« Little Ivy Covered North Koreas | Home | What’s Your Blog Rated? »

New Category - Global Warming/Global Cooling

June 22, 2007 by Laura | Trackback URI

Ecclesiastes 1:8 tells us there is no new thing under the sun. And that certainly includes media malfeasance on climate reporting. If you’re tracking the change from catastrophic global warming to catastrophic global cooling, keep an eye on this new category. I’m not at all interested in evaluating the science involved, but I am interested in seeing how the media reports on that science. They hype it almost beyond recognition, contradict themselves, and don’t acknowledge the mistakes and contradictions of previous coverage. In the last 112 years, we have toggled back and forth between media-driven global cooling and global warming scares four times - and we’re now entering the fifth cycle with a return to global cooling hype.

This unintentionally hilarious video illustrates how everything old is new again. People in their thirties and forties may remember the global cooling scare from our childhoods in the 1970s, but few people remember the global warming hype of the fifties.

The dishonest refusal to acknowledge these changes, and the “if it bleeds, it leads” coverage of the climate shines a spotlight on the ethical bankruptcy of the media.

Some in the media would probably argue that they merely report what scientists tell them, but that would be only half true.

Journalists decide not only what they cover; they also decide whether to include opposing viewpoints. That’s a balance lacking in the current “debate.”

This isn’t a question of science. It’s a question of whether Americans can trust what the media tell them about science.

Comments

3 Responses to “New Category - Global Warming/Global Cooling”

  1. Tork on June 22nd, 2007 7:42 pm

    The best part is that this guy was (supposedly) an English Professor from the University of Southern California. MSTies know him as the Gesture Professor who introduced The Mole People.

  2. Laura on June 22nd, 2007 7:47 pm

    You’re right, that does make it even better.

  3. Anon on August 1st, 2007 7:30 am

    An article entitled Nothing New Under the Sun” hosted by http://www.thegiftofgod.co.uk“ shows the true falacies of the theory of Global Warming from both a Biblical and a Scietific perspective.

  4. Trackbacks on October 12th, 2008 5:54 pm