural cycle". Bravo to the manufacturers of controversy for convincing anyone in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary and even to the contrary and even to the contrary of common sense.

Stage 3: Nothing we can do about it anyway.
Some have moved to stage three, while not entirely admitting that we are the cause, they appeal to the more sensible by at least acknowledging that possibility. Even if we are having an effect, their argument is that we are powerless to stop it. So we should do nothing, go about your business, nothing to see here, move along.

Since we have our own cadre of laymen who seem to have refuted the majority consensus of working scientists, I would guess they are buying the Stage 2 story: Essentially being that billions of tons annually, of an acknowledged green house gas, are magically doing nothing, and that some other unknown process is instead responsible for the warming. I guess they must believe in magic. We can continue to use the air as a dumping ground because it will magically be taken care of.

[lophofo]

Well, with fiction authors such as Michael Crichton telling people in his book that Global Warming is actually being caused by the increase in concrete in big cities that is trapping in the heat -- that it's man made, but naturally due to man's expansion, not necessarily pollution of the environment, there's more confusion to add to everyone's explanation of what is causing Global Warming.

Meanwhile, we have the military spending billions of dollars in jet fuel and top secret experiments to pollute our skies for weather modification, communication experiments, and others to promote an added advantage -- all done in the name of national security.

Yet, they take this confusion of everyone's differing beliefs in the Global Warming stance and throw it into the mix. They say, "Oh, those aren't chemtrails. That's just due to the natural increase in air traffic." Yeah, and that's why some days you'll see 80 jets in the sky...all making chemtrails every which way thick as can be...with 4 streams being left behind, traveling upward and downward at 60 degree angles. But hey, those are just commercial jets, right? Yeah, we'll believe that one. 'Cause we're the sheep, and they are our protectful shepherd...keeping us out of harm from Osama Bin Laden and the other terrorists.

Oh, and if people start to really believe that these are chemtrails, then they will say...well, see the scientists all agree with us that Global Warming has really been happening all along. And secretly, because we couldn't tell you out of national security, we've been dumping all these helpful "elements" into the upper atmosphere to actually prevent Global Warming. See, we couldn't actually tell you it was happening, because we didn't want a panic. We just conditionalize you through the use of Hollywood movies so you will think what we want you to, and react how we believe you should. And to help us further that condition, we will give you Fox and CNN...and Bill O'reilly. And anyone who disagrees with Mr. Bill, we will make a fool out of.

Even though, the whole story about them dumping these chemicals to prevent global warming is a bunch of BS also. It turns out that actually may be contributing even more to global warming.

But, the government will have already approved more funding to them to help stop this global warming that the people believe is being done with the dumping of these terrible chemicals into the atmosphere. When in reality, the government has clamped down on scientists speaking out, has limited the use of the EPA library, has put in place Michael Leavitt (their puppet boy) to say what they want about the current state of the environment. And we, in turn, get lied to time and time again. The truth gets covered up once again.

And the boys in black continue to mess with their big toys in Alaska with their use of HAARP, cyclotronic resonance, the use of steering the ionosphere for the benefit of not only controlling the weather, but of enhancing military communications. The use of chemtrails is not only a way of measuring this ability at specific spots where the jet stream has changed or been enhanced. But, it is the use of specific, harmful, "elements" that will enhance communication radar, and the ability of HAARP.

This is all done under the guise of national security for the moment. But, when the world finally wakes up to chemtrails, which it is more and more, then they will say it's been done under the guise of Global Warming. Yeah, are we causing it? You bet we are. And we're probably causing it more than most people care to believe.

Meanwhile, we suffer the fallout and diseases of this awful pollution. But, when has the government ever been one to care about the sacrificing of lives to increase ones military agendas or enhance ones political greed?

It's all about control. And right now, the government has more than their share. It's time to change that. It's time for Ron Paul.

[Swamp Gas]

I would even take Ron Paul for president. Some of his social ideas are a bit Right Wing, but overall I think he is level headed.

The Aerosol Spraying, Global Warming, and Ozone Depletion are all inter-related.

1) The Government and Corporations know damn well the Ozone Layer is blown out. Could be the Titanium Oxide found to be a shield of sorts. Sorry Chem11, I have my own ideas with differ than yours.

2) Global Warming is in stage 3 now. Originally, Stage 1, the corporations and their Limbaugh mouthpieces simply said it didn't exist. Then, Stage 2, it was "Solar, Cosmic Rays, Concrete, etc. Now Stage 3 is "Might as well enjoy it, We can't do a damn thing about it", "We can make Greenland a winter resort area".

3) Contrails/Chemtrails could be a feeble attempt at increasing cloud cover, blocking UV-B, Manipulating weather patterns,which could lower temperatures.

4) Distant possibility is HAARP amplification.

5) Extremely improbability of Biologicals, parasites, etc. being dumped.

Meanwhile, Nero (Limbaugh, Coulter, Fred Singer, Energy Companies, Bush Administration, Right Wing Noise Machine) fiddles as Rome Burns.

[Swamp Gas]

Alex Jones going over the top again. Boy, this guy is a regular Joseph Goebbels when it comes to anything other than 9/11. For instance, in this he is accusing Al Gore of using "Scare tactics". Excuse me, Alex how about these scare tactics that you use?

The CIA runs woman's Rights movement

The CIA runs gay Rights movement

Implants will be in our brains soon (has not happened yet)

The Earth is being turned into a prison camp

The Europeans are communists/socialists (They write the best music, and take care of their old and sick)

Environmentalism is a Communist/NWO plot

Public education is NWO plot

666 is going to stamped on our heads

Pagans are a Satan/NWO plot

The elite have openly announced that they want to kill 80% of us

There are little wires in dollar bills that keep track of what you buy

The Communist Chinese Army has taken over the Massachusetts Port Authority

There are Illuminati symbols on Starbucks coffee cups

Power outages are government plots.

Children's cartoons are part of a government plot to brainwash us

The Quakers are communists




Here is the Al Gore "Scare tactic". Never mind that Alex and the other Paranoid Stooges have nothing but vague possibilities to back them up, and Gore is using data from over 50,000 Climatologists.

www.infowars.com/articles/science/global_warming_gore_scare_tactics_in_incovenient_truth.htm

I will say this again, Alex Jones, Jeff Rense, Mike Rivero, David Icke, George Noory, and other Right Wingers could be operatives to throw everyone off the 9/11 crime. Mix a little bit of trurh in with the crackpot and paranoid stuff, and intelligent people will then start sifting through everything. The "Robots" that treat these people as cult figures will take EVERYTHING they say as Gospel. Any sane person reading some of this stuff (Aliens, Ghosts, Devils, NWO on coffee cups, No Global Warning....er....Cosmic Rays....er..oh well...enjoy your winter getaway in Upper Canada, every person is a CIA operative except Right Wing White guys, Reptiles in human form etc, etc), would then lump 9/11 into the same category as this crackpot stuff. This is the goal of the game. Al Gore is simply trying to wake up the common person to the danger from pollution, carbon dioxide, and unregulated use of fossil fuels. If these Right Wingers had their way, and the feared "Hippy/Environmentalist" never came about, we would have sludge in rivers unregulated, radiation in the atmosphere, air pollution, and no watchdogs on people who simply treat nature like a whore. This happened in the 1800s-the mid 1960s because there were no environmentalists. This is the thanks that these Right Wing Noise Makers give. What is wrong with a data and logic based warning? It is like, "If you keep drinking and driving you will get in a bad accident and/or arrested". Is this a scare tactic, or a logical prediction based on behaviour patterns?

The solution to this? Simple:

1) Hydrogen Fuel Cells

2) Electric Cars

3) Hemp and Bio-Fuels

4) Tesla-type magnetic power

5) Solar

6) Geo-Thermal

7) Wind Power

8) Ocean Tides

9) Hydro-electric



Of course, The Right Wing Noise Macine will find exceuses to not go alternative:

1) They don't smell "manly" when they burn fuel

2) We can't run Nuclear Subs and Aircraft Carriers on these fuels

3) Our economy is Oil-Based

4) The planet will be saved, and the Biblical Matthew Chapter 8 will be cancelled

[Swamp Gas]

www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1480279,00.html#article_continue


Junk science


David Bellamy's inaccurate and selective figures on glacier shrinkage are a boon to climate change deniers

George Monbiot
Tuesday May 10, 2005
The Guardian

For the past three weeks, a set of figures has been working a hole in my mind. On April 16, New Scientist published a letter from the famous botanist David Bellamy. Many of the world's glaciers, he claimed, "are not shrinking but in fact are growing ... 555 of all the 625 glaciers under observation by the World Glacier Monitoring Service in Zurich, Switzerland, have been growing since 1980". His letter was instantly taken up by climate change deniers. And it began to worry me. What if Bellamy was right?

Article continues

He is a scientist, formerly a senior lecturer at the University of Durham. He knows, in other words, that you cannot credibly cite data unless it is well-sourced. Could it be that one of the main lines of evidence of the impact of global warming - the retreat of the world's glaciers - is wrong?
The question could scarcely be more important. If man-made climate change is happening, as the great majority of the world's climatologists claim, it could destroy the conditions that allow human beings to remain on the planet. The effort to cut greenhouse gases must come before everything else. This won't happen unless we can be confident that the science is right. Because Bellamy is president of the Conservation Foundation, the Wildlife Trusts, Plantlife International and the British Naturalists' Association, his statements carry a great deal of weight. When, for example, I challenged the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders over climate change, its spokesman cited Bellamy's position as a reason for remaining sceptical.

So last week I telephoned the World Glacier Monitoring Service and read out Bellamy's letter. I don't think the response would have been published in Nature, but it had the scientific virtue of clarity: "This is complete bullshit." A few hours later, they sent me an email: "Despite his scientific reputation, he makes all the mistakes that are possible." He had cited data that was simply false, he had failed to provide references, he had completely misunderstood the scientific context and neglected current scientific literature. The latest studies show unequivocally that most of the world's glaciers are retreating.

But I still couldn't put the question out of my mind. The figures that Bellamy cited must have come from somewhere. I emailed him to ask for his source. After several requests, he replied to me at the end of last week. The data, he said, came from a website called www.iceagenow.com. Iceagenow was constructed by a man called Robert W Felix to promote his self-published book about "the coming ice age". It claims that sea levels are falling, not rising; that the Asian tsunami was caused by the "ice age cycle"; and that "underwater volcanic activity - not human activity - is heating the seas".

Is Felix a climatologist, a volcanologist or an oceanographer? Er, none of the above. His biography describes him as a "former architect". His website is so bonkers that I thought at first it was a spoof. Sadly, he appears to believe what he says. But there, indeed, was all the material that Bellamy cited in his letter, including the figures - or something resembling the figures - he quoted. "Since 1980, there has been an advance of more than 55% of the 625 mountain glaciers under observation by the World Glacier Monitoring group in Zurich." The source, which Bellamy also cited in his email to me, was given as "the latest issue of 21st Century Science and Technology".

21st Century Science and Technology? It sounds impressive, until you discover that it is published by Lyndon LaRouche. Lyndon LaRouche is the American demagogue who in 1989 received a 15-year sentence for conspiracy, mail fraud and tax-code violations. He has claimed that the British royal family is running an international drugs syndicate, that Henry Kissinger is a communist agent, that the British government is controlled by Jewish bankers, and that modern science is a conspiracy against human potential.

It wasn't hard to find out that this is one of his vehicles: LaRouche is named on the front page of the magazine's website, and the edition Bellamy cites contains an article beginning: "We in LaRouche's Youth Movement find ourselves in combat with an old enemy that destroys human beings ... it is empiricism."

Oh well, at least there is a source for Bellamy's figures. But where did 21st Century Science and Technology get them from? It doesn't say. But I think we can make an informed guess, for the same data can be found all over the internet. They were first published online by Professor Fred Singer, one of the very few climate change deniers who has a vaguely relevant qualification (he is, or was, an environmental scientist). He posted them on his website, www.sepp.org, and they were then reproduced by the appropriately named junkscience.com, by the Cooler Heads Coalition, the US National Centre for Public Policy Research and countless others. They have even found their way into the Washington Post.

They are constantly quoted as evidence that man-made climate change is not happening. But where did they come from? Singer cites half a source: "A paper published in Science in 1989." Well, the paper might be 16 years old, but at least, and at last, there is one. Surely?

I went through every edition of Science published in 1989, both manually and electronically. Not only did it contain nothing resembling those figures, throughout that year there was no paper published in this journal about glacial advance or retreat.

So it wasn't looking too good for Bellamy, or Singer, or any of the deniers who have cited these figures. But there was still one mystery to clear up. While Bellamy's source claimed that 55% of 625 glaciers are advancing, Bellamy claimed that 555 of them - or 89% - are advancing. This figure appears to exist nowhere else. But on the standard English keyboard, 5 and % occupy the same key. If you try to hit %, but fail to press shift, you get 555, instead of 55%. This is the only explanation I can produce for his figure. When I challenged him, he admitted that there had been "a glitch of the electronics".

So, in Bellamy's poor typing, we have the basis for a whole new front in the war against climate science. The 555 figure is now being cited as definitive evidence that global warming is a "fraud", a "scam", a "lie". I phoned New Scientist to ask if Bellamy had requested a correction. He had not.

It is hard to convey just how selective you have to be to dismiss the evidence for climate change. You must climb over a mountain of evidence to pick up a crumb: a crumb which then disintegrates in the palm of your hand. You must ignore an entire canon of science, the statements of the world's most eminent scientific institutions, and thousands of papers published in the foremost scientific journals. You must, if you are David Bellamy, embrace instead the claims of an eccentric former architect, which are based on what appears to be a non-existent data set. And you must do all this while calling yourself a scientist.

www.monbiot.com

[Swamp Gas]

mediamatters.org/items/200705040001


Beck's global warming special dominated by industry-funded "experts," serial misinformers

CNN Headline News host Glenn Beck's May 2 hour-long special, Exposed: The Climate of Fear, purported to present the "other side of the climate debate that you don't hear anywhere." Introducing the show, Beck stated: "I want you to know right up front, this is not a balanced look at global warming." Indeed, Beck relied heavily on people with energy industry ties and others espousing positions on global warming that have been soundly debunked or rejected by the overwhelming majority of scientists studying climate change.

Here is a list of those featured:

Marlo Lewis: Lewis is a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), an institution funded by the energy industry. As Colorado Media Matters has noted, Lewis has said that "global warming is real and humans play a role," but has argued that "[t]rying to do too much to stop warming would be a waste of money better used on new technologies." As The Washington Post reported on March 19, 2006, CEI, "which widely publicizes its belief that the earth is not warming cataclysmically because of the burning of coal and oil, says Exxon Mobil Corp. is a 'major donor' largely as a result of its effort to push that position." According to Lewis' biography on the CEI website, he once appeared on C-SPAN to explain "why taxing the oil industry for 'excessive profits' is counterproductive." On February 10, the Post reported that Kenneth P. Cohen, Exxon Mobil's vice president for public affairs, said that "Exxon's foundation, which he heads, decided in 2005 to cut funding [for CEI], though that came to light only last fall."

Timothy Ball: Ball is a climatologist who is also the chairman of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project, a Canadian environmental think tank whose three-person board of directors includes an executive of the High Park Advocacy Group, a Toronto-based lobby firm that specializes in 'energy, environment and ethics." Timothy Egan, High Park Advocacy Group president, is "a registered lobbyist for the Canadian Gas Association and the Canadian Electricity Association," in addition to serving on Natural Resources Stewardship Project's board. Ball was previously an adviser to the industry-funded Friends of Science, which, as the Toronto Globe and Mail reported in August 2006, was supported by "a coalition of oil-patch geologists, Tory insiders, anonymous donors and oil-industry PR professionals." Additionally, according to ExxonSecrets.org, Ball has contributed to Tech Central Station. As Media Matters for America has previously noted, Tech Central Station Daily is a website that from 2000 to October 2006 was operated by the Republican lobbying firm DCI Group, which, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), is also a "registered ExxonMobil lobbying firm."
Ball has consistently repeated debunked claims aimed to cast doubt on global warming. For instance, in November 2004, Ball claimed that global temperatures have "warmed from 1680 up to 1940, but since 1940 it's been cooling down. The evidence for warming is because of distorted records. The satellite data, for example, shows cooling." Ball added: "ince 1940 and from 1940 until 1980, even the surface record shows cooling. The argument is that there has been warming since then but, in fact, almost all of that is due to what is called the 'urban heat island' effect -- that is, that the weather stations are around the edge of cities and the cities expanded out and distorted the record. When you look at rural stations -- if you look at the Antarctic, for example -- the South Pole shows cooling since 1957 and the satellite data which has been up since 1978 shows a slight cooling trend as well."

But, as Media Matters has previously noted, several studies have shown that the urban heat island effect is minimal. The most recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stated that "[t]he total temperature increase from 1850-1899 to 2001-2005 is 0.76°C [0.57°C to 0.95°C]. Urban heat island effects are real but local, and have a negligible influence (less than 0.006°C per decade over land and zero over the oceans) on these values."

Patrick J. Michaels: Michaels is senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute; research professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia; author of two books on global warming, The Satanic Gases and Sound and Fury: The Science and Politics of Global Warming (both published by the Cato Institute); and editor of World Climate Report, a biweekly newsletter on climate studies funded in large part by the coal industry. According to a 1998 article by Institute for Public Accuracy executive director Norman Solomon, the Cato Institute has received financial support from energy companies -- including Chevron Companies, Exxon Company, Shell Oil Company, and Tenneco Gas, as well as the American Petroleum Institute, Amoco Foundation, and Atlantic Richfield Foundation. In addition, as Colorado Media Matters has noted, a July 17, 2006, memo from the Intermountain Rural Electric Association (IREA) by general manager Stanley R. Lewandowski Jr., detailed IREA's financial support for Michaels:

We here at IREA believe that it is necessary to support the scientific community that is willing to stand up against the alarmists and bring a balance to the discussion. Many scientists have an opinion, but only a minority have any involvement in climatology. We decided to support Dr. Patrick Michaels and his group (New Hope Environmental Services, Inc.). Dr. Michaels has been supported by electric cooperatives in the past and also receives financial support from other sources. He has A.B. and S.M. degrees from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in ecological climatology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Michaels is the Virginia State Climatologist, Research Professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia, a Senior Fellow in environmental studies at the CATO Institute, and a Visiting Scientist with the Marshall Institute in Washington, DC. In February of this year, IREA alone contributed $100,000 to Dr. Michaels. In addition we have contacted all of the G & T's over in the United States and as of the writing of this letter, we have obtained additional contributions and pledges for Dr. Michaels group. We will be following up with the remaining G & T's over the next several weeks.

Michaels has falsely suggested that former Vice President Al Gore endorsed exaggerating the threat of global warming, as Media Matters documented. Further, on the March 21 edition of Fox News' The Big Story with John Gibson, Michaels repeated a false comparison between Gore's claim that global warming could cause "sea level worldwide [to] go up 20 feet" with a section of the 2007 IPCC report, which, in the scenario Michaels cites, states sea levels would rise about 8 to 18 inches by the end of the 21st century. But as Media Matters has noted (here and here), Gore was specifically addressing what could happen if the West Antarctic ice shelf or the Greenland ice dome "broke up and slipped into the sea" at an indefinite point in the future. The portion of the IPCC report that Michaels cited referred only to projected sea-level increases before 2100 based on increases in temperature. Michaels used this false comparison as the basis for characterizing Gore's position as "beyond shrill" and "thermonuclear."

Chris Horner: Horner is a senior fellow at CEI and author of the book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming (and Environmentalism) (Regnery, February 2007). He has appeared on Beck on at least three separate occasions to attack the "hysterical movement" of environmental activists warning of the threats of global warming (April 23, April 5, and March 21), as Media Matters has noted. For instance, during the April 5 edition of Beck's television program, Horner declared Gore's film to be "pure science fiction," and, among other things, pushed the misleading claim that that "it'll be almost 10 years since we've experienced any warming," and that "it hasn't warmed since 1998." In fact, as Media Matters has noted, according to NASA, 1998 was a particularly warm year because "a strong El Nino, a warm water event in the eastern Pacific Ocean, added warmth to global temperatures." Despite the temperature spike that occurred in 1998, the Climatic Research Unit's Global Temperature Record and a surface temperature analysis of 2006 by the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) show a general warming trend since 1970. Moreover, a February 2007 NASA Earth Observatory news release states, "By the early 1980s, temperatures surpassed those of the 1940s and, despite ups and downs from year to year, they continued rising beyond the year 2000."

John Christy: Christy is the director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama-Huntsville and Alabama state climatologist. Christy and fellow University of Alabama professor Roy Spencer co-authored a 2003 global warming study based on extensive data from weather satellites. Their report, which concluded that the troposphere had not warmed in recent decades, was ultimately found to have significant errors. The New York Times reported that when their miscalculations were taken into account, the data used in their study actually showed warming in the troposphere.

Christy also contributed an essay skeptical of climate change to Global Warming and Other Eco Myths: How the Environmental Movement Uses False Science to Scare Us to Death (Crown Publishing Group, 2002). The book was released by the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Bjorn Lomborg: As Media Matters has noted, Lomborg is a "political scientist" at the Copenhagen Business School who, in his book The Skeptical Environmentalist (Cambridge University Press, 2001), purported to conduct a "non-partisan analysis" of environmental data in the hope of offering the public and policymakers a guide for "clear-headed prioritization of resources to tackle real, not imagined, problems." His conclusion was that the concerns of scientists regarding the world's environmental problems -- including global warming -- were overblown. But in January 2002, Scientific American ran a series of articles from four well-known environmental specialists that lambasted Lomborg's book for "egregious distortions," "elementary blunders of quantitative manipulation and presentation that no self-respecting statistician ought to commit," and sections that were "poorly researched and ... rife with careless mistakes." Lomborg has repeatedly attacked Gore's documentary and, as Media Matters documented, used a false comparison to suggest that the IPCC "fundamentally rejects" Gore's claim that the world's sea-level could rise 20 feet as a result of warming.
In introducing Lomborg, Beck noted that because Lomborg was "not a scientist," but a political scientist. ... I'm not going to ask any science questions." Beck has previously hosted Lomborg on at least two occasions (January 17 and September 21, 2006).

David R. Legates: As Media Matters has noted (here and here), Legates is associate professor of geography and director of the Center for Climatic Research at the University of Delaware. His 2006 report, "Climate Science: Climate Change and Its Impacts," was published by the National Center for Policy Analysis, a conservative think tank that has received substantial funding from energy interests such as ExxonMobil Corp. The report concluded that "the science does not support claims of drastic increases in global temperatures over the 21st century, nor does it support claims of human influence on weather events and other secondary effects of climate change."

Legates' report claimed that "average summer air temperatures at the summit of the Greenland Ice Sheet, have decreased at the rate of 4 degrees F per decade since measurements began in 1987." Legates attributed this finding to a 2004 report by climate scientist Petr Chylek of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. But Legates ignored a study published by Chylek a year later that attributed this cooling trend to local climate patterns -- specifically, the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). Chylek then analyzed the temperature record in the Danmarkshavn region of Greenland -- an area on the northeastern coast apparently unaffected by the NAO -- and found that the warming rate there was 2.2 times faster than the global average. This corresponds with United Nations climate change models that show Greenland warming at a faster rate than the rest of the planet and partially explains the rapid deterioration of the Greenland ice sheet in recent years.

Patrick Moore: Patrick Moore is a former leader of the environmental activist group Greenpeace who has served as a corporate consultant since 1991. His public relations firm, Greenspirit Strategies, specializes in strategic communications for mining, fossil fuels, logging, and nuclear power industry clients. As the Center for Media and Democracy reported, Moore's "past work with Greenpeace has proved an irresistible hook for many reporters" in their coverage of his clients.

Moore is co-chair and paid spokesman for the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition (CSEC), which describes itself as "a large grassroots coalition that united unlikely allies across the business, environmental, academic, consumer and labor community to support nuclear energy." In fact, as the Columbia Journalism Review reported, CSEC was formed by the Nuclear Energy Institute in 2006 and continues to receive most of its funding from that body. NEI is the policy organization of the nuclear energy and technology industry, and seeks to "promote the beneficial uses of nuclear energy and technologies in the United States and around the world."

As the Brattleboro Reformer reported on January 16, Moore serves as spokesman for the Vermont Energy Partnership, a nuclear industry front group that seeks to prevent the closure of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. He is also an adviser for the New York Affordable Reliable Electricity Alliance, a lobby group that promotes the renewal of the operating license for the Indian Point nuclear power plants. According to Jim Steets, spokesperson for Indian Point plant operator Entergy Corp., the company was "instrumental in the founding of New York AREA" and continues to partially fund the organization.

During his appearance on Exposed: The Climate of Fear, Moore touted nuclear power as a clean, safe source of energy. He stated: "That is what actually drives me nuts, is you've got Greenpeace and other major environmental groups saying that the civilization and the environment are going to be destroyed by global warming, catastrophe, chaos, and all of these scary words, and yet they are unwilling to adopt nuclear energy." Beck replied: "Look, America should embrace nuclear power, even if it's to get off the foreign oil bandwagon." Moore has repeatedly stated that he does not believe that there is a link between global warming and human activity. In an open letter to the Royal Society of the United Kingdom, Moore wrote: "Certainly the Royal Society would agree there is no scientific proof of causation between the human-induced increase in atmospheric CO2 and the recent global warming trend, a trend that has been evident for about 500 years, long before the human-induced increase in CO2 was evident." According to The Honolulu Advertiser , he has also claimed that global warming would be beneficial: "In direct opposition to common environmentalist positions, Moore contended that global warming and the melting of glaciers is positive because it creates more arable land and the use of forest products drives up demand for wood and spurs the planting of more trees."

Beck also hosted two guests who did not appear to question the scientific consensus relating to global warming, Martin Eberhard and Bill Lord. Introducing Eberhard, the CEO of Tesla Motors, Beck stated: "He probably doesn't agree with anything in this special, except maybe for this: It's ideas like his that are part of the solution." Eberhard did not discuss scientific issues concerning the causes of global warming; rather, he promoted his company's high-performance electric cars, with which, according to Beck, he "hopes to solve two major concerns: the CO2 emissions and, importantly, the male midlife crisis, while looking damn sexy doing it."

Beck introduced Lord as "another guy who probably doesn't agree with one word of this special," and interviewed Lord about his solar-powered home. Lord asserted: "On balance, we probably are generating as much as we use, so essentially it's a net-zero type of situation. We have to pay slightly more than $7 a month."

[Swamp Gas]

mediamatters.org/columns/200705080004


CNN's rodeo clown

by Eric Boehlert

So you can feast on your stories but it won't stop the bleeding
When the truth is found the houses surely fall down
There's blood on their mouths of all lies and liars
The bloody red eyes of the rodeo clown

--John Mellencamp, "Rodeo Clown"

The bad news last week was that Glenn Beck, the right-wing radio talker and self-described "rodeo clown" who broadcasts nightly on CNN Headline News, hosted a world-is-flat special about the "myths" surrounding global warming. In it, Beck rounded up the usual ban of discredited, oil industry-friendly "experts" who announced that the looming atmospheric crisis is overblown, and that far from being a consensus, serious scientists still disagree on the matter.

The good news was that Beck's special, "Exposed: Climate of Fear," was a commercial flop, finishing dead last in total viewers among CNN, Headline News, Fox News, and MSNBC programs that night. The weak showing simply highlighted Beck's recent, albeit little-discussed, ratings woes. Just months after being hyped as the fastest-growing prime-time program in cable news, Glenn Beck has become arguably the most stagnant prime-time program in cable news.

For CNN, the repercussions of the backslide are immense and go far beyond the advertising dollars and cents involved.

That's because whereas CNN last year traded away its good name in exchange for debuting Beck's factually challenged and hateful brand of broadcasting, at least CNN execs were getting a ratings boost out of the Faustian bargain. Today, Beck's still making a mockery out of CNN's reputation on a daily basis, as he disparages liberals, gays, Democrats, blacks, immigrants, and Muslims at will. But in return, CNN's now stuck with a Beck program that's trapped in neutral and shows signs of sliding into reverse.

Well played, CNN.

"I'm a rodeo clown who happens to have a radio and TV show," Beck recently announced. Beck uses the rodeo clown shtick relentlessly (it's listed under "occupation" on his MySpace page), as he works overtime to assure viewers he's an undereducated, unsung hero with no journalism background. He's just an Average Joe who, by the way, produces 60-minute, prime-time news specials for CNN.

In truth, rodeo clowns are distracters. They bring attention to themselves by causing loud, outlandish scenes so that dismounted bull riders can reach safety. So in that regard, yes, Beck is a rodeo clown; a professional distracter.

For instance, just prior to the "Climate of Fear" telecast, Beck not only compared Al Gore to Adolf Hitler (an attack the Anti-Defamation League labeled "outrageous, insensitive and deeply offensive"), but he also warned that global warming activists want the United Nations to run the world and to implement a "global carbon tax." (Even though "Climate of Fear" aired nearly 10 weeks later than originally scheduled, it still had a rushed, amateurish feel to it. It doesn't appear as though CNN sent out any review copies in advance.)

Adding insult to injury for the CNN news family was the fact that Beck's special directly insulted the news channel's integrity. How? Beck did it when hyping "Climate of Fear" by stressing that Americans weren't getting the "other side" of the global warming story, in part because of the "mainstream media hype" surrounding the issue. Beck clearly suggested that journalists at CNN, among other places, were doing such a dreadful (read: biased) job reporting about global warming, that Beck had to step in and provide the "other side" of the debate (read: the truth).

It was Beck simply echoing the right-wing canard that the liberal media deliberately keep the truth from the masses. CNN not only approved of Beck's message, the news channel actively promoted it. (If CNN wanted to get into the business of producing "other side" specials, it should have aired one in February 2003, looking at the "other side" of the pro-war push. That would have saved CNN much future embarrassment regarding Iraq.)

"Climate of Fear" certainly wasn't journalism, not even the pseudo-brand often practiced on cable television. It was more like anti-journalism. Instead of trying to enlighten and educate consumers about the day's events, it was a deliberate attempt to mislead viewers under the guise of being informational and under the auspice of television news. It was foolery, plain and simple. Specifically, it was an attempt to re-assure partisans about global warming, to import pleasing facts into their hermetically sealed worldview of what's right and wrong. All done by Beck, a former top-40 DJ and proud non-journalist.

It truly has become amateur hour at CNN.

James Zogby got it right late last year. After watching Beck's nearly year-long McCarthy-like crusade against Arabs and Muslims, the president of the Arab American Institute wrote, "While [the CNN] network may have hoped that Beck's flamboyant style would increase ratings, the cost to their integrity has been staggering."

I realize lots of executives, producers and reporters at CNN likely cringe at the mention of Beck's name and claim it's unfair to connect CNN with Beck; that the Headline News personality has nothing to do with the larger global news network. I don't buy it. The fact remains that Beck is invited onto CNN shows, including most recently Paula Zahn Now and Anderson Cooper 360. Also, CNN programs pitched in to hype Beck's recent global warming hoax special.

CNN cannot be a little bit pregnant here. It pays Beck a salary. He's a centerpiece for Headline News' prime-time schedule, and CNN helps promote his program. The painful part now for CNN is that Beck's show is no longer attracting new viewers, which makes the news organization's decision to give him a national platform all the more embarrassing.

Indeed, the dirty little media secret is that Beck's show has hit a ratings brick wall. Despite the glowing press from The New York Times and The Washington Post, among others, which showered Beck with profiles because his show was being touted as the fastest-growing program on prime-time cable news, Beck in recent months has been flat-lining. In fact, he's actually losing viewers.

The Nielsen rating numbers from April were particularly telling and highlighted how Beck's show appears to have completely maxed out less than 12 months after its debut. April was a news-heavy month, which produced a huge spike in cable news viewership following the campus massacre at Virginia Tech. Except, that is, for Glenn Beck. (On the night of the VT shooting, Glenn Beck finished last among prime-time cable news programs, excluding those on CNBC.)

Overall, for the month of April, ratings for CNN Headline News' prime-time lineup, which is anchored by Beck, were up a microscopic 4 percent, compared to healthy, double-digit gains posted by CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC.

A hot show? Please, Glenn Beck has become as cool as the other side of the pillow. For the month of April, Glenn Beck's original airing in the 7 p.m. time slot averaged 304,000 viewers, down from last September, when the program drew 321,000 viewers each night. In viewers aged 25-54, the key demographic group sought by advertisers, Glenn Beck averaged 122,000 last month. Again, that's down from September, when the program drew 149,000. So much for the being "the fastest-growing show on cable news," which was how Beck himself described the program earlier this year.

Last September was also when Glenn Beck surpassed MSNBC's Hardball in viewers 25-54, outpacing Chris Matthews' show by 17,000 viewers. No more. In April, Hardball beat Glenn Beck by 40,000 viewers in the 25-54 demographic each night. And often the tally these days is far larger. For instance, on Tuesday, May 1, Hardball bested Glenn Beck by nearly 200,000 total viewers. And with the presidential election season heating up, it's unlikely that trend toward the Beltway-centric Hardball and away from Glenn Beck is going to change in the coming weeks and months.

As for the 9 p.m. time slot, in which Glenn Beck is replayed each weeknight, the show has done very little to boost Headline News' ratings. Back in June 2005, the channel, by simply looping its recap of daily headlines, was averaging 321,000 viewers each night. In April, despite all the hype about Beck's supposed ratings surge, that 9 p.m. number at Headline News had barely budged, to 328,000 viewers.

More proof of Beck's woes? Last November, Beck did hit a ratings home run with his first-ever, hour-long special, "Exposed: The Extremist Agenda." (The show pounded the evident notion that there are Muslim extremists in the Middle East who hate America.) For the 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. time slots combined, Beck's special attracted nearly two million viewers. CNN rewarded Beck by giving him four more specials this year.

"Glenn's unique style works well for his everyday show format, but giving him a full hour on just one topic really gives him the chance to delve deeper, in a way that clearly resonates with his viewers," cooed Ken Jautz, executive vice president of CNN Worldwide. "We look forward to hearing what Glenn has to say on these timely and provocative issues."

Last Wednesday's "Climate of Fear" marked the first of that new batch of Beck programs, and ratings were down a whopping 70 percent from Beck's November special. In fact, Beck's widely promoted "Climate of Fear" finished in last place at both 7 p.m. and 9 p.m., losing to the regularly scheduled cable news offerings on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC.

Given that weak showing, I'm not surprised that suddenly CNN is much less talkative about Beck's ratings. Whereas last winter the channel was issuing press releases touting Beck's healthy gains, CNN last week declined my request for any ratings information regarding Beck's recent performance.

If Beck doesn't right his ratings ship soon, CNN's going to have to hire another rodeo clown just to distract people from fact that the news channel traded in its reputation for a last-place show.

[Swamp Gas]

mediamatters.org/items/200705020007


Wed, May 2, 2007 5:46pm EST

Olbermann named Beck "Worst Person" for comparing Gore to Hitler

On the May 1 edition of MSNBC's Countdown, host Keith Olbermann named CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck the winner of his nightly "Worst Person in the World" segment for, as Media Matters for America documented, comparing former Vice President Al Gore to Adolf Hitler during the April 30 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show. Olbermann quoted Beck:

BECK: Al Gore is not going to be rounding up Jews and exterminating them. It is the same tactic, however. The goal is different. The goal is globalization. The goal is global carbon tax. The goal is the United Nations running the world. That's the goal. Back in the 1930s, the goal was get rid of all the Jews and have one global government. You have to have an enemy to fight, and when you have an enemy to fight, then you can unite the entire world behind you and you seize power. That was Hitler's plan. His enemy: the Jew. Al Gore's enemy, the U.N. enemy: global warming.

As Media Matters has documented (here, here and here), Beck frequently appears in Olbermann's "Worst Person" segment and was recently named "Worst Person" for calling Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) "the stereotypical bitch."

From the May 1 edition of MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann:

OLBERMANN: Now who could top that ["Worst Person" runner-up and CNN host Lou Dobbs, who referenced Nazi official Hermann Goering]? CNN's Glenn Beck, our winner. He'll see your Goering reference, Lou, and raise you one Hitler reference. Quoting from his radio show: "Al Gore is not going to be rounding up Jews and exterminating them. It is the same tactic, however. The goal is different. The goal is globalization. The goal is global carbon tax. The goal is the United Nations running the world. That's the goal. Back in the 1930s, the goal was get rid of all the Jews and have one global government. You have to have an enemy to fight, and when you have an enemy to fight, then you can unite the entire world behind you, and you seize power. That was Hitler's plan. His enemy: the Jew. Al Gore's enemy, the U.N. enemy: global warming."

So Al Gore is the Hitler of global warming, trying for world domination by lowering carbon in car exhaust? I think Glenny has been inhaling those car exhausts again. Glenn Beck, today's Worst Person in the World.