MEDIA COVERAGE OF CLIMATE CHANGE:

Many in the media, as I noted earlier, have taken it upon
themselves to drop all pretense of balance on global warming
and instead become committed advocates for the issue.

Here is a quote from Newsweek magazine:
"There are ominous signs that the Earth's weather patterns
have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may
portend a drastic decline in food production--with serious
political implications for just about every nation on
Earth."

A headline in the New York Times reads: "Climate Changes
Endanger World's Food Output." Here is a quote from Time
Magazine:
"As they review the bizarre and unpredictable weather
pattern of the past several years, a growing number of
scientists are beginning to suspect that many seemingly
contradictory meteorological fluctuations are actually part
of a global climatic upheaval."

All of this sounds very ominous. That is, until you realize
that the three quotes I just read were from articles in 1975
editions of Newsweek Magazine and The New York Times, and
Time Magazine in 1974. (Click here) They weren't referring
to global warming; they were warning of a coming ice age.
Let me repeat, all three of those quotes were published in
the 1970's and warned of a coming ice age.

In addition to global cooling fears, Time Magazine has also
reported on global warming. Here is an example:
"[Those] who claim that winters were harder when they were
boys are quite right... weathermen have no doubt that the
world at least for the time being is growing warmer."

Before you think that this is just another example of the
media promoting Vice President Gore's movie, you need to
know that the quote I just read you from Time Magazine was
not a recent quote; it was from January 2, 1939.

Yes, in 1939. Nine years before Vice President Gore was born
and over three decades before Time Magazine began hyping a
coming ice age and almost five decades before they returned
to hyping global warming. Time Magazine in 1951 pointed to
receding permafrost in Russia as proof that the planet was
warming.

In 1952, the New York Times noted that the "trump card" of
global warming "has been the melting glaciers."

BUT MEDIA COULD NOT DECIDE BETWEEN WARMING OR COOLING SCARES

There are many more examples of the media and scientists
flip-flopping between warming and cooling scares.

Here is a quote form the New York Times reporting on fears
of an approaching ice age.
"Geologists Think the World May be Frozen Up Again."

That sentence appeared over 100 years ago in the February
24, 1895 edition of the New York Times. Let me repeat. 1895,
not 1995.

A front page article in the October 7, 1912 New York Times,
just a few months after the Titanic struck an iceberg and
sank, declared that a prominent professor "Warns Us of an
Encroaching Ice Age."

The very same day in 1912, the Los Angeles Times ran an
article warning that the "Human race will have to fight for
its existence against cold."

An August 10, 1923 Washington Post article declared: "Ice
Age Coming Here."

By the 1930's, the media took a break from reporting on the
coming ice age and instead switched gears to promoting
global warming:
"America in Longest Warm Spell Since 1776; Temperature Line
Records a 25-year Rise" stated an article in the New York
Times on March 27, 1933.

The media of yesteryear was also not above injecting large
amounts of fear and alarmism into their climate articles.

An August 9, 1923 front page article in the Chicago Tribune
declared:
"Scientist Says Arctic Ice Will Wipe Out Canada."

The article quoted a Yale University professor who predicted
that large parts of Europe and Asia would be "wiped out" and
Switzerland would be "entirely obliterated."

A December 29, 1974 New York Times article on global cooling
reported that climatologists believed "the facts of the
present climate change are such that the most optimistic
experts would assign near certainty to major crop failure in
a decade."

The article also warned that unless government officials
reacted to the coming catastrophe, "mass deaths by
starvation and probably in anarchy and violence" would
result. In 1975, the New York Times reported that "A major
cooling [was] widely considered to be inevitable."

These past predictions of doom have a familiar ring, don't
they? They sound strikingly similar to our modern media
promotion of former Vice president's brand of climate
alarmism.

After more than a century of alternating between global
cooling and warming, one would think that this media history
would serve a cautionary tale for today's voices in the
media and scientific community who are promoting yet another
round of eco-doom.

Much of the 100-year media history on climate change that I
have documented here today can be found in a publication
titled "Fire and Ice" from the Business and Media Institute.
(Fire and Ice)

MEDIA COVERAGE IN 2006

Which raises the question: Has this embarrassing 100-year
documented legacy of coverage on what turned out to be
trendy climate science theories made the media more
skeptical of today's sensational promoters of global
warming?

You be the judge.

On February 19th of this year, CBS News's "60 Minutes"
produced a segment on the North Pole. The segment was a
completely one-sided report, alleging rapid and
unprecedented melting at the polar cap. (Click here) It even
featured correspondent Scott Pelley claiming that the ice in
Greenland was melting so fast, that he barely got off an
ice-berg before it collapsed into the water.

"60 Minutes" failed to inform its viewers that a 2005 study
by a scientist named Ola Johannessen and his colleagues
showing that the interior of Greenland is gaining ice and
mass and that according to scientists, the Arctic was warmer
in the 1930's than today.

On March 19th of this year "60 Minutes" profiled NASA
scientist and alarmist James Hansen, who was once again
making allegations of being censored by the Bush
administration. ( Click here) In this segment, objectivity
and balance were again tossed aside in favor of a one-sided
glowing profile of Hansen.

The "60 Minutes" segment made no mention of Hansen's
partisan ties to former Democrat Vice President Al Gore or
Hansen's receiving of a grant of a quarter of a million
dollars from the left-wing Heinz Foundation run by Teresa
Heinz Kerry. There was also no mention of Hansen's
subsequent endorsement of her husband John Kerry for
President in 2004.

Many in the media dwell on any industry support given to so-
called climate skeptics, but the same media completely fail
to note Hansen's huge grant from the left-wing Heinz
Foundation.

The foundation's money originated from the Heinz family
ketchup fortune. So it appears that the media makes a
distinction between oil money and ketchup money.

"60 Minutes" also did not inform viewers that Hansen
appeared to concede in a 2003 issue of Natural Science that
the use of "extreme scenarios" to dramatize climate change
"may have been appropriate at one time" to drive the
public's attention to the issue. (Click here)

Why would "60 Minutes" ignore the basic tenets of
journalism, which call for objectivity and balance in
sourcing, and do such one-sided segments?

The answer was provided by correspondent Scott Pelley.
Pelley told the CBS News website that he justified excluding
scientists skeptical of global warming alarmism from his
segments because he considers skeptics to be the equivalent
of "Holocaust deniers." (Click here)

This year also saw a New York Times reporter write a
children's book entitled" The North Pole Was Here." The
author of the book, New York Times reporter Andrew Revkin,
wrote that it may someday be "easier to sail to than stand
on" the North Pole in summer. So here we have a very
prominent environmental reporter for the New York Times who
is promoting aspects of global warming alarmism in a book
aimed at children.

TIME MAGAZINE HYPES ALARMISM

In April of this year, Time Magazine devoted an issue to
global warming alarmism titled "Be Worried, Be Very
Worried." (Click here) This is the same Time Magazine which
first warned of a coming ice age in 1920's before switching
to warning about global warming in the 1930's before
switching yet again to promoting the 1970's coming ice age
scare.

The April 3, 2006 global warming special report of Time
Magazine was a prime example of the media's shortcomings, as
the magazine cited partisan left-wing environmental groups
with a vested financial interest in hyping alarmism.

Headlines blared:
"More and More Land is Being Devastated by Drought"
"Earth at the Tipping Point"
"The Climate is Crashing,"

Time Magazine did not make the slightest attempt to balance
its reporting with any views with scientists skeptical of
this alleged climate apocalypse.

I don't have journalism training, but I dare say calling a
bunch of environmental groups with an obvious fund-raising
agenda and asking them to make wild speculations on how bad
global warming might become, is nothing more than advocacy
for their left-wing causes. It is a violation of basic
journalistic standards.

To his credit, New York Times reporter Revkin saw fit to
criticize Time Magazine for its embarrassing coverage of
climate science. (Click here)

So in the end, Time's cover story title of "Be Worried, Be
Very Worried," appears to have been apt. The American people
should be worried --- very worried -- of such shoddy
journalism.

AL GORE INCONVIENIENT TRUTH

In May, our nation was exposed to perhaps one of the
slickest science propaganda films of all time: former Vice
President Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth." In addition to
having the backing of Paramount Pictures to market this
film, Gore had the full backing of the media, and leading
the cheerleading charge was none other than the Associated
Press.

On June 27, the Associated Press ran an article by Seth
Borenstein that boldly declared "Scientists give two thumbs
up to Gore's movie." The article quoted only five scientists
praising Gore's science, despite AP's having contacted over
100 scientists. (Click here)

JCT: Judas Goats.

The fact that over 80% of the scientists contacted by the AP
had not even seen the movie or that many scientists have
harshly criticized the science presented by Gore did not
dissuade the news outlet one bit from its mission to promote
Gore's brand of climate alarmism. (Click here)

I am almost at a loss as to how to begin to address the
series of errors, misleading science and unfounded
speculation that appear in the former Vice President's film

Here is what Richard Lindzen, a meteorologist from MIT has
written about "An Inconvenient Truth."

"A general characteristic of Mr. Gore's approach is to
ignore the fact that the earth and its climate are dynamic;
they are always changing even without any external forcing.
To treat all change as something to fear is bad enough; to
do so in order to exploit that fear is much worse." (Click
here) What follows is a very brief summary of the science
that the former Vice President promotes in either a wrong or
misleading way:

He promoted the now debunked "hockey stick" temperature
chart in an attempt to prove man's overwhelming impact on
the climate

He attempted to minimize the significance of Medieval Warm
period and the Little Ice Age

He insisted on a link between increased hurricane activity
and global warming that most scientists believe does not
exist.

He asserted that today's Arctic is experiencing
unprecedented warmth while ignoring that temperatures in the
1930's were as warm or warmer

He claimed the Antarctic was warming and losing ice but
failed to note, that is only true of a small region and the
vast bulk has been cooling and gaining ice.

He hyped unfounded fears that Greenland's ice is in danger
of disappearing

He erroneously claimed that ice cap on Mt. Kilimanjaro is
disappearing due to global warming, even while the region
cools and researchers blame the ice loss on local land-use
practices

He made assertions of massive future sea level rise that is
way out side of any supposed scientific "consensus" and is
not supported in even the most alarmist literature.

He incorrectly implied that a Peruvian glacier's retreat is
due to global warming, while ignoring the fact that the
region has been cooling since the 1930s and other glaciers
in South America are advancing

He blamed global warming for water loss in Africa's Lake
Chad, despite NASA scientists concluding that local
population and grazing factors are the more likely culprits

He inaccurately claimed polar bears are drowning in
significant numbers due to melting ice when in fact they are
thriving

He completely failed to inform viewers that the 48
scientists who accused President Bush of distorting science
were part of a political advocacy group set up to support
Democrat Presidential candidate John Kerry in 2004

Now that was just a brief sampling of some of the errors
presented in "An Inconvenient Truth." Imagine how long the
list would have been if I had actually seen the movie --
there would not be enough time to deliver this speech today.

TOM BROKAW

Following the promotion of "An Inconvenient Truth," the
press did not miss a beat in their role as advocates for
global warming fears. ABC News put forth its best effort to
secure its standing as an advocate for climate alarmism when
the network put out a call for people to submit their
anecdotal global warming horror stories in June for use in a
future news segment. Click here

In July, the Discovery Channel presented a documentary on
global warming narrated by former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw. The
program presented only those views of scientists promoting
the idea that humans are destroying the Earth's climate.
Click here

You don't have to take my word for the program's
overwhelming bias; a Bloomberg News TV review noted "You'll
find more dissent at a North Korean political rally than in
this program" because of its lack of scientific objectivity.

Brokaw also presented climate alarmist James Hansen to
viewers as unbiased, failing to note his quarter million
dollar grant form the partisan Heinz Foundation or his
endorsement of Democrat Presidential nominee John Kerry in
2004 and his role promoting former Vice President Gore's
Hollywood movie.

Brokaw, however, did find time to impugn the motives of
scientists skeptical of climate alarmism when he featured
paid environmental partisan Michael Oppenhimer of the group
Environmental Defense accusing skeptics of being bought out
by the fossil fuel interests.

The fact remains that political campaign funding by
environmental groups to promote climate and environmental
alarmism dwarfs spending by the fossil fuel industry by a
three-to-one ratio. Environmental special interests, through
their 527s, spent over $19 million compared to the $7
million that Oil and Gas spent through PACs in the 2004
election cycle.

I am reminded of a question the media often asks me about
how much I have received in campaign contributions from the
fossil fuel industry.

My unapologetic answer is 'Not Enough,' -- especially when
you consider the millions partisan environmental groups pour
into political campaigns.

ENGINEERED 'CONSENSUS"

Continuing with our media analysis: On July 24, 2006 The Los
Angeles Times featured an op-ed by Naomi Oreskes, a social
scientist at the University of California San Diego and the
author of a 2004 Science Magazine study. Oreskes insisted
that a review of 928 scientific papers showed there was 100%
consensus that global warming was not caused by natural
climate variations. This study was also featured in former
Vice President Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," (Click here)

However, the analysis in Science Magazine excluded nearly
11,000 studies or more than 90 percent of the papers dealing
with global warming, according to a critique by British
social scientist Benny Peiser. Peiser also pointed out that
less than two percent of the climate studies in the survey
actually endorsed the so-called "consensus view" that human
activity is driving global warming and some of the studies
actually opposed that view.

JCT: Naomi fudged results.

But despite this manufactured "consensus," the media
continued to ignore any attempt to question the orthodoxy of
climate alarmism. As the dog days of August rolled in, the
American people were once again hit with more hot hype
regarding global warming, this time from The New York Times
op-ed pages. A columnist penned an August 3rd column filled
with so many inaccuracies it is a wonder the editor of the
Times saw fit to publish it.

For instance, Bob Herbert's column made dubious claims about
polar bears, the snows of Kilimanjaro and he attempted to
link this past summer's heat wave in the U.S. to global
warming --something even alarmist James Hansen does not
support. Click here

POLAR BEARS LOOK TIRED? Finally, a September 15, 2006
Reuters News article claimed that polar bears in the Arctic
are threatened with extinction by global warming. The
article by correspondent Alister Doyle, quoted a visitor to
the Arctic who claims he saw two distressed polar bears.
According to the Reuters article, the man noted that "one of
[the polar bears] looked to be dead and the other one looked
to be exhausted."

The article did not state the bears were actually dead or
exhausted, rather that they "looked" that way. Have we
really arrived at the point where major news outlets in the
U.S. are reduced to analyzing whether or not polar bears in
the Arctic appear restful?
How does reporting like this get approved for publication by
the editors at Reuters?
What happened to covering the hard science of this issue?
What was missing from this Reuters news article was the fact
that according to biologists who study the animals, polar
bears are doing quite well. Biologist Dr. Mitchell Taylor
from the Arctic government of Nunavut, a territory of
Canada, refuted these claims in May when he noted that "Of
the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable
or increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even
appear to be affected at present." Click here
Sadly, it appears that reporting anecdotes and hearsay as
fact, has now replaced the basic tenets of journalism for
many media outlets.

ALARMISM HAS LED TO SKEPTICISM

It is an inconvenient truth that so far, 2006 has been a
year in which major segments of the media have given up on
any quest for journalistic balance, fairness and objectivity
when it comes to climate change. The global warming
alarmists and their friends in the media have attempted to
smear scientists who dare question the premise of man-made
catastrophic global warming, and as a result some scientists
have seen their reputations and research funding dry up.

The media has so relentlessly promoted global warming fears
that a British group called the Institute for Public Policy
Research --and this from a left leaning group --issued a
report in 2006 accusing media outlets of engaging in what
they termed "climate porn" in order to attract the public's
attention.

Bob Carter, a Paleoclimate geologist from James Cook
University in Australia has described how the media promotes
climate fear: "Each such alarmist article is larded with
words such as 'if', 'might', 'could', 'probably', 'perhaps',
'expected', 'projected' or 'modeled' - and many involve such
deep dreaming, or ignorance of scientific facts and
principles, that they are akin to nonsense," professor
Carter concluded in an op-ed in April of this year. Click
here

Another example of this relentless hype is the reporting on
the seemingly endless number of global warming impact
studies which do not even address whether global warming is
going to happen. They merely project the impact of potential
temperature increases.

The media endlessly hypes studies that purportedly show that
global warming could increase mosquito populations, malaria,
West Nile Virus, heat waves and hurricanes, threaten the
oceans, damage coral reefs, boost poison ivy growth, damage
vineyards, and global food crops, to name just a few of the
global warming linked calamities.

Oddly, according to the media reports, warmer temperatures
almost never seem to have any positive effects on plant or
animal life or food production.

Fortunately, the media's addiction to so-called 'climate
porn' has failed to seduce many Americans.

According to a July Pew Research Center Poll, the American
public is split about evenly between those who say global
warming is due to human activity versus those who believe
it's from natural factors or not happening at all. This is
down from 85 percent just a year ago.

In addition, an August Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll
found that most Americans do not attribute the cause of
recent severe weather events to global warming, and the
portion of Americans who believe global warming is naturally
occurring is on the rise. Yes -- it appears that alarmism
has led to skepticism.

The American people know when their intelligence is being
insulted. They know when they are being used and when they
are being duped by the hysterical left.

The American people deserve better -- much better -- from
our fourth estate. We have a right to expect accuracy and
objectivity on climate change coverage. We have a right to
expect balance in sourcing and fair analysis from reporters
who cover the issue.

Above all, the media must roll back this mantra that there
is scientific "consensus" of impending climatic doom as an
excuse to ignore recent science. After all, there was a so-
called scientific "consensus" that there were nine planets
in our solar system until Pluto was recently demoted.

Breaking the cycles of media hysteria will not be easy since
hysteria sells -- it's very profitable. But I want to
challenge the news media to reverse course and report on the
objective science of climate change, to stop ignoring
legitimate voices this scientific debate and to stop acting
as a vehicle for unsubstantiated hype.

JCT: Good news. Global warming may not be cause of species
extinctions. Global warming may not be our biggest threat.


--
Abolitionist Slave Leader John C."The Banking Systems Engineer" Turmel
for UNILETS interest-free time-based currency in U.N. resolution C6
to Governments in the http://www.un.org/millennium/declaration.htm
http://www.cyberclass.net/turmel 519-753-0645 USENET: can.politics