Media Mayhem: 5 more tall tales by climate change deniers in 2009

Last week's readers help me come up with five more juicy ones to chew on.

By Ken EdelsteinMon, Jan 04 2010 at 8:28 AM EST

THE SKY IS FALLING ... AND WE'RE BEING ATTACKED BY ALIENS: Some have blamed the media for hyping climate change. (Illustration by Sean James/iStockPhoto)

Long before 2009, a nine-headed serpent guarded the gate to Hades. For every one of the Hydra’s heads that was chopped off, two grew in its place.

Now I understand. The Hydra wasn’t actually a beast. It was a metaphor for the endlessly multiplying tall tales of climate change deniers. Here -- with a big assist from all the deniers who popped up with fresh myths in comments to last week’s column -- are five more of the best tall tales climate change deniers for 2009. Where’s Hercules when you need him?

The media has hyped climate change

Tall tale: We all know journalists hate America. Rather than report the truth, they act as PR agents for the global warming crowd. That’s why it’s right and proper to claim over and over again that journalists are biased in favor of “global alarmists” -- and to claim it most loudly when there’s no evidence to prove it.

Let’s say, for instance, that the U.N. Environment Program issues an overview of recent studies, which concludes that climate researchers now predict the planet will warm by 6.3 degrees by the end of the century even if most emissions cuts are implemented. Now, let’s say the Washington Post’s Juliet Eilperin writes: “Climate researchers now predict the planet will warm by 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century even if the world's leaders fulfill their most ambitious climate pledges.”

Well, obviously, Eilperin is an alarmist-slanted reporter. Otherwise she would have noted that the scientists were basing all that nonsense on “unproven computer climate models that violate the basic principals of forecasting.” Why should she have included that bit of wisdom? Because political operative and non-scientist Marc Morano says she should have. And she didn’t. Ta-da! Bias!

I don’t think so: U.S. media coverage of climate change certainly has been slanted -- but the evidence shows it’s been slanted precisely in the opposite direction.

The most comprehensive review yet of newspaper climate change articles, performed in 2004 by academics Jules and Maxwell Boykoff, found that 53 percent of them offered roughly an equal balance between the view that humans contribute to global warming and that it’s exclusively caused by nature. But the Boykoffs couldn’t find a single peer-reviewed scientific study that supported the later view -- out of more than 900.

“We respect the need to represent multiple viewpoints,” the Boykoffs wrote, “but when generally agreed-upon scientific findings are presented side-by-side with the viewpoints of a handful of skeptics, readers are poorly served. In this case, it contributed to public confusion and opened the door to political maneuvering.”

Earlier this year, Harvard scholar and former Fortune magazine managing editor Eric Pooley found much the same thing: “My analysis of news articles published in national and regional newspapers, wire services, and newsmagazines between December 2007 and June 2008 suggests that for most reporters covering this story, the default role was that of stenographer -- presenting a nominally balanced view of the debate without questioning the validity of the arguments, sometimes even ignoring evidence that one side was twisting truth.”

Part of the problem is that, more than colleagues in other countries, American journalists are obsessed with the idea that every controversial story feature two equally valid sides. “Balance” trumps truth. And that makes American news organizations particularly easy to manipulate. All you have to do is declaim loudly and repeatedly that your side isn’t being given equal time; the news organizations then cower in fear that they’ll be called out as liberals.

It’s important, of course, to repeat the point as many times as possible. Because if you say something often enough, it becomes the truth. Right?

Media spin: The more the tall tale of media bias is repeated, the more the media seems to lean backward to prove it isn’t true. Not surprisingly, last year’s climate change reporting tilted further than ever from a truly “balanced” version of reality.

Morano even did a victory lap in October, boasting that 2009 was the year that journalists were finally “losing their religion” and acknowledged that they have to cover climate skeptics seriously.

The coup de grace came in the fall, when newspapers and TV networks, fanned by the right-wing echo chamber, gave unbridled coverage to four or five choice phrases in stolen e-mails between a couple of scientists. In many cases, they even allowed that much overhyped handful of out-of-context e-mail phrases frame coverage of the entire Copenhagen climate summit.

With reporting like that, it’s no surprise that the chasm between scientists and other Americans on climate change has widened. A July Pew Center survey found that 84 percent of scientists believe warming is caused by humans, while only 49 percent of the general population did.

Also unsurprisingly, more Americans than before seem convinced that fears of climate change are “exaggerated,” according to a separate Gallup poll. No doubt a spineless editor somewhere saw that survey and became even more convinced that the newspaper should work harder to “give voice” to the claims of deniers.

“Cap and tax” will cost thousands of dollars per household

Tall tale: Cap-and-trade may be a complicated policy idea, but building a tall tale around it is pretty simple: Just yell “largest tax increase in American history” and people will get the message.

The permit-trading scheme is the centerpiece of climate change legislation being pushed this year by President Obama and congressional Democrats. Rather than raise taxes on products that emit greenhouse gases, the idea is to issue permits that cap emissions but also to allow the companies that own those permits to sell them. As the pollution allowed in the permits is ratcheted down each year, the permits’ cost will increase -- theoretically at least -- which supposedly creates a powerful incentive to find cleaner industrial processes.

There’s no denying that cap-and-trade will introduce a new expense to polluting industries. The big questions are: How big an expense? And how much of it would be passed along to the average family?

Since spring, as cap-and-trade was being debated in the House of Representatives, all kinds of scary numbers have been floating around Washington. Cap-and-trade will cost $1,500 per family a year. No, $1,761. No, $800, $1,241, $1,800, $3,100 and so on. It’ll increase unemployment by 2.5 million or maybe it’ll even double unemployment.

The bulk of those numbers were bandied about by Fox News. But other media outlets -- CBS, CNBC and the Washington Post, among others -- were sure not to be left out.

Whatever the actual amount cap-and-trade will cost, this sure did sound bad.

I don’t think so: If you were listening to Fox, or as it turns out a lot of Washington media, you were less likely to hear much smaller numbers, each of which happened to be more credible than any of the ones mentioned above.

In fact, every single one of the numbers above either applied to an entirely different proposal to the one being considered in Congress, or was created by an organization with close ties to oil companies. Or both.

How much will the cap-and-trade options in the real world actually cost families? Nobody really knows, but here are the results from more objective studies: $175 a year (nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office), $80-$111 a year (EPA), and $83 a year (Energy Information Administration).

Media spin: By any measure, the mainstream media’s inability to distinguish the suspect spin of denial activists from authoritative government projections was an appalling dereliction.

Particularly indecorous was the Fox-led hype over an outdated administration document unearthed in September by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, an industry-funded pro-denial think tank. That document estimated that a cap-and-trade bill could cost the average family up to $1,761 a year. The only problem was the document didn’t apply at all to the actual cap-and-trade bill being considered by Congress.

Still, CBS, CNBC and the indefatigable Lou Dobbs picked up the story with breathless outrage. Pretty soon it was transformed to the main part of the mandatory intro to coverage of the bill, as in: “Some critics say that it would cost every American family $1,761 annually.” Except that no critics actually say that about any of the bills actually under consideration.

Glenn Beck was, of course, indignant.

The ice caps are getting bigger

Tall tale: There’s a growing belief among climate change deniers that all the talk about the melting polar ice is a bunch of hot air. Partly it seems to come from the anecdotal observation that, regardless of long-term trends, sea ice grows in the winter.

The idea was propped up by an August report in “CO2 Science,” a pseudoscience website funded by oil and coal interests that’s made to look like some sort of scientific journal. CO2 Science actually excerpted a study from another source and spun it to make it look as if that study found that there was no evidence of unusual arctic melting.

But the chief yarn spinner on Arctic sea ice for 2009 was none other than George Will, the inside-the-Beltway newspaper columnist who for years has hid poorly researched work behind a bow tie and thick classes.

Early in 2009, Will reported startling news: “As global levels of sea ice declined last year, many experts said this was evidence of man-made global warming. Since September, however, the increase in sea ice has been the fastest change, either up or down, since 1979, when satellite record-keeping began. According to the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979.”

I don’t think so: Here’s the statement that the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center published on its website within hours of the publication of Will’s column:

"... We do not know where George Will is getting his information, but our data shows that on February 15, 1979, global sea ice area was 16.79 million sq. km and on February 15, 2009, global sea ice area was 15.45 million sq. km. Therefore, global sea ice levels are 1.34 million sq. km less in February 2009 than in February 1979. This decrease in sea ice area is roughly equal to the area of Texas, California, and Oklahoma combined. ... It is disturbing that the Washington Post would publish such information without first checking the facts."

Need we say more?

Media spin: One would think that such an egregious error would warrant an unequivocal correction, even an apology to the badly misquoted source. Such an apology would be beneath Will apparently.

The EPA suppressed whistle-blowing dissidents

Tall tale: There’s a grain of truth in this story. But because it was blown so far out of proportion, it still qualifies as a tall tale.

Scientific findings under the Bush administration were on several occasions influenced by special interests. That scandal reached its apex in 2002, when a one-time industry lobbyist and future ExxonMobil employee, who served on Bush’s Council on Environmental Quality, was found to have edited a major EPA report on climate change to make it seem more benign and less certain than the scientists who wrote the report had found.

So when news organizations reported in June of this year that a “scientist” had been blocked by agency officials from contributing his skeptical view to an EPA report finding that greenhouse gases were pollutants, it immediately drew parallels. Economist Alan Carlin had long been something of a skeptic within the agency, and he wanted to put in his two cents that regulating greenhouse gases would be a mistake.

The report sounded particularly bad when an email to Carlin from his supervisor saw daylight. It said: “The administrator and the administration has decided to move forward on endangerment, and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision. I can only see one impact of your comments given where we are in the process, and that would be a very negative impact on our office."

Oops.

I don’t think so: Let’s acknowledge from the start that there’s a big difference between one guy’s supervisor going overboard in an e-mail and the sanctioned actions of a political appointee to allow a fox to run wild in the henhouse. Carlin’s supervisor was reprimanded for the e-mail.

But there are other differences as well. Contrary to many news reports and even one speech from by a congressmen from the floor of the House, Carlin’s not a scientist; he’s an economist. In a follow-up months after the media firestorm condemning the EPA died down the New York Times reviewed documents it obtained under the Freedom of Information Act to get a clearer understanding of what happened:

"[The] newly obtained documents show that Dr. Carlin’s highly skeptical views on global warming, which have been known for more than a decade within the small unit where he works, have been repeatedly challenged by scientists inside and outside the EPA.; that he holds a doctorate in economics, not in atmospheric science or climatology; that he has never been assigned to work on climate change; and that his comments on the endangerment finding were a product of rushed and at times shoddy scholarship, as he acknowledged Thursday in an interview."

Media spin: The more complicated truth came out long after cable TV and radio hosts put away their pitchforks. But Carlin’s tale has graduated to the status of a mythic truth to be trotted out every time that climate change hits the headlines again as “proof” that the Obama administration is waging a war on independent science.

In the words of a December article in the conservative Weekly Standard: “In light of the scandal surrounding the East Anglia emails ... the newly urgent demand for transparency in the climate science and policy process may shine unwelcome new light into the dark corners of [the] EPA's politically driven agenda.”

Warming on Mars proves that warming on Earth isn’t caused by humans

Tall tale: You’ve got to love this one for the pure bizarreness of it. A couple of commenters on last week’s column are way ahead of me on this one.

The basic argument is that if Mars is warming without having any people on it, then people must not have anything to do with global warming here. Apparently that theory is being pushed by one Habibullo Abdussamatov, the head of space research at St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia,

I don’t think so: There’s a basic logical problem with this story. If one cause for global warming is found on other planets, it doesn’t eliminate the possibility that there could be other causes, like, say, for instance, carbon dioxide. Does it?

Regardless, as National Geographic documents, “Abdussamatov’s work has not been well received by other climate scientists.” That’s a polite way of putting it. Says one Oxford scientist: "His views are completely at odds with the mainstream scientific opinion."

Media spin: Maybe, it’s a simple little tall tale like the Mars hypothesis that allows us to see how climate change tall tales operate. You don’t have to put out even a credible story to get the gullible people who call themselves "skeptics" to trumpet it as truth all across the globe.

Want more? Catch up by reading last week’s column with five more climate change denying tall tales.

Journalist Ken Edelstein writes the Media Mayhem column for the Mother Nature Network. From various coffee shops in Atlanta, he publishes an environmental news site at MyGreenATL.com.

link:

Comments

Follow this conversation

Add your comment

View:

All (72)

indifferent 05/02/2010 07:55 AM

The spin of the earth is slowing down. That is probably why some of the climates are changing. The warming and cooling of the earth has always been present. What impact we do to the earth is a small percentage. This is just another thing to create fear that the earth is coming to an end by the liberal media.

JeffM 02/17/2010 21:02 PM

Hey, AreYouSerious:

Sorry for not responding to you sooner. I appreciate the great reply you sent, and the effort put into it.

You rightly said it would take a long time for science to reach 100% certainty for proof positive on the subject. However, I want to respond to what you so thoughtfully said. On trial is the use of the cheap energy sources upon which modern civilization was built and which defines our daily existence.

In court room trials, “proof” is often.... More

DaleC 02/02/2010 19:30 PM

Ken - since I was the one who posted a link to MArs warming, i didn't claim it disproved warming on Earth. I was responding to disparaging remarks made by a pro-AGM commenter. There is warming on other planets, so I laugh at people who dismiss out of hand that giant ball of fire at the center of our universe.

AreYouSerious 01/13/2010 07:39 AM

Jeff M.,

Yes, I agree that scientists are SUPPOSED to get information OUT as you state - and there are loads…and loads…and LOADS of data OUT there supporting the rapid and ever increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere corresponding with the industrialization of man. Every credible institution including every national science academy on the PLANET endorses the idea of man's hand in contributing to increased greenhouse gas emissions and thus the warming of the.... More

JeffM 01/12/2010 03:02 AM

Hey, "AreYouSerious":

The scientists embarassed by their Climategate emails represent the foremost authority on the state of global warming science. They "lost" the temperature data that formed the basic documentation upon which global warming science has been based. Reputable scientists do not want to keep their data from being closely scrutinized, and they don't "lose" their data. The Climategate scientists built reputations on their research, yet they had to hide the data from.... More

AreYouSerious 01/05/2010 09:23 AM

Cmon...Slick...Oscar...Scott...Foo...where are you guys now? Tell me how 1 + 1 doesnt equal 2 - how increased, unnatural carbon dioxide and other green house gas emissions + widespread deforestation do not equate to a recipe for increased insulating properties of the atmosphere and average temperature increase for the planet over time given that CO2 IS proven to capture heat and the forests ARE proven to be a sink for CO2...anyone?

You dont have to discuss actual numbers to come to this.... More

AreYouSerious 01/06/2010 09:33 AM

I win you lose...now go read some books before you decide to champion ideas you know nothing about and stop being so closed-minded - take responsibility and get on board with the rest of us to be a little smarter about how we use what we've all been given and dont let idiots tell you how to think - your kids and their kids will thank you for it

jeffreypmorton 01/04/2010 22:04 PM

We learned from exposed CRU emails that the highest level global warming scientists, among other things, worked to prevent skeptics from publishing any research that would contradict global warming orthodoxy. Doing so gave the "warmers" the ability to smugly say that skeptics don't publish any research and only complain about the warmers' research. Skeptics have complained for years about their publication problems, but have always been disregarded and derided. Now that we have a real.... More

AreYouSerious 01/05/2010 05:21 AM

Jeff M, please see my previous post. The points I make have NOTHING to do with 'climate gate' information - rather my argument is based on sound well-established science (you tell me where Im wrong if youre so sure the facts are 'all lies') and logic that a 5 yr old could easily grasp. Its obvious that you are either uneducated or simply ignoring years of sound science and the most basic logic of 'cause and effect' that Ive outlined - and simply throwing 'climate gate' at the overwhelming.... More

Jason 01/04/2010 22:56 PM

no really. Man can use all the resourses it wants to use and dump a mass amount of chemicals in the air and trash into the ocean and have no effect what-so-ever on the environment.

Humans gained higher learning and deductive skills over centuries of evolution and now people choose to stop using those skills. "Anyone with a brain"? I'm not sure you qualify anymore.

Guest 01/04/2010 21:34 PM

We learned from hacked CRU emails that the highest level global warming scientists, among other things, worked to prevent skeptics from publishing research that would contradict global warming orthodoxy. This gives the "warmers" the ability to smugly say that skeptics don't publish any research, only complain about the armers' research. Skeptics have complained for years about their publication problems, but have always been disregarded and derided. Now that we have a real example of this.... More

Storm Today 11:52 AM

Oh you mean like Gore and the train conductor. The threat in the emails was to delete the dats and encourage everyone else delete data if it came down to FOI. Look it happened. Nobody has a copy? I guess global warming is just theory cause you cant prove it anymore. Done give the realist (deniers you call them) your science is settled. Phil Jones screwed you out of that. You can no longer prove it without using the IPCC reports, Mann's hockey stick, or name calling for people who.... More

Jason 01/04/2010 20:25 PM

I find it interesting that the majority of people in the comments saying that global warming is fake offer no scientific backing. They spout lines from (insert Fox News "anchor man" here) and claim victory over those who actually give a damn about what's happening to our home.

Elpidio 01/04/2010 17:18 PM

"Ken Edelstein’s interest in the environment stems from hours of idle thoughts..." from this creative writers' own Bio and proven in this work of creative editing. I'll see you all around when the real crisis facing our world is hitting and no one is prepared because we were too busy chasing Gore's romanticized political campaign farce.

starr Cancer 05/25/2010 13:28 PM

X Runner,” is an ’80s-style platformer that lets you take on the role of DJ Zed as he races through to a blacked-out neighborhood to get to his midnight set on time. Patio Dining Sets

AreYouSerious 01/04/2010 11:15 AM

First, it is an undisputable fact that carbon dioxide gas (among many others also) in the atmosphere actually DOES serve as an insulator, absorbing and retaining the solar energy from the sun. This is not open to debate and anyone who opposes this general concept is no child of science, to be sure (in fact, this phenomena is a very GOOD thing to a degree - without it our world would be too cold to sustain life as we know it) . However, the rate at which the gases trap heat and warm the.... More

Dirty Harry 01/04/2010 11:10 AM

Stop just reporting the climate-change lobby press releases as fact, then we might actually start believing you. Try thinking for yourself - climategate has changed the game so much that you are holding the wrong sort of ball.

Doug 01/04/2010 10:42 AM

As a scientist I'd make sure to find "evidence" supporting the Global Warming, you're bound to keep getting grant money and a cushy job. Until the system changes I'm going to be skeptical of these University and grant funded scientist, sorry, but it's too simple for these scientist to create more problems to line their pockets.

Zachary 01/04/2010 06:11 AM

truly excellent piece. a favorite favorite

Marky Mark 01/04/2010 01:35 AM

For the record, I do not believe man has any impact on global warming, if it is even warming at all. I would like to see investment into alternative energy sources to reduce our dependancy on foreign oil, but not at any cost. Can anyone show me real scientific proof that our CO2 emissions are causing the earth to warm? There are way too many red flags from those who are pushing this farce. I would love to see a real debate from the top experts on each side.

Michael O'Neill 01/04/2010 05:45 AM

There's only one problem with your request there Marky Mark. The other side doesn't actually have any experts. Just the uninformed and the won't-be-informed jumping up and down with their hands over their ears singing "La La La La La"

Slick 01/04/2010 00:24 AM

Wow what a whack job that write this tripe! This is such nonsense! 95% of what your spewing out if your mouth is incorrect, misguided nonsense . I can't even take you seriously! I tried.... But your insane.

Oscar 01/04/2010 00:04 AM

"Global Warming" is ********

That phase sums it up totally. It's that simple. What is also simple is that people like this guy are no longer guided by any reasoned principle, but simply want to destroy the lives of others around him/them. Just give it to people straight:

"Global Warming" is ********

Scott 01/03/2010 22:46 PM

So more ice in S.Pole, earth cooling for over 10 years, corolation with sunspot activity (cause+affect), follow the money, $100B says the science is faked.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.area.south.jpg
http://solarcycle24.com/
BTW, if you believe in AGW, thenn send your $2500 a year to Al Gore, make you happy and.... More

Noah Silverman 01/03/2010 23:16 PM

http://noconsensus.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/nh-sea-ice-extent-nasatea... Shows a negative slope of 26,000 km^2 per year. I don't have a good sense of how important that is, but don't say that we are not loosing sea ice while not looking at half of the data... And remember, ice loss is one of many positive feedback mechanisms. The more ice is lost, the less solar energy is reflected, the faster we heat.... More

foo 01/03/2010 21:42 PM

pathetic, useless, pysdo-intellectuals scum whom think they're smart because they agree with what the idiot-box tells them...they should be reviled, not listed to. Please go kill yourselves & do the world a favor you worthless parasites.

Noah Silverman 01/03/2010 22:08 PM

We just listen to different idiot-boxes. Actually, I don't own a tv, if thats what you mean. My point is not to make decisions off hearsay or vague understandings of complex concepts. The climate is an extremely complex system and as anyone who has taken a systems engineering class knows, complex systems behave in weird and unexpected ways. Intuition is almost useless. I am not a climate scientist (I am an EE), so don't take my word on the climate. But neither are most of the other people.... More

Brian 01/03/2010 21:26 PM

The amount of math and statistics involved in proving the global warming theory is conclusive. I do admit there is data to suggest the opposite. However, in one corner we have evidence for man made global warming - scientific papers researched and documented for over 40 years standing at 100 feet tall. In another corner we have evidence from others standing at 2 inches tall. Oh and don't forget 5 emails. Yeah, let's all look past the obvious mathematically analyzed and peer tested data and.... More

DaleC 02/02/2010 19:25 PM

The bias is in how you build the models. Analogy: words are not biased, but writers can be.

Scott 01/03/2010 22:50 PM

It was approx 1100 emails and attachements giving some insight into what they were doing. If you can not get the data to refrute the cash, you have limited funds and they can fire people who dont tow the line.
Half a brain says its a huge scam, follow the money.

Rico Suave 01/03/2010 20:00 PM

Enter your comments here

Looking forward to global warming in Minnesota 01/03/2010 19:08 PM

For the 10th year in a row, the world struggles through another record-breaking cold winter with deep snow, bone-chilling cold and cold-related deaths. The email whistleblowers have proven AGW is a conspiracy to defraud the public of money. Another scientist predicts 50 years of cooling. Why don't you blokes give it up and let's worry about how to survive the cold.

mike 01/03/2010 18:53 PM

Stupid is believing that the tiny fraction of co2 that is man-made, most of which is absorbed naturally, is fundamentally altering the atmosphere of the earth. Stupid is believing that "scientists" who can't predict the weather 2 weeks out, can predict the temperature a century out. Stupid is believing that it's just a coincidence that "catastrophe" is always happening somewhere else or will happen just long enough into the future that nobody will be held accountable for the always-false.... More

leigh 01/03/2010 19:27 PM

weather and climate are two different things. And they arent just 'predicting' they are observing current changes! And in climate and ecostystems the smallest changes can have massive impacts. As humans we dont have to take much poison to become sick! Or too much salt gives us heart disease, but no salt also has problems for our growth. Its all about ballance. And we have become un-ballanced. Sure scientists are still learning about these impacts, but they know enough to see its not going to.... More

DaleC 02/02/2010 19:28 PM

Weren't they observing current changes in 1974 when they were predicting a new Ice Age?

Our view of historical climate is like observing a blue whale from ten feet away, but looking through a soda straw.

R 01/03/2010 18:45 PM

The guy who wrote this had to engage hyperbole to make his points. Instant buzzer on "Full of S**t-o-meter."

The only evidence of AGW is correlation of data - correlation is not causation. Unfortunately alot of journalists seem to miss this concept, as do most of the primary scientists pushing the political agenda.

It is a political agenda. Pure and simple. It has no truth, no relation to reality.

It's amazing to me that most of the deniers have all said the same thing.... More

Noah Silverman 01/03/2010 17:35 PM

It is remarkable how people in these comments make up facts left and right to claim the article is false. If you bothered to look at the data, yes man-made CO2 is a significant cause of climate change. No, meta-cycles do not account for the change. While a few degrees of average change seems small, the reality is more complex. First, that change is not distributed evenly. In the US, there is little change in temperature. However, in other regions, such as the arctic and parts of.... More

Scott in Seattle 01/04/2010 19:45 PM

Do not tell me correlation equals causation. Then when I refute your neophyte assumptions, turn around and say "no it is more complex." Then when you get called (disproved) on your "complex" idea tell me it is "more complex" and I can not not understand a large system or model. Ironically you do it while while citing correlation equals causation again.

Also, do not tell me scientists have not published studies that prove man is not the cause or the sun has more to do with it etc....... More

Shawhan 01/03/2010 18:49 PM

Some people just don't understand that while science is correct on this issue they also stand to make a ton of money off the new businesses and technologies that will be developed out of these changes that should be made. If they would quit crying about it and just invest in the new green technologies they could still be the rich right wingers controlling the big businesses and they can be keeping the county and planet from failing. Being green doesn't mean no profit. You just have to change.... More

mike 01/03/2010 17:01 PM

This cult member presents the clearest evidence that global warming is religion rather than science. Notice the term "climate change." That's what the cult calls global warming now that it's obvious to any rational person that the earth isn't warming. Notice the use of "deniers." A pathetic attempt to equate those who refute the psuedo-science of the cult. One has to wonder how many of these folks will be holed up in a compound in Waco in 30 years, when "global warming" is that silly.... More

Onionboy 01/03/2010 16:51 PM

Why does anyone persist in the pointless "man-made" versus "natural" argument. The data is clear that the trend is toward higher temperatures overall. If that can hurt us (which it obviously can), shouldn't we try to do something about it? There have been many natural earth climates in the past that would not be tolerable for us.

Larry Page 01/03/2010 15:42 PM

A most amusing article. Do tree huggers also get tin foil hats?

Michael K 01/03/2010 15:39 PM

No one believes you hacks anymore. Ken Edelstein, you are a prime example of the joke, the media has become. Your biased article is full of fallacious arguments and half-truths, resembling nothing close to proper journalism.

hrdcore 01/03/2010 15:34 PM

read one page of comments and it looks like your author hasn't convinced his readers in the least. One comment on "ties to the oil companys" says a lot. like the web sight has no ties to environmentalist movement and is unbiased.....B$

Shawhan 01/03/2010 18:40 PM

The environmentalist movement is based on science which, since its inception, is to be free of bias at its very core. Saying someone is biased towards science is just saying they are logical. People should be required to study Galileo in all schools. I'd rather have science on my side than some ill-informed reporter or politician telling me something they are not qualified to talk about. If they want to tell both sides of the story fairly that's fine or if they want to negotiate peace in the.... More

Michael K 01/04/2010 02:29 AM

"The environmentalist movement is based on science which, since its inception, is to be free of bias at its very core."

You couldn't be more wrong. The leaked emails from Global Warming researchers (see "Climategate") reveal deception, bias, collusion and fraud. That isn't science and it certainly isn't unbiased.

Guest 01/03/2010 15:17 PM

But the earth goes through cycles of warming and cooling. It has done so since God created the universe. All this talk of co2 being the cause if global warming is total crap. Remember grade school science? Trees use the co2 to produce oxygen. Do we need to keep the environment clean, yes of course. But we are not going to destroy the planet by driving SUV's

Dennis 01/03/2010 15:09 PM

Who the hell cares what you think, and what makes you think you have any authority? You are the main evidence for your first so-called tall tale. You are the exact kind of journalist I would not believe even if I believed in the BS put forward by those who say that humanity is the reason for climate change. Go get some credibility and then try and sell me the Brooklyn Bridge.

blackmtnman 01/03/2010 14:59 PM

You sir, are so full of bajahuma your eyes are brown.

Larry 01/03/2010 14:19 PM

To deny global warming is ridiculous. Granted you can argue its seriousness or degree but not the fact that it is occurring. To say climate warming is a natural cycle is correct but it cannot account for the warming of the last 100 yrs. These cycles are called milankovitch cycles and they occur of upwards of 100, 000 cycles. To deny C02 increase is also ridiculous. You think that the exhaust of your car just disappears. To test this leave your car running in the garage and see what happens..... More

Media Mayhem: 5 more tall tales by climate change deniers in 2009

Last week's readers help me come up with five more juicy ones to chew on.

Comments

Add your comment

Sign in with one of these accounts or just add your comment below.

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

Editors' Picks

MNN Originals

Quick Links

MNN Tools

All About MNN

Climate & Weather

Media Mayhem: 5 more tall tales by climate change deniers in 2009

Last week's readers help me come up with five more juicy ones to chew on.

Comments

Add your comment

Sign in with one of these accounts or just add your comment below.

ADVERTISEMENT

SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER

CONNECT WITH MNN

ADVERTISEMENT

Editors' Picks

MNN Originals

Quick Links

MNN Tools

All About MNN