|
|
Latest Column:
L.A.
Times’ Titillation
Factor
Desperation, or Simply Bad Taste?
..........
CaliforniaRepublic.org
opinon in
Reagan country
..........
..........
Jon
Fleischman’s
FlashReport
The premier source for
California political news
..........
Michael
Ramirez
editorial cartoon
@Investor's
Business
Daily
..........
..........
Do
your part to do right by our troops.
They did the right thing for you.
Donate Today
..........
 ..........
..........
tOR Talk Radio
Contributor Sites
Laura
Ingraham
Hugh
Hewitt
Eric
Hogue
Sharon
Hughes
Frank
Pastore
[Radio Home]
..........
|
|
 More
Hot Air on Global Warming
There is much evidence that contradicts the assertions made
in the 60 Minutes
story...
[Roger
Aronoff] 3/17/06
As the
first anniversary of the global warming treaty, also known
as the
Kyoto Protocol, has come and gone, a steady stream of stories
from the mainstream media continues to reinforce the notion
that global warming is indeed a real phenomenon that is significantly
caused by human activity and exacerbated by U.S. refusal to
sign on to Kyoto. Our media have let it be known in no uncertain
terms that scientists who oppose this "consensus" are either
bought and paid for by oil companies or ignorant of the facts
and evidence. What's more, they are not worth paying any attention
to.
The latest
entry into the debate is a 60
Minutes segment on CBS. Scott Pelley reported that "the
scientists you are about to meet say the debate is over." Their
expert in this case is Bob Corell, who was picked in 1987 by
Ronald Reagan to look into the climate change question, and,
they say, has been studying it ever since. According to Corell, "glaciers
that were growing until the 1990s and are now melting," and "98
percent of the world's mountain glaciers are melting." He predicts
that "Sea level will be inundating the low lands of virtually
every country of the world, ours included," and he says that "all
that water will push sea levels three feet higher all around
the world in 100 years."
There is much evidence that contradicts the assertions made
in the 60 Minutes story. In response to a one-sided Fox News'
special on global warming last November, AIM editor Cliff Kincaid
linked to some articles that
highlighted the information contradicting the conventional wisdom.
Challenging this latest CBS story, admirably enough, is Brian
Montopoli, who writes for the CBS site called Public
Eye, a combination blog and ombudsman that CBS has created
outside the control of CBS News. Its self-described purpose is
to explain how and why CBS reports what it does, and how it makes
those editorial decisions. It is part of CBS Digital Media, which
operates CBS's websites. Following the Scott Pelley piece on
global warming, Montopoli, who came to Public Eye from the Columbia
Journalism Review, challenged
Pelley to explain "why the voices of the skeptics were not
heard in the piece."
"There is virtually no disagreement in the scientific community
any longer about global warming," said Pelley. "The science that
has been done in the last three to five years has been conclusive...There's
just no longer any credible evidence that suggests that, a, the
earth is not warming or, b, that greenhouse gasses are not the
cause...
"It would be irresponsible of us to go find some scientist somewhere
who is not thought of as being eminent in the field and put him
on television with these other guys to cast doubt on what they're
saying," he went on. "It would be difficult to find a scientist
worth his salt in this subject who would suggest this wasn't
happening. It would probably be someone whose grant has been
funded by someone who finds reducing fossil fuel emissions detrimental
to their own interests."
But as I have shown in a previous commentary,
there are many scientists who are skeptics, including more than
17,000 who have signed the Oregon
Petition, which states that "There is no convincing evidence
that human release of carbon dioxide, methane or other greenhouse
gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic
heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's
climate."
We recently received an email from one of our
readers who discussed an exchange with reporter Tom Costello of NBC News. The
reader criticized as "ludicrous" NBC's suggestion on a program
that last year's devastating tsunami was evidence of global warming.
Costello responded as follows: "In fact, you are absolutely
right. Big mistake on our part.....and once again, thank
you for drawing our attention to it. It's not a mistake we'll
repeat."
That's a good step forward. NBC should also apologize on the
air.
It's time for a major network program to look at the evidence
in a balanced fashion, presenting the best representatives of
all sides of the debate.
That's what we thought professional journalism was all about. -one-
copyright
2006 Accuracy in Media www.aim.org
§
|
|
|
