Crossposted from Flopping Aces

So why the alarmism? Hint: It’s not to save the planet!

• Former Vice President Al Gore (November 5, 2007): “There are still people who believe that the Earth is flat.” (LINK) Gore also compared global warming skeptics to people who ‘believe the moon landing was actually staged in a movie lot in Arizona’ (June 20, 2006 - LINK
• CNN’s Miles O’Brien (July 23, 2007): The scientific debate is over.” “We’re done.” O’Brien also declared on CNN on February 9, 2006 that scientific skeptics of man-made catastrophic global warming “are bought and paid for by the fossil fuel industry, usually.” (LINK)
• On July 27, 2006, Associated Press reporter Seth Borenstein described a scientist as “one of the few remaining scientists skeptical of the global warming harm caused by industries that burn fossil fuels.” (LINK)
• Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman of the IPCC view on the number of skeptical scientists as quoted on Feb. 20, 2003: “About 300 years ago, a Flat Earth Society was founded by those who did not believe the world was round. That society still exists; it probably has about a dozen members.” (LINK)
• Andrew Dessler in the eco-publication Grist Magazine (November 21, 2007): “While some people claim there are lots of skeptical climate scientists out there, if you actually try to find one, you keep turning up the same two dozen or so (e.g., Singer, Lindzen, Michaels, Christy, etc., etc.). These skeptics are endlessly recycled by the denial machine, so someone not paying close attention might think there are lots of them out there — but that’s not the case. (LINK)
• The Washington Post asserted on May 23, 2006 that there were only “a handful of skeptics” of man-made climate fears. (LINK)
• ABC News Global Warming Reporter Bill Blakemore reported on August 30, 2006: “After extensive searches, ABC News has found no such [scientific] debate” on global warming. (LINK)

Why make such absolute statements? It’s because the wheels of the global warming express are coming off. Every year, more and more people are learning that the alarmist and absolutist statements of the global warming zealots are nothing more than scaremongering and political cover for an effort to hamstring the U.S. economy and give more power to the U.N.

Earlier this week Curt pulled another skin off the onion of the great global warming hoax. And if I can toss in another cliche, that was just the tip of the iceberg.

Here’s the iceberg, and it isn’t melting:

excerpts from:
U.S. Senate Report: Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007
Senate Report Debunks “Consensus”
December 20, 2007

UN IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri urged the world at the December 2007 UN climate conference in Bali, Indonesia to “Please listen to the voice of science.”

Background: Only 52 Scientists Participated in UN IPCC Summary

The over 400 skeptical scientists featured in this new report outnumber by nearly eight times the number of scientists who participated in the 2007 UN IPCC Summary for Policymakers. The notion of “hundreds” or “thousands” of UN scientists agreeing to a scientific statement does not hold up to scrutiny. (See report debunking “consensus” LINK) Recent research by Australian climate data analyst Dr. John McLean revealed that the IPCC’s peer-review process for the Summary for Policymakers leaves much to be desired. (LINK)

Proponents of man-made global warming like to note how the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the American Meteorological Society (AMS) have issued statements endorsing the so-called “consensus” view that man is driving global warming. But both the NAS and AMS never allowed member scientists to directly vote on these climate statements. Essentially, only two dozen or so members on the governing boards of these institutions produced the “consensus” statements. This report gives a voice to the rank-and-file scientists who were shut out of the process. (LINK)

The most recent attempt to imply there was an overwhelming scientific “consensus” in favor of man-made global warming fears came in December 2007 during the UN climate conference in Bali. A letter signed by only 215 scientists urged the UN to mandate deep cuts in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. But absent from the letter were the signatures of these alleged “thousands” of scientists. (See AP article: - LINK )

The science has continued to grow loud and clear in 2007. In addition to the growing number of scientists expressing skepticism, an abundance of recent peer-reviewed studies have cast considerable doubt about man-made global warming fears. A November 3, 2007 peer-reviewed study found that “solar changes significantly alter climate.” (LINK) A December 2007 peer-reviewed study recalculated and halved the global average surface temperature trend between 1980 - 2002. (LINK) Another new study found the Medieval Warm Period “0.3C warmer than 20th century” (LINK)

A peer-reviewed study by a team of scientists found that “warming is naturally caused and shows no human influence.” (LINK) - Another November 2007 peer-reviewed study in the journal Physical Geography found “Long-term climate change is driven by solar insolation changes.” (LINK ) These recent studies were in addition to the abundance of peer-reviewed studies earlier in 2007. - See “New Peer-Reviewed Scientific Studies Chill Global Warming Fears” (LINK )

With this new report of profiling 400 skeptical scientists, the world can finally hear the voices of the “silent majority” of scientists.

….
Over 400 prominent scientists from more than two dozen countries recently voiced significant objections to major aspects of the so-called “consensus” on man-made global warming. These scientists, many of whom are current and former participants in the UN IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), criticized the climate claims made by the UN IPCC and former Vice President Al Gore.

The new report issued by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s office of the GOP Ranking Member details the views of the scientists, the overwhelming majority of whom spoke out in 2007.

This blockbuster Senate report lists the scientists by name, country of residence, and academic/institutional affiliation. It also features their own words, biographies, and weblinks to their peer reviewed studies and original source materials as gathered from public statements, various news outlets, and websites in 2007. This new “consensus busters” report is poised to redefine the debate.
…
The distinguished scientists featured in this new report are experts in diverse fields, including: climatology; oceanography; geology; biology; glaciology; biogeography; meteorology; oceanography; economics; chemistry; mathematics; environmental sciences; engineering; physics and paleoclimatology. Some of those profiled have won Nobel Prizes for their outstanding contribution to their field of expertise and many shared a portion of the UN IPCC Nobel Peace Prize with Vice President Gore.

Additionally, these scientists hail from prestigious institutions worldwide, including: Harvard University; NASA; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR); Massachusetts Institute of Technology; the UN IPCC; the Danish National Space Center; U.S. Department of Energy; Princeton University; the Environmental Protection Agency; University of Pennsylvania; Hebrew University of Jerusalem; the International Arctic Research Centre; the Pasteur Institute in Paris; the Belgian Weather Institute; Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute; the University of Helsinki; the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S., France, and Russia; the University of Pretoria; University of Notre Dame; Stockholm University; University of Melbourne; University of Columbia; the World Federation of Scientists; and the University of London.

The voices of many of these hundreds of scientists serve as a direct challenge to the often media-hyped “consensus” that the debate is “settled.”

and:

The “Silly Hat” Hit Piece & Journalist Ethics

It appears the reporting done by Roger Simon (not the bloger Roger L. Simon) is a bit more then a simple hit piece against Fred.  It may just violate some serious journalistic ethics: (via Confederate Yankee)

Simon quoted Thompson as stating that “I’ve got a silly hat rule.”

As the CBS video clearly showed, that was only part of Thompson’s statement.

What Thompson actually said was, “I’ve got a silly hat rule that I’m about to violate.“

Thompson then takes the Chief’s helmet and starts to raise it if he is going to put it on, and then says, while laughing, “I ain’t gonna do it… I ain’t gonna do it.”

At this point Jeri Thompson steps in and Fred puts the helmet on her. Throughout the video, you can hear those assembled laughing, including Chief Dan McKenzie, who handed Thompson the helmet to begin with. McKenzie is shown smiling widely at the end of the clip.

We don’t know if the entire Politico article is grossly unfair in the way it characterized Senator Thompson’s swing through Waverly, Iowa, but we do know, thanks to the CBS News video, that not only was Simon’s editorializing of what occurred in the Waverly Fire Department mischaracterized, but that he doctored a quote to make his article appear all the more damning.

Simon is the Chief Political Columnist for The Politico—one that they tout as one of “Washington’s most visible and experienced journalists.”— and should know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that doctoring quotes is highly unethical by any journalistic standard.

Or at least their own standards as The Politico’s mission statement states:

There is a difference, however, between voice and advocacy. That’s one traditional journalism ideal we fully embrace. There is more need than ever for reporting that presents the news fairly, not through an ideological prism. One of the most distressing features of public life recently has been the demise of shared facts. Warring partisans — many of whom take their news from sources that cater to and amplify their existing opinions — live in separate zones of reality. In such a climate, every news story is viewed as either weapon or shield in a nonstop ideological war. Our answer to this will be journalism that insists on the primacy of facts over ideology.

In fact, A Second Hand Conjecture found another instance of a Roger Simon piece reporting his opinion of the event as fact.  Some mission statement guys.

If you quote someone it means that this is EXACTLY what the person said.  Roger Simon doctored the quote by leaving out the final 5 words to the sentence.  He then goes on to misrepresent the event as some sour, awkward moment which if you view the video it most certainly is not.  If this doesn’t violate some code of ethics by a journalist then I don’t know what would. 

The problem with this kind of conduct, if left unchecked, is that people like Allah and friends at Hot Air, and other high traffic sites, will buy into it and ensure the story goes viral.  After awhile it just becomes a fact, unless us bloggers find out the truth and do what we can to stamp it out.

I’m telling you.  Can we trust the MSM on anything anymore?  They use insurgents to report on stories in a war zone, they use pseudonyms for sources without letting their readers know they are using the pseudonym (and along the way report a event that never happened), they report on atrocities across Iraq which never happened and then never retract their stories, and they print political hit pieces on candidates they don’t like without ever telling the readers of their bias.

Is it any wonder the MSM is going the way of the dinosaur?