It’s always amazing to me that conservatives think creationism should be taught in schools as a legitimate scientific theory (when it’s neither scientific nor a theory) while whining that the science of climate change does not meet their suddenly rigorous standards.

On FOX & Friends, Steve Doocy claimed that the mythical “liberal” media is not telling America the truth about climate change and are purposefully ignoring the Heartland Institute’s global warming skeptics conference being held in New York City. He went on to claim:

We hear a lot about global warming, and that we better do something to fix it or we’re doomed. But is there another side to this story? Many scientists would say yes, but most media outlets, the mainstream media, only cover Al Gore’s earth has a fever perspective. […] In fact, last week we were reporting that this is the worst winter in some parts of America and around the world, and perhaps we should be worried now about global cooling.

The same old lies over and over again. Let’s go over them:

1.    For the millionth time, the weather in a particular place for a single season is not evidence of a trend in the overall climate, which looks at the entire planet over longer periods of time. Because “some parts” of the world are experiencing cold spells does not mean that the whole planet is.
2.    Even though parts of the US (like the West) experienced cooler temps this winter, temps in the Northeast were warmer than average. The National Climatic Data Center reports that temperatures in the US during January were “near average”.

3.    Some (not all) natural disasters can absolutely be interpreted as symptoms of climate change. Example: the huge wildfires the west has experienced over the past few years. While the fires were usually caused by human activity, it was years of drought and warmer conditions which caused a multi-year buildup of tinder-dry fuel that made them so devastating. You can also look at cases of forests that have been killed off by diseases and pests that have been able to migrate to new territories as a result of warmer temps, leaving acres of dead trees just waiting for a spark. In fact, the huge California wildfires have been predicted for years and are consistent with climate change models.
4.    The media actually gives way too much time to climate change skeptics when one considers how few of them there are. If a thousand scientists say climate change is happening and one says it isn’t, does that one denier deserve equal time to the thousand scientists? If ABC does a story about an 80-million-year-old fossil being found, are they obliged to feature a scientist funded by an evangelical church who claims that the earth is only 6,000 years old without presenting any proof? Of course not.
5.    The media has been covering the Heartland Institute conference, including the NY Times.
6.    Climate scientists don’t deny that there are scientists who believe that climate change isn’t happening — just that there aren’t many of them and they haven’t proved their claims. If the deniers can back up their claims, they should submit their findings to science journals and have them peer reviewed. That’s how science works. You can say whatever you want, but until your claims have been published and reviewed by other scientists, your claims don’t carry any weight.
7.    Just because you can round up a few scientists and have a conference about a topic doesn’t mean that your claim has any validity. Does anyone doubt that the KKK could fund a group of scientists who would claim that white people are genetically superior to all other races? Of course. Does the KKK have a vested interest in creating the illusion of scientific validity to their racist claims? Absolutely. The smoking industry was always able to produce scientists who would claim that smoking doesn’t cause cancer, but they were fringe. The Heartland Institute’s conference is sponsored by Exxon, who profit from people continuing to use irresponsible amounts of fossil fuels. In fact, the oil industry is borrowing heavily from the tobacco industry's shameful playbook.

Remember, FOX is the channel who claimed the “liberal” media wasn’t telling you the truth about how great things are going in Iraq, how great the economy is, and what a great job George W Bush is doing.

I could go on, but you get the picture.


h/t Alternet