Monday, October 4, 2010

Journalistic Misfeasance


By Alan Caruba

The Gallup Organization has just released the results of a poll that, for the fourth straight year, reveals that the “majority of Americans say they have little or no trust in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly. The 57% who now say this is a record high by one percentage point.”

Those that do express trust in the media (43%) tie a record low. “Nearly half of Americans (48%) say the media are too liberal…Overall, perceptions of bias have remained quite steady over this tumultuous period of change for the media, marked by the growth of cable and Internet news sources.”

A perfect example of the reason for this mistrust is an October 3rd article in The Washington Post by staff writer, Juliet Eilperin. “Threat of global warming sparks U.S. interest in geoengineering.”

There is no threat of global warming. The Earth has been a cooling cycle for a decade.

Unless Washington Post editors and this reporter have been living in complete isolation for a while, it would have been impossible to ignore the fact that we are coming up on a one-year anniversary of the leak of thousands of emails between the handful of scientists responsible for the global warming hoax. These were the men who provided misleading and false data to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The leaked emails led to the complete collapse of last year’s Copenhagen international climate conference.

Why, then, is the reporter referencing global warming as if it had any basis in fact? Perhaps because, on October 6th, in Washington, D.C., the Woodrow Wilson Center will be the site of a presentation by James Roger Fleming, a professor of science, technology and society at Colby College and author of “Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control.”

If, as the Washington Post article suggests, there is an interest in geoengineering, Fleming writes that “Geoengineering is in fact untested and dangerous. We don’t understand it, we can’t test it on smaller than planetary scales, and we don’t have the political capital, wisdom, or will to govern it.”

The key words here are “political capital” as clearly, without it, geoengineering cannot garner the billions equivalent to those squandered on the many scientists who received taxpayer funding for utterly bogus research to demonstrate that everything and anything was caused by global warming.

Ms. Eilperin covers herself nicely by noting that “For years it was considered downright wacky in official Washington to discuss geoengineering; altering the climate by reflecting sunlight back into the sky, sucking carbon dioxide from the air or a host of gee-whiz schemes.”

The reason for this is that it is wacky. That, however, did not deter Secretary of Energy, Dr. Steven Chu, from suggesting that global warming could be deterred by painting roofs and highways white!

The primary method put forth to stop a non-existent global warming is to limit "greenhouse gas emissions", especially carbon dioxide (CO2). Ms. Eilperin cited the fact that the British government will spend $4.5 million over the next three years on geoengineering research, but neglected to mention that the Royal Society just backed off its support for global warming, sending a small shock wave through the international scientific community.

The bad news for Americans is that a Cap-and-Trade bill to control CO2 emissions awaits a Senate vote and, failing that, the EPA intends to exert control.

This article and all the thousands that preceded it, claiming a global warming threat, is nothing more than journalistic misfeasance. It is deceptive. It picks and chooses the information it imparts but neglects to mention that the Earth is cooling, not warming.

Little wonder that the public holds U.S. media in such low esteem. The so-called mainstream media has earned it.

Happily, people seeking to make sense of the news and issues of the day turn to Internet news and opinion sites they do trust.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

10 comments:

  1. Alan,

    The really scary part your article is that after all that has come out 43% still think the MSM is a reliable source of information.

    That isn't that far off from half of the population. That means that if all 300 million people in this country was old enough to read that 129 million people still believe the MSM. How brain dead can that be?

    Rich

    ReplyDelete
  2. AGW wackos = Enemies of the Republic.

    It's as simple as that statement.

    All of them need to be hauled in front of judge and jury to be tried as the felons they are.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Rich, my observation is that there is a solid core of 25-to-30% of the population that are Liberal/Left for whom no amount of information will change their minds.

    When you add in those too lazy to learn anything or, at least, anything new, you have a chunk of the population that will go to their graves thinking Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama were the greatest presidents ever.

    ReplyDelete
  4. So far we have had the AGW whackos going around the conference circuit spouting their anti-human bile and preaching hell-fire and brimstone pseudo-religious prophesies, and fearful spoutings from like-minded government operators.

    Although some actions to mitigate the Big Lie have been enacted, most can be reversed with a 'correct thinking' government in power.

    What one country does to mitigate its silly beliefs and carbophobia maybe OK if its actions remain within its borders.

    However, this geoengineering project must set the world thinking because the effects of such stupid intervention could have catastrophic and lasting global effect. It is very frightening to see the MSM glibly giving column inches to these science crazy-fiction ideas with not even a whiff of criticism. It is almost akin to them promoting grindstones to ensure that the machetes used to chop-up people in Rwanda were sharp enough for one blow.

    If these mad 'scientists' feel the need to rid the world of people why don't they do a proper job and seek to control the complete carbon cycle and then eveything dies because all life relies on it -then we have a sister in Mars.

    Sheer madness! When will sense prevail?

    I find myself, foolishly, wishing for a rapid onset of the next ice age in order to spike the guns of these lunatics, and prevent any action, because common sense and truth just will not cut the mustard with them.

    While the BBC and CNN blithely blabber about AGW this and that on a daily basis these instruments of government are promoting official policy.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Clive, to borrow a cliche, the lunatics are in charge of the asylum.

    Having ruined everything they touch, the economy, property rights, freedom in general, one wonders why anyone pays them any attention.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Amen to that, Alan.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Okay i believe that people that think that global warming is real are wrong, but i also believe that the people that say there is no such thing are wrong too. It's shown that temperatures have risen and fallen dramatically in the past few thousand years, and that we are causing a little bit of global warming. but really all it is is the earth going through its normal cycle of heating and cooling. just goes to show that people freak out to much over such a little thing, so just quit b@&!%ing about it K. But it would bb nice 2 switch 2 hybrids

    ReplyDelete
  8. @Firewolf. Global warming is, we agree, a hoax, but the notion that humans have any significant affect on the weather/climate is wrong. Everything begins with the Sun and its cycles.

    ReplyDelete
  9. dude I'm fourteen and i know all about this this is the #1 thing everyone is studying on in science class and have been going on about it for about 3 years. at some point every hippy tree-hugger, every big industrie ought to just settle down and stop with all of this... ye its taking a toll on the earth but the earth does this all the time its not like its the end of the world because the climate is going up. All my info comes from sleeping in class and aceing tests and all that stuff.

    ReplyDelete
  10. @Firewoolf: Dude, I am 73 and stayed awake in science class, thus saving me from the lies of clowns like Al Gore.

    Keep getting those good grades. They will prove useful later on.

    ReplyDelete