ClimateGate

Al Gore Refuses to Discuss 'Climate Crisis' with John Stossel
By Noel Sheppard | December 11, 2009 | 1:05 PM EST

Despite appearing on CNN and MSNBC Wednesday, Nobel Laureate Al Gore was apparently too busy to discuss global warming on the premiere episode of John Stossel's new Fox Business Network program.

To kick off his new show Thursday, Stossel chose the controversial subject of climate change, and invited on a number of guests to address the issue in great detail.

According to an e-mail message sent to Stossel's producers on November 23, "the growing influence of the climate crisis message and the demand on Mr. Gore's time" made it impossible for the former Vice President to attend.

Of course, Gore's busy schedule didn't prevent him from being interviewed by CNN and MSNBC on Wednesday, nor did it stop him from appearing on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" just two days before he declined Stossel's invitation.

I guess even an esteemed Nobel Laureate has to understand his limitations (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript):  

Olbermann, Furious at Selective Editing, Proceeds to Selectively Edit
By Lachlan Markay | December 11, 2009 | 11:34 AM EST
Keith Olbermann is furious at ABC's David Wright for "selectively editing" a clip from the Daily Show with John Stewart. Olbermann called for Wright to be fired for this horrendous slight against journalistic integrity, then proceeded to selectively edit the same segment.

The Daily Show clip in question (reported initially at NB by Noel Sheppard) showed John Stewart fuming at the infamous East Anglia CRU staff for attempting to "hide the decline" by manipulating climate data. Wright showed Stewart saying, "Poor Al Gore, global warming completely debunked, via the very Internet you invented. Oh!"

Olbermann, in dubbing Wright the "worst person," showed an expanded clip of Stewart clearly denying that ClimateGate has "debunked" the global warming theory: "Poor Al Gore, global warming completely debunked via the very Internet you invented. Oh! Oh, the irony, the irony. Actually, the real story is not quite that sensational. Now, does it disprove global warming? No, of course not!"
'It's A ClimateGate Christmas': Seasonal Global Warming Carols
By Noel Sheppard | December 10, 2009 | 7:10 PM EST

Our friends at Minnesotans for Global Warming have released a fabulous new video just in time for the holidays.

Entitled "It's a ClimateGate Christmas," Elmer and his team took your favorite Christmas carols and inserted lyrics involving Nobel Laureate Al Gore's favorite bogeyman.

As you would expect, Gore is the subject of many of the tunes (video embedded below the fold with partial song list):

Thomas Friedman on CNN: ClimateGate an 'Idiot Debate,' 'Nonsense'
By Matthew Balan | December 10, 2009 | 6:49 PM EST

Wolf Blitzer, CNN Anchor; & Thomas Friedman, New York Times Columnist | NewsBusters.orgThomas Friedman of the New York Times dismissed the ClimateGate scandal during an interview on Thursday’s Situation Room on CNN, labeling it “nonsense” and an “idiot debate.” Anchor Wolf Blitzer only pressed Friedman slightly when he repeated his call for a “price on carbon that would trigger mass innovation in green technology,” meaning a large surtax on fossil fuels.

Blitzer raised ClimateGate during the second half of his interview with Friedman: “Let’s talk about ‘Hot, Flat and Crowded’ and global warming; this conference that’s under way in Copenhagen right now. The release of these e-mails, what’s called ‘ClimateGate,’ how much damage does that do to those who say man does have this significant role in global warming and this whole debate takes a new twist as a result of that?”

The New York Times columnist immediately played the “denier” card, and pointed to his favorite country, China, as an example of a society that wasn’t paying any attention to the scandal:

Sarah Palin Says Critics Of Her WaPo Op-ed 'Got All Wee-Weed Up'
By Noel Sheppard | December 10, 2009 | 4:55 PM EST

Showing the sense of humor millions of Americans fell in love with last year, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin said Thursday that critics of her previous day's op-ed in the Washington Post "kind of got all wee-weed up about it and wanted to call me and others deniers."

Palin, chatting with conservative talk radio host Laura Ingraham, was obviously poking fun at something President Obama said over the summer: "There's something about August going into September where everybody in Washington gets all wee-weed up."

According to Palin, who might have been referring to derogatory comments from folks like MSNBC's Chris Matthews, Andrea Mitchell, and Keith Olbermann, such was the reaction to her published views on global warming and the United Nations climate change conference currently taking place in Copenhagen (YouTube audio embedded below the fold courtesy our friend Story Balloon, partial transcript):

ABC's Liberal Weatherman Sam Champion Tweets: ClimateGate Is ‘Not Reportable as Such’
By Scott Whitlock | December 10, 2009 | 3:45 PM EST

[See update below.] Good Morning America weatherman and global warming alarmist Sam Champion asserted on Twitter that ClimateGate is "not reportable as such." This analyst queried him on the site about why the morning show has completely ignored hacked E-mails showing that some climate scientists are faking data on global warming.

On Wednesday, Champion Tweeted back: "i kno what u refer to! there is quite a controversy surrounding the veracity of that stolen info...not reportable as such." [Grammar original to post.] Not reportable as such? Whether or not one likes the story, the scientists are not disputing that the hacked e-mails are real. And considering that one of the individuals accused of altering data also contributed to a UN panel on climate change, how is this story "not reportable?"

In an earlier response on Twitter, Champion seemed confused about whether his program had covered the subject: "hey scott..thot i did...we follow all climate stories...arnd the world..ev day...and report fact based claims."

Olbermann Rips Palin: From Birther to Climate Change Denier
By Noel Sheppard | December 10, 2009 | 12:12 PM EST

"Having given her sleight of hand stamp of approval to the birthers, Sarah Palin is now moving on to an almost equally popular far right mythology, climate change denial."

So began MSNBC's Keith Olbermann in his number one story on Wednesday's "Countdown."

"Getting her facts wrong and misrepresenting her record as governor of Alaska, again, not enough for Palin`s latest foray into opinion piece, this one for 'The Washington Post,'" said Olbermann. "So she went into full-on denial, climate change is all political mode."

The "Countdown" host then brought on the Nation's Chris Hayes who claimed that people who don't believe in manmade global warming are like folks who "argue that 9/11 was an inside job" (video embedded below the fold courtesy our friend Story Balloon, partial transcript with commentary):

FNC's Wallace: 'Denier' Label Ascribes 'Religious Certainty' to Global Warming
By Jeff Poor | December 10, 2009 | 11:38 AM EST

Chris Wallace, host of "Fox News Sunday" is the latest in a long line of observers to note the essentially religious fervor of those who believe man is responsible for global warming, and the blind faith with which they cling to the science behind it.  

Wallace, appearing on the Fox Business Network's Dec. 10 "Imus in the Morning" program to discuss the President's European trip with stops in Oslo and Copenhagen, said the religious conviction is evident in the way climate change alarmists treat those who challenge the theory.

"The President's going to Copenhagen - so he's flying all over the world leaving a Sasquatch-like carbon footprint," host Don Imus said. "So what's that all about?"

ClimateGate 'An Inconvenient Scandal' Which 'Threatens to Crumble' Global Warming Consensus
By Brent Baker | December 10, 2009 | 12:41 AM EST
ABC and CBS discounted the scientific relevance of the admissions and obfuscations displayed in the ClimateGate e-mails, but on Wednesday night they finally devoted full stories to the controversy and quoted the “most-damning” of the e-mails, the ones referring to a “trick” to “hide the decline” in a temperature measurement and in which a scientist fretted “we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment, and it is a travesty that we can't.”

The two networks, however, painted the “stolen” e-mails not as laudatory whistle-blowing, but as an unwanted impediment to the left's global warming agenda. “Just as the world seems finally poised to do something about global warming, an inconvenient scandal,” ABC's David Wright began in playing off the title of Al Gore's movie. He despaired that “as the controversy heats up, the consensus about making the tough choices to curb carbon emissions threatens to crumble.”

On CBS, Wyatt Andrews relayed how “to many Republicans, ClimateGate proves that global warming is a deception,” before he countered: “But if that's true, it's a fraud adopted by most of the world's leading scientists, along with NASA, the U.N., the American Medical Association, and the National Academies of Science of 32 countries, including the United States. To most of them, ClimateGate is a sideshow compared to one overwhelming fact:” Viewers then were treated to this declaration from the scientist with the “hide the decline” boast: “The last decade is the warmest decade on record.”
Al Gore Calls Sarah Palin A 'Global Warming Denier'
By Noel Sheppard | December 9, 2009 | 3:56 PM EST

Nobel Laureate Al Gore Wednesday called former Alaska governor Sarah Palin a "global warming denier."

Speaking with MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell, Gore also repeated his false claim about ClimateGate e-mail messages obtained from Britain's Climatic Research Unit: "the most recent one is like ten years ago."

As Andrew Bolt reported Wednesday at Australia's Herald Sun, the most recent e-mail message obtained from CRU was sent less than a month ago on November 12.

Unfortunately, much like his appearance on CNN earlier in the day, Gore was playing fast and loose with the facts.

Sadly, his MSNBC interviewer was similarly disinterested in challenging the former Vice President about his mistatements, and also never once asked him about his own financial interests in this matter (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript):

Prominent Lefties Tina Brown, Joe Klein in Uproar Over Palin Anti-Copenhagen WaPo Op-Ed
By Jeff Poor | December 9, 2009 | 3:43 PM EST

Sarah Palin isn't getting much of a break these days from anyone on the left end of the political spectrum.

In the Dec. 9 Washington Post, an op-ed appeared by the former Alaska governor, in which she called on President Barack Obama to boycott the current Copenhagen climate summit in the wake of the "Climategate" e-mail leak.

"Without trustworthy science and with so much at stake, Americans should be wary about what comes out of this politicized conference," Palin wrote. "The president should boycott Copenhagen."

The op-ed, specifically that paragraph, drew the ire of some prominent lefties, including The Daily Beast's Editor in Chief Tina Brown and Time magazine political columnist Joe Klein. Brown said Palin's call on Obama to boycott was "grandstanding" without basis on MSNBC's Dec. 9 broadcast of "Morning Joe."

Al Gore Warns of Global Warming Doom Seconds Before CNN Reports 'Monster' Winter Storm
By Noel Sheppard | December 9, 2009 | 11:00 AM EST

Al Gore warned CNN viewers Wednesday about imminent planetary doom at the hands of his favorite bogeyman global warming just seconds before Kiran Chetry reported the "monster storm paralyzing travel in more than a dozen states" with "winter still two weeks away."

On "American Morning" to discuss issues surrounding the United Nations climate change conference taking place in Copenhagen, the former Vice President said, "All the mountain glaciers all over the world are melting, many of them at a greatly accelerated rate, threatening drinking water supplies."

Shortly after this ominous forecast, Chetry told viewers, "Winter still two weeks away, but snow plows are out from the plains to the Northeast. A monster storm paralyzing travel in more than a dozen states."

The Global Warmingist in Chief also downplayed the significance of the growing ClimateGate scandal as e-mail messages "from ten years ago out of context" that "the noise machine of the climate deniers" are blowing "out of proportion" to "fool some people into thinking they have substance" (videos in two parts embedded below the fold courtesy our friends at Story Balloon with full transcript):