I’m shocked! Shocked I say:
Like a simple parlor trick, the networks are able to make skeptical scientists vanish, at least from the eyes of their viewers.
In some cases, the broadcast networks have failed to include such scientists for years, while including alarmist scientists within the past six months. ABC, CBS and NBC’s lengthy omission of scientists critical of global warming alarmism propped up the myth of a scientific consensus, despite the fact that many scientists and thousands of peer-reviewed studies disagree.
Neither CBS nor ABC have included a skeptical scientist in their news shows within the past 1,300 days, but both networks included alarmists within the past 160 days — CBS as recently as 22 days ago. When the networks did include other viewpoints, the experts were dismissed as “out of the scientific mainstream” or backed by “oil and coal companies.”
CBS was the worst, ignoring skeptical scientists for 1,391 days, ever since the May 15, 2010, “Evening News.” That night, CBS interviewed former NASA climatologist, Dr. Roy Spencer during an extensive profile of alarmist meteorologist, and non-Ph.D., Dan Satterfield.
It was just 22 days ago, on Feb. 12, 2014, that CBS included an alarmist physicist, Dr. Michio Kaku on “This Morning.” Kaku is a contributor to “This Morning” and that day he warned of the “heating up of the North Pole” which “could cause gigantic storms of historic proportions.”
ABC last included a skeptical scientist 1,383 days ago. During the May 23, 2010, segment of “World News,” ABC played a brief, 23-second clip of Princeton-educated Dr. Fred Singer expressing his skepticism over man-made climate change, along with clips of two alarmist scientists. Singer’s was the only opposing view in that report and his views were actually taken from a much earlier interview aired on ABC March 23, 2008.
If it doesn’t agree with their agenda just ignore it. Prevent the facts from getting out. Just look at the alarmists blather about “97% of scientific papers agree that man is causing global warming” when the truth is only 0.3% do. In fact the paper that first alleged this 97% was rejected for peer review, while a paper that refuted this “fact” was indeed peer reviewed:
The new paper by the leading climatologist Dr David Legates and his colleagues, published in the respected Science and Education journal, now in its 21st year of publication, reveals that Cook had not considered whether scientists and their published papers had said climate change was “dangerous”.
The consensus Cook considered was the standard definition: that Man had caused most post-1950 warming. Even on this weaker definition the true consensus among published scientific papers is now demonstrated to be not 97.1%, as Cook had claimed, but only 0.3%.
Only 41 out of the 11,944 published climate papers Cook examined explicitly stated that Man caused most of the warming since 1950. Cook himself had flagged just 64 papers as explicitly supporting that consensus, but 23 of the 64 had not in fact supported it.
…“In fact, Cook’s paper provides the clearest available statistical evidence that there is scarcely any explicit support among scientists for the consensus that the IPCC, politicians, bureaucrats, academics and the media have so long and so falsely proclaimed. That was not the outcome Cook had hoped for, and it was not the outcome he had stated in his paper, but it was the outcome he had really found.”
But you will hear this repeated often by alarmists while those in the MSM will do everything they can to make sure you hear nothing from skeptics.
Skeptic….what a novel idea in science eh?
See author page
Silencing critics is an integral part of the scientific method.
Any “scientist” that excludes opposing views is one who is afraid of having to.defend his position, and shows the weakness inherent in his theory. Such is the nature of the AGW cultists.
@Pete:
You’re exactly right. AGW cultists are fully aware that they possess a faulty inferior argument, which is why so much effort is given to demonizing and silencing their critics.
That’s what makes AGW scripture rather than science.
Scientific ideas are debated, researched, challenged, reworked, adjusted, researched over and over again before they are accepted as true or accurate. This happens in a vastly more critical arena than in letters to the editor or comments like this one. The scientific debate has been settled long ago about climate change. The political one continues for non-scientific reasons.
Thereis no longer serious debate about human caused climate change. Skeptical scientists are no threat to this consensus. The debate is a political one. It is no longer a scientific one.
The same can be said about smoking increasing the risk of lung cancer, the earth moving around the sun, the earth being billions of years old not 5 or 6 thousand years old, or acid rain being toxic and man made. Long after the scientific debate was settled by the evidence, there continued to be naysayers who kept up skeptical disputes for non-scientific reasons. This the case now with climate change as it was with cigarettes and lung cancer.
Where is a picture of al gore with his head up his rectum? That would have been picturesque than a great, stately looking polar bear covering his eyes.
Michael, ever publish or defend a PhD thesis ? It is obvious from your comments on scientific theory evaluation, you have not.
The climate is always changing. There is no such thing as a “static” climate. The global warming crowd has chosen to use “climate change” because they cannot explain why the ice pack in the Arctic and Antarctic has increased substantially over the past five years. They cannot explain why the winter season has not disappeared. They cannot explain why the mean temperatures have not increased as they predicted. In matter of fact, the so-called temperature increase is roughly a tenth of a degree. They cannot explain their collusion using fabricated data. Many of the “scientists” supporting global warming as “settled science” are the same ones who believed in global cooling in the 1980s, the same ones who advocated global warming as a means to prevent the next ice age.
Gee David the US Navy doesn’t think that the Arctic Ice Pack has been decreasing, in fact they think ii has been steadily decreasing and will decrease more.They are predicting 1000 vessels per year going transpolar by 2030 Perhaps you would like to take a look at their recently updated (2014) ARCTIC ROADMAP 2014-2030 It was done by their Task Force On Climate Change (which they believe is AGW)
Of course you COULD say the the US Navy are just a bunch of addle headed hippies, but that wouldn’t be very nice would it Dave?
Or if not proto hippies perhaps you believe taht they are simply dishonorable for going with science instead of your politics
And Dave the “global cooling” belief was really just in the mass market popular culture very very few scientists published anything about global cooling in peer reviewed journals. http://www.skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s-intermediate.htm
Wiki has a easily understood about the 70s “global cooling”
from 1965 to 1979 7 papers were published in peer reviewed periodicals that believed that the world would cool. In the same time frame 42 predicted global warming so back then 85% seemed to believe in global warming 15% global cooling since then the number of course has increased to 97%
Funny how those skeptical scientists are usually found to be paid off by the Koch Brothers, big oil or Fox News, lol!
Anyone who claims “the science is settled” is arguing from a political, and not a scientific standpoint. Scientific truth is not a majority rules scenario. Here are four quick examples of the flaw of consensus pseudoscience:
1. Galen, the ancient Roman physician, wrote the anatomic treatise which was used to train physicians for over 1000 years. In it, he wrote of “the five lobes of the liver”. Despite the fact that every single cada er dissected in anatomy courses throughout Europe demonstrated only 4 lobes of the human liver, no one doubted the expert Galen. The problem was that Galen relied on the model of PIG dissection when writing his anatomy treatise, because dissecting humans was not accepted during his life. Pig livers are 5 lobed. Human livers have 4 lobes. It was not until Vesalius published his dissections in the 16th century that the science accepted that human livers only have 4 lobes. The expert relied on a flawed model that was not based on reality.
2. Based on the accepted scientific theory of the 4 humors of the body, the scientific treatment for fever was for roughly another 1000 years was bloodletting. Doctors were still prescribing and performing this ridiculous treatment for fevers well into the 18th century. Even George Washington’s physicians performed bloodletting on him for his febrile symptoms. That was the “settled scientific” method -thankfully disproven and no longer used. It is believed that Washington’s death was hastened by the repeated medically prescribed bloodlettings.
3. It was believed for centuries that the heart merely warmed the blood and the body. It wasn’t until the English physician in the 1500-1600s named William Harvey published his data that science accepted the true purpose of the heart to pump blood, not warm it.
4. In tbe 20tb century, it was inconceivable that ulcers could be caused by bacteria – it was a stress associated disease process, according to settled science. The Australian physician who finally proved the etiology of the vast majority of ulcers was due to the bacteria helicobacter pylori had to infect himself with the bacteria, undergo endoscopy to prove he had developed an ulcer, treat himself with appropriate antibiotics, then undergo a second endoscopy to prove he had been cured before the “experts” finally admitted he was correct. This only happened back in the 1980s.
Science is never, ever completely settled. New data arise all the time that requires re-evaluation of an accepted theory. If the theory cannot explain the new data, then tbe tbeory is disproven to the degree the new data show an error. AGW cannot explain the c ooling that has occured since 1998, nor can it explain why temps have been cooling while atmospheric CO2 levels have continued to rise. If the AGW theory was correct as tbe political zealots posing as scientists insist, then the urrent temps would not be falling while CO2 increased, or the CO2 levels would not be rising while the temps have been falling since 1998.
The change in solar output which has been measured since 1997 correlates with the observed temp changes, yet the vaunted practitioners of AGW hysteria twist and turn to ignore this scientific data. The ice caps are growing, not shrinking, as the AGW cultists predicted, and the temps this winter are smashing record lows rather than bringing dangerous heat.
Yet AGW zealots insist we disbelievers in their religion are the unscientific ones…..
@michael bernard:
Precisely. The left has exploited the debate by misinformation that is advantageous to it’s goals, namely painting others as backward and worthy of marginalizing. That was Gore’s achievement about ten years ago: create a debate that doesn’t exist.
The big lie is that the “debate” is about whether the climate changes. No one I know disputes this. The actual debate is how, why, and what we need to do about it.
Burt Rutan ring a bell? No one wants to talk about his report on climate, because of said censorship.
The overall leftist agenda is labeling their foes and encouraging government-lead culture scrubbing. This also is nothing new to the human race.
Are you religious? Then you’re an idiot for believing in the flying spagetti monster and need to be marginalized. Pro-Choice? Small-Government? Anything opposing our “consensus”? You need to be painted as an idiot, scapegoat, and the source of all pain suffered by modern man. Oh, and were more “scientific” than you, so get over it.
The climate issue…err, “debate” as it were, is completely man-made. It is a tool used to scapegoat and create conflict for political gain. Nothing more.
Shame on those who perpetuate this by saying the “debate” is over. I would agree, but the Great Conversation is still going, and the left has a vested interest in shutting that down. How else can you back off of the term “global warming” and say “climate change” without batting an eye?
The debate is settled. The left have divided the people through petty ignorance.
@john
Believe what you want to believe. The ice pack is increasing in both the Arctic and Antarctic. It has been measured. The lack of peer reviewed articles on global cooling, that’s total nonsense. Had to read 20+ peer reviewed articles on global cooling while taking a graduate course in atmospheric chemistry.
@michael bernard:
This of course is pure nonsense. Debate is never settled in a true science. Debate is only ever settled in dogmatic religion. Even Classical Newtonian physics is up for debate until such a time as a viable Unified Field Theory can be found.
There’s two very important things for you to understand here.
1) True science is never, ever dependent on consensus for its findings evidence. Consensus science isn’t science at all. Consensus science is pseudoscience.
2) The purported “consensus” doesn’t exist. Period.
So while the debate over AGW mythology may indeed be politically motivated, it’s not for the reasons you may think.
@john:
Could you elaborate on your comment in the context of the following articles?
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-25383373
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5g8B_UF8UE_99BsbkZYEJdh9R9t6Q?docId=36375dc5-3bf8-4c22-be78-c8d995888977&hl=en
@john:
Really? Because you can watch the comments of two currently noted AGW mythologists in this fascinating documentary:
Here’s additional information on the 70s Global Cooling hysteria.
http://omnologos.com/a-new-treasure-trove-of-1970s-global-cooling-articles/
@john:
But what about all those Global Cooling Myth articles that the Collective has been frantically typing out over the last decade?
Hmm…
This is the usual response concerning this issue, and how Obama classically responds as well: “There is no issue, and I’m not listening…la, la, la, la, la…
“Climate Change (codeword for political exploitation of Green/Global Warming topics) is fact. Those who want to argue are ridiculous and not to be taken seriously. MSNBC…make sure we vilify the critics and reward the alarmists.”
When those who disagree make a point…nah, actual prove the absurdity of the current political trend and complete lack of reason from the left as has happened above, we get silence.
They’re not listening. It’s already settled, and conversation is not allowed. Sound like a free country with liberty to you?
Nope.
Last night’s global warming filibuster featured a Connecticut pol who complained that his state’s trees leaves are changing too late (or too soon) so tourism is affected.
Now, how much does he think we should spend to fix that?
Billions?
Trillions?
Quadrillions?
I doubt the trees are even complaining.
Those of you (especially KrackenPot) you deny man’s involvement in climate change…simply do this; Write a letter to your descendants regarding your views on climate change. Use ‘algore’ as much as you want. Put it in a safe place, like the family bible. I’m betting future generations will regard you as the family fool.
@Nathan Blue:
I agree, and having raised children, have my two cents to add.
The human species has been around a very long time. For 99% of that time conditions were very very dangerous. To aid in survival, cultures (and parents) used scare tactics to keep the young in line. The left has latched onto this historical tactic. Here’s the two factors as I see it.
The first is the adoption of “the fear-based story”, which is common in human cultures, past and present. As kids in a dark room in a flashlight, wasn’t it fun to tell ghost stories, or tales which ended “the boogey-man will get you!”. The excitement of “fear” can be delightful, provided it is not permanent.
The second is the denouement of these stories with a heroic “escape” from the threat. Al Gore clearly casts himself in this light, and with the backing of the media, so do university intellectuals, journalists, leftists of all stripes, Hollywood artists, and, unfortunately, elected officials.
Watch Europe. The Green party in Germany just got a huge wakeup call when Putin invaded Crimea, threatening the supply of “clean” natural gas via Ukraine to Germany. These Greens are Germans first, and it is unlikely they will like having the Russian boot on their necks controlling their gas supplies so necessary to achieve “clean energy utopia”. Karma’s a bitch.
@This one: Nobody refutes the impact of man on the environment. What they refute is hyperbole treated as fact and then exploited to character assassinate the dems’ political enemies.
Dangerous ground. Luckily, we’ll get to see the informed and thoughtful part of the electorate vote out the dems this year…
You’re toeing a line of propaganda and not thinking rationally (yeah, religion…that’s the problem. Grow up). Please go do something useful and challenging for society. I know you’ll come back more mature, and spare us your ignorance.
@Beth Martin: The thing that is most alarming is that the dems and their followers have adopted every tactic, every fallacy of the various “groups” they think they are protecting the populace from. Fear, propaganda, hate, and any-means-necessary thinking has left that as just another bin of loonies trying to foist their religion on us all.
It’s become a religion, and the worst kind to boot…