Climate Porn Reporting

Climate porn is saturating the main stream media. Vicki McKenna hosts two guests commenting on yesterdays Hearing on Climate Change and the Media at the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee. Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe continues to assert the importance of differentiating between fact and fiction in the way issues are presented to the public.

Senator James M. Inhofe: There are three types of climate research: first, the hard science of global warming by climate scientists, second, the computer modelers, and finally the researchers who study the impacts. Rather than focus on the hard science of global warming, the media has instead become advocates for hyping scientifically unfounded climate alarmism – and I’m not the only one who believes this.

So the alarmism not just continuing in the media, it’s advancing. They are becoming more desperate because former supporters of their views are now changing their position. Former advocates such as David Bellamy, Britain’s famed environmental campaigner, and Claude Allegre, a French geophysicist and former Socialist Party Leader who is a member of both the French and U.S. Academies of Science. Allegre now says the cause of warming remains unknown and the alarmism “has become a very lucrative business for some people.” In short, their motivation is money. And he’s right… its about money.

The Business and Media Institute is keeping track of the complete and total breakdown of any pretense of journalistic objectivity.

Dan Gainor: Journalists pledged to be neutral, long ago gave up their watchdog role to become lapdogs for one position. The media became alarmist claiming the planet is at a “tipping point” as if at any moment everything would go over the edge. … This goes against the basic tenets of journalism to be skeptical of all sides of an issue. It also violates the ethical code of the Society of Professional Journalists which urges the media to “Support the open exchange of views, even views they find repugnant.” That code calls for reporters to “Distinguish between advocacy and news reporting.”

Personally, I think the ‘objective’ standard of reporting has always been more of an idealized goal rather than a working imperative. Furthermore, I am inclined to believe that as editors brainstorm ways to stay profitable in a rapidly changing media market, the temptation to go emotional has won a complete victory over all other more self restrained business models.

Media Shows Irrational Hysteria on Global Warming: "There is an overwhelming bias today in the media regarding the issue of global warming. In the past two years, this bias has bloomed into an irrational hysteria. Every natural disaster that occurs is now linked with global warming, no matter how tenuous or impossible the connection. As a result, the public has become vastly misinformed."

The full weight of the media wave for climate change inspired political action has not peaked, and it is a pity the resistance to Chicken Little hysteria will be working from the minority position in congress.

UPDATE: Senator James Inhofe makes public A Skeptic's Guide to Debunking Global Warming Alarmism as a 66 page pdf file. The report reflects the findings of his Senate Committee and includes a compellation of research and media sources on the subject of the politically inspired and media assisted false hysteria on the effect of CO2 on the climate. It is time to put a stop to liars, frauds and their media enablers.