Wednesday, February 28, 2007

"Nobody Here But Us Objective Media Personages"

Typical MSM behavior can be seen in the following:

Study: 'Tipping point' for climate is near

Declaring there is "no more time for delay," an international panel of scientists urged the world's nations Tuesday to stave off climate-change "catastrophe" by boosting clean-energy research and sharply cutting industrial emissions that fuel global warming.

Otherwise, Earth this century could cross a climate threshold or "tipping point that could lead to intolerable impacts on human well-being," says the 166-page report prepared for the United Nations. It was written by 18 experts in climate, water, marine science, physics and other disciplines, seven of them Americans.

"It is still possible to avoid an unmanageable degree of climate change, but the time for action is now," says panelist John Holdren, a Harvard University professor of environmental policy.

Without action, the panel says, a litany of harmful consequences awaits: the spread of disease, less fresh water, more and worse droughts, more extreme storms and widespread economic damage to farming, fishing and forests. In the USA, which emits about 25% of the world's carbon dioxide, it could mean more intense hurricanes, heat waves, wildfires and droughts.

The two-year study, issued by the U.N. Foundation, says the risk of tipping over that climate threshold rises sharply if Earth's temperature increases 3.6 to 4.5 degrees above what it was in 1750 (it is 1.2 degrees above that point now). That year marked the start of the Industrial Revolution. It led to the widespread burning of coal, oil and other fossil fuels that generate carbon dioxide, the main heat-trapping "greenhouse gas" blamed for global warming.


You will notice that no mention is made of what the "U.N. Foundation" is. Indeed, it is implied that the Foundation is part of the United Nations, and this "report" should be taken on the same level as the IPCC report. That the "U.N. Foundation" is a private advocacy group founded and funded by Ted Turner is somehow not worthy of comment. Given the stinking piles of scorn the media directed at AEI recently for deriving a small portion of their funding from oil companies and the dead silence exhibited here, one might be forgiven for being able to detect a pattern.

Here is the AP take on the same "story" (also via USAToday):

Scientists to U.N.: "Tens of billions" needed to combat global warming

By Charles J. Hanley, AP Special Correspondent

UNITED NATIONS — An international panel of scientists presented the United Nations with a sweeping, detailed plan on Tuesday to combat climate change — a challenge, it said, "to which civilization must rise."

Failure would produce a turbulent 21st century of weather extremes, spreading drought and disease, expanding oceans and displaced coastal populations, it said.

"The increasing numbers of environmental refugees as sea levels rise and storm surges increase will be in the tens of millions," panel co-chair Rosina Bierbaum, a University of Michigan ecologist, told reporters here.

After a two-year study, the 18-member group, representing 11 nations, offered scores of recommendations: from pouring billions more dollars into research and development of cleaner energy sources, to mobilizing U.N. and other agencies to help affected people, to winning political agreement on a global temperature "ceiling."

Their 166-page report, produced at U.N. request and sponsored by the private United Nations Foundation and the Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society, was issued just three weeks after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an authoritative U.N. network of 2,000 scientists, made headlines with its latest assessment of climate science.


I would give the AP kudos for mentioning the fact that the "U.N. Foundation" is a private organization if it wasn't the barest freakin minimum they could do and still call it reportage.

Of course the story behind both of these pieces is the same. They accept as fact the catastrophe scenarios presented by folks who come right out and admit they are looking for extra billions of dollars, even though they are at variance with the IPCC report the press was trumpeting just last week. But, of course, contradicting the IPCC report with a MORE catastrophic vision somehow is OK...you still count as a pure and unsullied scientist. Differ in the other direction, however...well, then you are just an oil company shill.

Think I'm wrong? Point me to a single instance of a MSM story of a person or report counseling less hysteria that has been mentioned without reference to their funding or political persuasion. God knows, when AEI does come out with their papers on the IPCC report(s) they will be greeted by headline like:

Oil Company Funded Papers Try To Cover-Up Global Warming

or

Climate "Experts" Linked to Exxon

"Reporters" in the MSM will have to decide if they want to be journalists or Public Relations Cheerleaders for Al Gore and Co.

You can't be both.

UPDATE:

Of course it doesn't help when "scientists" are caught issuing misleading and false PR campaigns of research findings.

Quick test before you check out the link (here):

Did the Press Release,

A) Hype the Global Warming connection in direct contrast to the study's actual findings,

or

B) Downplay the clear and indisputable Global Warming evidence found in the study

Hmmm.....which one could it be???

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