Senator Inhofe’s statement concerning Climate Change and the Media

[Guest guest]

On Dec. 6, 2006, at a hearing on " Climate Change and the Media " by

the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works, Senator

James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma made the following statement:

 

--------------------

 

Today's hearing is the fourth global warming hearing I have held as

Committee chairman. We will examine the media's role in presenting

the science of climate change. Poorly conceived policy decisions may

result from the media's over-hyped reporting. Much of the mainstream

media has subverted its role as an objective source of information

on climate change into the role of an advocate. We have seen

examples of this overwhelmingly one sided reporting by " 60 Minutes "

reporter Scott Pelley, ABC News's Bill Blakemore, CNN's Miles

O'Brien, Time Magazine, the Associated Press and Reuters, to name

just a very few outlets.

 

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. Here are just

two examples of believers in man-made global warming who have been

critical of the media.

 

First, Mike Hulme, the Director of the UK based Tyndall Centre for

Climate Change Research -- a group that believes humans are the

driving force of global warming – chastised the media and

environmentalists last month for choosing to use the " language of

fear and terror " to scare the public. Hulme noted that he has found

himself " increasingly chastised " by global warming activists because

his pubic statements " have not satisfied [the activist] thirst for

environmental drama and exaggerated rhetoric. "

 

Second, a report in August 2006 from the UK's Labour-leaning

Institute for Public Policy Research also slammed the media

presentation of climate science as – and I am quoting again here --

" a quasi-religious register of doom, death, judgment, heaven and

hell, using words such as `catastrophe', `chaos' and `havoc.' " The

report also compared the media's coverage of global warming to " the

unreality of Hollywood films. "

 

In addition, former NBC Newsman Tom Brokaw's one sided 2006

Discovery Channel global warming documentary was criticized by a

Bloomberg News TV review that noted " You'll find more dissent at a

North Korean political rally than in this program " because of its

lack of scientific objectivity.

 

The media often fails to distinguish between predictions and what is

actually being observed on the Earth today. We know from an April

23, 2006 article in the New York Times by Andrew Revkin, that " few

scientists agree with the idea that the recent spate of potent

hurricanes, European heat waves, African drought and other weather

extremes are, in essence, our fault (a result of manmade emissions.)

There is more than enough natural variability in nature to mask a

direct connection, [scientists] say. "

 

The New York Times is essentially saying, no recent weather events –

including Hurricane Katrina – is because of man-made global warming.

Yet most of the media fails to understand this fundamental point and

instead focus on global warming computer model projections of the

future as if they were proven fact. This is perhaps the easiest

scientific area for the media to exaggerate and serve as advocates

for alarmism. Climate modelers project all kinds of scary scenarios

of the future and the media then erroneously presents these

scenarios as a scientifically based. But these computer models are

not hard science.

 

Clearly, we cannot today somehow disprove catastrophic predictions

of our climate in the year 2100. But if the observations of what is

happening today are not consistent with what global warming models

predict should occur, than what we do know is that our understanding

of the globe is incomplete. The fact is, the biosphere is extremely

complex and startling discoveries happen every year. This point was

driven home earlier this year when the Journal Nature reported that

trees emit methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Trees are everywhere,

yet we didn't even know this most basic fact about our planet.

 

It is unfortunate that so many are focused on alarmism rather than a

responsible path forward on this issue. If your goal is to limit

emissions, whether of traditional pollution or CO2, the only

effective way to go about it is the use of cleaner, more efficient

technologies that will meet the energy demands of this century and

beyond.

 

The Bush administration's Asia-Pacific Partnership is the right type

of approach – it stresses the sharing of new technology among member

nations including three of the world's top 10 emitters who are

exempt from Kyoto – India, South Korea, and China, which in 2009

will become the world's largest CO2 emitter. What is disappointing

is that the President's program gets more positive press in other

countries than it does here.

 

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.

 

--------------------

 

Tell Senator Inhofe what you think of his statement at:

http://www.congress.org/congressorg/bio/?id=481.

 

Sign a petition to Congress making " Climate Change, Global Warming

and Saving the Planet " this country's top priority at:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/890510358.

 

Find out more about Global Warming and PURPOSE - People United

Rightly Protecting Our Sacred Earth - at these websites:

http://FreedomExpress.net/PURPOSE

CommittedPURPOSE/

http://www.myspace.com/committedpurpose

http://360./committedpurpose

http://astore.amazon.com/freedomexpres-20

http://www.cafepress.com/freedomexpress/2008299