ClimateGate

CBS and NBC Trumpet UN Predictions About Warmest Decade Since 1850
By Brent Baker | December 9, 2009 | 9:46 AM EST
CBS and NBC on Tuesday nightly eagerly pounced on the latest UN pronouncement about a warming world, without any regard for ClimateGate disclosures about manipulation of past data and without mentioning, as the AP noted, “the United States and Canada experienced cooler conditions than average.” CBS anchor Katie Couric announced: “At the world climate conference in Copenhagen today, scientists said this decade is on track to become the warmest since records were first kept back in 1850.”

NBC anchor Brian Williams touted “a big headline from that climate meeting going on in Copenhagen. The United Nations weather experts reported today this decade is on track to become the warmest since it started keeping records back in 1850. And 2009, they say, could rank among the top five warmest years ever.” He proceeded to set up a piece about Peru: “Anne Thompson shows us a place where they say the climate crisis is right there for all the world to see, in the form of glaciers melting and threatening the supply of fresh water.”
Cartoon: ClimateGate's Deep Throat
By Glenn Foden | December 8, 2009 | 6:36 PM EST
CNN Extensively Covers Viewpoint of Climate Change Skeptics
By Matthew Balan | December 8, 2009 | 2:54 PM EST
Stephen McIntyre, Climate Audit blog; Professor Michael Oppenheimer, Princeton University; & Chris Horner, author, 'Red Hot Lies' | NewsBusters.orgCNN made a real, day-long effort on Monday to address the climate-change debate as a debate, giving skeptics of manmade climate change a series of chances to match the leftist view, especially during its evening programming. CNN is also the only U.S. TV news outlet so far to send an anchor to the Climate Research Unit at the center of the ClimateGate controversy.

International correspondent Phil Black’s interview of Lord Christopher Monckton, a prominent skeptic of the theory of manmade global warming, ran four minutes into the 6 pm Eastern hour. The “passionate skeptic on climate change,” as Black referred to him, traveled to Copenhagen for the UN’s climate change summit, and is one of the few skeptics of the theory of manmade climate change in attendance. The CNN correspondent actually compared belief in the theory to a religion at the beginning of his report: “Copenhagen’s Bella Conference Center has become an international temple for thousands of true believers, people who have no doubt the planet is warming and humankind is to blame. But there are a few people here who do not believe.”
New Panic Hook: 'Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity'
By Brent Baker | December 8, 2009 | 1:21 PM EST
Prepare for more panic talk about the end of the world as Dr. James Hansen, a leading global warming alarmist whose temperature data has come under question, launches a media tour for his new book out this week, 'Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity.'

Hansen is director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City and an adjunct professor at Columbia University's Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences.

One place I know he'll pop up this week is on the Late Show with David Letterman where he's scheduled to appear Thursday night as the second guest after actress Kate Hudson.
Nets Panic: Clock at Zero in 'Life and Death' Effort to Avoid 'Global Catastrophe'
By Brent Baker | December 7, 2009 | 11:59 PM EST
“Facing a clock some say has ticked down to zero, today 192 nations came together to take on a potential global catastrophe,” a dire ABC reporter Bob Woodruff ominously intoned from Copenhagen on Monday’s World News with “Saving the Planet?” on screen.

Those attending the conference on climate change “where an official said today the clock has ticked down to zero and it's time to act,” NBC anchor Brian Williams warned, “say it's so late in the game, so much damage has been done, they fear they can already see how this ends.” Anne Thompson then declared: “This is about life or death -- 192 countries are here in Copenhagen to cut the carbon emissions changing the climate and threatening the very existence of some nations and their people.”

Echoing that theme, CBS’s Mark Phillips stood in water up to his neck and then became completely submerged to illustrate the feared impact of rising sea levels: “The Maldives have become the canary in the global warming coal mine.”

NBC and ABC raised “ClimateGate” in passing – without actually using the term – only to dismiss the revelations. “The man who leads the U.N. panel that blames human activity for climate change said the science is broad and consistent,” Thompson reassured NBC viewers. Woodruff applied the “denier” pejorative as he asserted “climate change deniers say these e-mails are proof humans aren't causing global warming,” but “U.S. officials say the evidence proves otherwise.”

NY Times Public Editor Says ClimateGate Emails 'Not a Three-Alarm Story'
By Clay Waters | December 7, 2009 | 5:59 PM EST

New York Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt took on the controversy over the "ClimateGate" emails leaked from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in Britain: "Stolen E-Mail, Stoking the Climate Debate." The text box: "Some say The Times has played down an important story." Predictably, Hoyt did not agree. Though his Sunday Week in Review column gave critics room to make points, the paper's public editor readily signed on to the possibly corrupted conventional wisdom that the science of global warming is settled and that the emails showing sciences behaving badly, while "a story," is not a "three-alarm story."Never mind that the United Nations relied heavily on CRU's dubious, discredited data, most infamously the famous "hockey stick" graph showing drastically rising modern-day temperatures, to back up its alarmist claims about the dangers of human-caused climate change. Hoyt also ignored evidence that the scientists destroyed their raw data and were actively working to block Freedom of Information requests.

MSNBC: ClimateGate ‘A Controversy That’s Not Really There’
By Kyle Drennen | December 7, 2009 | 4:47 PM EST
Near the end of the 2PM ET hour on MSNBC, anchor Contessa Brewer discussed the ClimateGate scandal only to claim there was no scandal in the emails that seemed to show climate scientists manipulating global warming data: “I mean is someone using differences in semantics to try and play up a controversy that’s not really there?”

Brewer spoke with Politico reporter Erica Lovely about the emails in which scientists referred to a “trick” to conceal evidence that contradicted predicted warming trends. Brewer explained: “...there’s a Penn State scientist Michael Mann....He says the word ‘trick’ doesn’t actually refer to any kind of deception, but to a very well-known accepted data technique.” Lovely saw nothing improper in concealing data: “They wanted to keep it out of some of the international reports that the United Nations would be looking at, you know, just to – to move the global talks forward.”

After Brewer suggested the use of the word “trick” as “just semantics,” Lovely agreed: “Sure....They’ll use language that maybe to us would look like, you know, something fishy is going on. But to them this is just everyday speak.” Lovely again defended their actions: “...they’ve been working so many decades trying to get some traction on the global warming science that they really can’t afford to have much detracting science get out.”
Climate Alarmist Threatens NYT Reporter With 'Big Cutoff'
By Lachlan Markay | December 7, 2009 | 4:16 PM EST
Some climate alarmists are so invested in their beliefs and corresponding policy preferences that even a joke at their expense is grounds for disownment. New York Times reporter Andrew Revkin saw this trend first-hand when he cracked a joke about Copenhagen prostitutes, and was threatened with a "cutoff" by one of the world's leading alarmists.

"My lord. Copenhagen prostitutes push back on warnings about their services & offer free sex for cop15?  http://j.mp/cop15sex". So read a tweet from Revkin, which he published on the Times's Dot Earth blog. The University of Illinois's Michael Schlesinger sent a furious email to Revkin, calling his "unbelievable and unacceptable" joke "gutter reportage."

But an even more serious crime on Revkin's part was his audacity in relaying the words of others that criticize the close relationships between climate scientists and liberal advocacy groups:
CNN's American Morning Leans Towards ClimateGate Deniers
By Matthew Balan | December 7, 2009 | 3:10 PM EST
Peter Demenocal, Columbia University; & Kiran Chetry, CNN Anchor | NewsBusters.orgMonday’s American Morning on CNN covered the ClimateGate scandal extensively, but slanted towards those who deny that the exposed e-mails amount to much. Anchor John Roberts let the interim director of the Climate Research Unit at the center of the controversy give his talking points without question. Out of the four segments on the scandal, two featured skeptics of the theory of manmade climate change.

Roberts, reporting live from the University of East Anglia, home to the CRU, led the 6 am Eastern hour with a preview of the program’s ClimateGate coverage: “I am in Norwich, England at the University of East Anglia and behind me here, this cylindrical building, is the Climatic Research Unit which finds itself at the epicenter of what’s being called ‘ClimateGate.’ Four thousand e-mails and documents were hacked out of the Climatic Research Unit’s server system...Some of those e-mails were looked at by skeptics, and are now being used to cast doubt on all of the science surrounding global warming. Skeptics claiming that some scientists were manipulating data to further their cause.”
Bozell: Nets Cover ClimateGate, But Load Story with Bias
By NB Staff | December 7, 2009 | 1:48 PM EST

<p><img src="/static/2009/12/Did%20Russian%20Secret%20Service%20Leak%20ClimateGate%20E-mail%20Messages.jpg" align="right" border="0" height="180" hspace="3" vspace="3" width="240" />&quot;Well, NBC, ABC and CBS finally got around to reporting on ClimateGate&quot; but it &quot;wasn’t worth the wait,&quot; Media Research Center President and NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell said in a statement today. [Click here <a href="http://mrc.org/press/releases/2009/20091207012943.aspx" target="_blank">for the full press release</a>]</p><p>&quot;NBC and ABC’s reports were so biased, they left their audiences as ill-informed afterwards as they were before.  And CBS came about as close to blacking out their own coverage as possible,&quot; Bozell added, referring to how the network reported the story on a program blacked out in much of the country in favor of college football.</p><p>ABC finally reported on ClimateGate on Sunday.  But they provided no specifics from the reams of emails and data from East Anglia University that caused the scandal, and concluded their report with the flatly incorrect assertion: “The science is solid, according to a vast majority of researchers, with hotter temperatures, melting glaciers, and rising sea level providing the proof.”  <br />

CNN Runs Report on ClimateGate, But Only Includes Guests Who Dispute ClimateGate
By Brad Wilmouth | December 7, 2009 | 1:57 AM EST

On Sunday, during the 6:00 p.m. hour and again during the 7:00 p.m. hour, CNN NewsRoom, hosted by Don Lemon, ran a report by correspondent Mary Snow on ClimateGate -- which was somewhat more balanced than the piece aired on November 25 -- though this report similarly did not quote any of the emails that suggest manipulation of data on global warming by scientists at the UK's University of East Anglia. But both times after Snow's report aired, Lemon followed up by talking with a guest or reporter who disputed the credibility of ClimateGate, without interviewing any global warming skeptics.

After Snow’s report aired during the 6:00 p.m. hour, Howard Gould of Equator International opined that "I don't see any importance" in the emails, and later asserted: "I think people are making a big deal out of nothing. I think it's the climate debunkers that are out there, it's their last ray of hope, and they're trying to cling on to something. But it's really, you know, I think it's a bit of a joke."

ABC and NBC Acknowledge 'ClimateGate,' But Remain Undeterred: 'Science is Solid'
By Brent Baker | December 7, 2009 | 12:23 AM EST

More than two weeks after ClimateGate broke, ABC's World News finally got around to mentioning it on Sunday evening, but not to explore how the e-mails discredited leading scientists who insist mankind is causing global warming as, instead, ABC declared “the science is solid” and NBC assured viewers “the evidence is overwhelming that man is behind climate change.”

ABC reporter Clayton Sandell merely included, in a larger story about the Copenhagen conference, how “global warming naysayers are claiming that e-mails stolen from” East Anglia University “show climate scientists discussing how to fudge results to promote the idea that humans are altering the planet.” After failing to inform viewers of any specifics the e-mails revealed, Sandell, who didn't utter a syllable about them on Sunday's Good Morning America, concluded his World News piece:

The science is solid, according to a vast majority of researchers, with hotter temperatures, melting glaciers, and rising sea level providing the proof.

Over on the NBC Nightly News, following a shoddy Friday night story, Anne Thompson checked in from Copenhagen with a story on “cautious optimism that a political agreement can be reached on reducing carbon dioxide emissions,” before she repeated the usual hysteria about how “the Greenland ice sheet...is melting at an ever faster pace.” Only at the very end did Thompson raise “this scandal called ClimateGate,” offering the most-benign explanation of how “essentially, in those e-mails, some climate scientists seem to be suggesting that perhaps they're massaging the data.” But, she countered in citing the UN's Yvo de Boer:

When you look at the overall science and the fact that science from around the world has been reviewed by scientists around the world -- 2,500 by the UN -- he says the evidence is overwhelming that man is behind climate change.
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