The Trib's Public Disservice

In an editorial today, our good friends on DickieCougarMellonScaife's Editorial Board blabber on (again) about how Global Warming, how there's still a debate about it and it's first casualty is "the truth."

This time starting from this AP article.

It's always interesting to see how the Trib describes something and then compare it to (stealing a phrase from Kant) the thing in itself. Here's the core of the editorial:

"Global warming" is "a ticking time bomb that President-elect Obama can't avoid," Mr. Borenstein writes.

"The 10 hottest years on record have occurred since (Bill) Clinton's second inauguration," he continues.

"Global warming is accelerating," he adds.

"Time is close to running out," he warns.

We wonder if Borenstein has caught his breath yet.

Four hypotheses that many credible scientists dispute are presented as fact. There's nary a mention in the AP's story that the debate over "global warming" has heated up as more and more indicators suggest planetary cooling.

And with no real support, the story states as a fact that the cooling trend "actually illustrates how fast the world is warming."

It's that last sentence that sends the wingnut to do a spit-take with their ovaltine.

How can a cooling trend illustrate how fast the world is warming, they ask incredulously. Doesn't it show how crazy this whole hoax is the follow up question. The answer, of course, lies in what the Trib's editorial board leaves out. If they were to take a look at the last two paragraphs of the article, they'd see the this:

Mother Nature, of course, is oblivious to the federal government's machinations. Ironically, 2008 is on pace to be a slightly cooler year in a steadily rising temperature trend line. Experts say it's thanks to a La Nina weather variation. While skeptics are already using it as evidence of some kind of cooling trend, it actually illustrates how fast the world is warming.

The average global temperature in 2008 is likely to wind up slightly under 57.9 degrees Fahrenheit, about a tenth of a degree cooler than last year. When Clinton was inaugurated, 57.9 easily would have been the warmest year on record. Now, that temperature would qualify as the ninth warmest year.

That's how a "cooling trend" can be evidence for how fast the world is warming. It's a tenth of a degree cooler than the previous year and even with that cooling trend it's still warmer than 1992.

But to hear the Trib tell the tale, the tree-huggers in "teh Democrat Party" have convinced everyone that the sky is falling - the truth be damned. But did you happen to catch this little bit of news a few months ago? From the Washington Post:

U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that global climate change will worsen food shortages and disease exposure in sub-Saharan Africa over the next two decades, creating operational problems for the Pentagon's newest overseas military command.

The truth be damned.