Democracy Has Prevailed.

December 18, 2008

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.

17 comments:

EdHeath said...

I couldn’t make the link to the AP story work.

Right, I had posted on this on my blog, and to give full credit I read it on Braden’s (what’s-his-last-name) blog “Democrats-lie”, where he did exactly the same thing the Trib editorial people did, take that one sentence out of context. In fact, while writing my post, I noticed on realclimate (I think) that increased frequency of El Nino and La Nina occurrences is possibly an effect of increased global warming.

That said, I am going to say that the AP article was in fact not convincing, to me, that we are running out of time. We may be, but the AP article cited no specific evidence, such as that the seas have risen x level of inches in the last eight years, or that x number of species have gone extinct, or that the level of rise of the seas has increased by x factor. The story just said some scientists were upset. That sort of sloppy journalism just feeds papers like the Trib, making their claims that global warming is a hoax that much more believable to ordinary people.

People like proof they can read about, that they can ask other sources about and have verified. It doesn’t matter whether it is conservatives asking or liberals, if the evidence is not there they have a right to express skepticism. Now, I do think the evidence is there to be found. But if the AP is going to report on global warming, and if the story is going to be that time is running out, they have an obligation to back that up with some numbers.

John K. said...

John K: Yah this global warming is killing us. Only three 90+ Degree in the summer and now record cold this winter. The facts bear it out lefties. Global warming is all a hoax designed to allow the left to exercise power over people. Of course if you take the temps in Oct and just transpose them over to Nov well heck I guess you do have global warming. LOL LOL LMAO

EdHeath said...

Perhaps the facts bear it out, but you haven't given us any, John K. One year's record to disprove a trend reaching back some fifty years? And the last two years being influenced by La Nina?

You're an embarrassment to conservatives and the pain you cause Limbaugh will drive him back to drugs.

Bob said...

Johnk. where would you be w/o this blog?

Ol' Froth said...

I suspet that without this blog, JohnK would have nothing to do but sit in his parents' basement looking at internet porn and practicing Onanism with his Cheetoh stained palms.

EdHeath said...

I'm not sure if it was just my home setup that prevented me from seeing the AP piece, or David may have gotten this already, but here is a link to the AP piece: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/14/obamas-global-warming-cha_n_150947.html

It seems to want to work from my work computer. I should say that re-reading it, it had a bit more in the way of specific evidence than I gave it credit for, like listing the average temperature for 2008, and that the Arctic has lost ice mass the size of Texas, California and Alaska since 1993. Still not enough for me, but your mileage may vary.

Ol' Froth said...

This is a kind of variation of Pascal's wager, but if global warming is real (and I believe it is) and we do nothing, we're all very much likely boned. However, if we work to alleviate the effects, and we're wrong, nothing really has been lost other than the cost of implementing pollution controls, investing in mass transit, etc. But if we can find one trillion dollars to attack and occupy a country that was no threat to us, and give 700 billion dollars to bankers so they can use it to buy other banks and pay obscene bonuses, I really don't want to hear anyone complain that we can't go green because it costs too much.

EdHeath said...

I once crashed a computer cluster at CCAC (I say, the computer admin disagreed), but I can't remember if that was Pascal's wager or just BASIC.

John K. said...

John K: They had snow in Las Vegas. People were taking their pictures next to the welcome to vegas sign piled high with plowed snow. LOL LOL Global warming is based strictly on faith because there are no facts to support it.

John K. said...

John K: Actually it is where the one trillion we need to fight this myth of global warming is going. And oddly enough it is going directly into the hands of the left. Gore left the white house with two million and thru global warming now has 98 million. Can anyone quantify the amount of global warming that we have prevented by buying carbon credits? So yah Ol' Froth likes the idea of buying carbon credits. He rakes in the dough.

Anonymous said...

johnk,

You can sail to the North Pole, at certain times of the year, because it becomes open water.

The Antarctic ice shelves are shrinking at an increasing rate.

But, because it snowed in Las Vegas, none of that matters?

John K. said...

John K: What's this. Lou Dobbs just had a segment on, "Is this global warming?" And oh no, he had two experts on who agreed with me. In fact, one said we are in a ten year cooling cycle. LOL The best part of this is when you left wingers figure out that I am right, and you will, you will deny you ever said it was global warming and then blame it all on Bush. LMAO LOL

John K. said...

John K: You sure those polar ice caps are melting? Or did you just take the pictures taken in July and relabel them as October? You know the global warming people did this for Siberia. Took Septembers temperatures and just transposed them to October and hoped no one noticed. On Jan 16th, 2008 Siberia had a record cold of -55C. For you Ed Heath that is -67F. Yepper global warming is here.

John K. said...

John K: So with all these carbon credits all the Hollywood left wingers bought how much has it affected the environment. Can anyone quantify it? Al Gore can. He quantifies it by going to the bank.

Dayvoe said...

Hahahaha!

Lou Dobbs on July 6, 2006:
ALAN ROBOCK, CLIMATE SCIENTIST: Jim Hanson has spent his life studying climate change, and he recognizes that humans are the strongest thing on the planet to cause climate. Now, we're stronger than natural variability, and he's sick of people not doing anything about it. He things it's time to stop just studying it. Although we do have to study it to deal with it.

LOU DOBBS: I'm with Jim, by the way. I mean, you guys have put your best efforts forward, you've come up with a -- you may -- let's be honest, it's science. It could be there is something wrong with the conclusion, but why take the risk?

ROBOCK: That's right. I've taken a lot of money from the government to do my research.

DOBBS: Let me make a note of that.

ROBOCK: If I discover a danger to society, what they want me to do is tell them about it, not to keep quiet.

DOBBS: Well, what are we going to do? Let's on this broadcast tonight, LOU DOBBS TONIGHT, this broadcast decides global warming is caused by emissions. That discussion is over here. Let's talk about what we should do next.


Giggle.

Ol' Froth said...

Well gosh golly gee, since average global temps are UP over the past decand, that means we're in a ten year COOLING period? Makes perfect sense to me!

Also, local, day-to-day conditions are known as WEATHER, and really have no bearing on long term climate trends.

Now, what do you think is going to happen when money is invested in green technologies? Won't it do something like, oh I don't know, stimulate the economy and generate jobs? Maybe we can start making something again in this country.

EdHeath said...

If we invest in solar and wind technologies, if we move from buying new internal combustion to buying new hybrid technology car to buying new electric cars, if we try to move away from finite fuels we have to burn or explode that produce harmful exhausts towards fuels that don't produce harmful exhausts and are not finite and engines that use those fuels, what is going to happen? We might achieve that energy independence that McCain (and Obama) want, we might clean up our atmosphere, there might be oil available if our grandchildren need some.

Pascal's wager. Look it up, John K.