Foxy Treatment of Global Warming
by Bill Chameides | December 16th, 2010
posted by Erica Rowell (Editor)
Open letter to Fox News’ Washington managing editor Bill Sammon.
Dear Mr. Sammon:
I read with interest on the Media Matters Web site that last December, while the great Copenhagen climate confab was underway, you issued a directive to your network reporters to “refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question.” According to Media Matters, your orders were e-mailed on December 8, 2009, shortly after a wayward correspondent reported that the World Meteorological Organization had concluded that the 2000–2009 decade was “on track to be the warmest on record.”
‘Fair and Balanced’ Reporting
I imagine that some (such as Salon and Frum Forum, the blog edited by David Frum, “dedicated to the modernization and renewal of the Republican party and the conservative movement”) would accuse you of having a political agenda in issuing your directive. But I’m sure you’d maintain there was another objective: one of providing fair-and-balanced reporting on an important international issue.
After all, it’s factually true that “critics have called into question” theories that the planet is warming. Thank goodness at least one news organization is willing to give voice to the lonely critics of scientific theory (climategate coverage notwithstanding) — I affectionately refer to these brave folks as “refudiaters” and hope you will too.
So I congratulate you on your fair-and-balanced approach to journalism. But perhaps you’ve not gone far enough. Does not a fair-and-balanced approach require giving voice to other brave but heretofore largely ignored refudiaters? In that regard, I humbly suggest other directives for your consideration:
- Alleged moon landing: “Refrain from reporting on the U.S. space program without pointing out that the contention we landed on the moon is based on evidence critics have called into question.” (See here and here.)
- Planet Earth: “Refrain from reporting on the times of sunrise and sunset without pointing out that the contention that Earth is a planet that orbits the sun is based on theories critics have called into question.” (See here.)
- Supposedly round Earth: “Refrain from reporting that the Earth is round or elliptical, as it has been suggested that the Earth is indeed flat and that photographic evidence to the contrary has been called into question.” (See here.)
- Disease: “Refrain from reporting on any form of disease or medical advance without pointing out that the contention that microbes cause disease is based on theories that critics have called into question.” (See here or here.)
- Ice ages: And please don’t forget that the very same directive you issued following the WMO announcement should also be used with any mention of the ice ages, since, as you point out, the fact that “the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period … (has been) called into question.”
You will note, Mr. Sammon, that I’ve confined this list to technical issues. I’m sure your dedication to fair-and-balanced reporting on science also extends to politics. Despite that dedication, I suspect there are sundry directives that would make your political coverage even more fair and balanced. However, that subject has already received much attention (here, here, here, and here) and, being a simple scientist, I will refrain from going there.
But What About the Data?
Finally, Mr. Sammon, while we’re on the subject of whether the “planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period,” I must admit there are aspects of your coverage, or lack thereof, that leave me confused and a bit concerned.
Here’s but one example: the recent report on how scientists have discovered artifacts of Viking ancestors exposed by retreating glaciers in Norway’s Jotunheimen mountains. (See news coverage here and here.)
A search on the Fox News site returned no results on this international news story (could it be that I missed it?). Frankly, I was surprised you wouldn’t have covered it — refudiaters love to cite the Vikings’ settlement of Greenland as a critique of global warming (see here, here and um here). So naturally I thought you’d jump at a Viking-related story.
But you didn’t. Now, here’s the disturbing part. Some of those Norse artifacts are more than 3,000 years old and rapidly decompose when exposed to the elements. So, how could they have survived over thousands of years? One obvious explanation: they were locked up in the ice and therefore protected from the elements.
But if they were just now discovered, doesn’t that suggest they were continuously locked in glacial ice over thousands of years? And doesn’t that suggest that the glacial ice itself has been intact over that same period of time? And doesn’t the fact that that ice is now melting suggest that warming is occurring today and that that current alleged warming is unlike anything that’s occurred in thousands of years? And finally, would that not mean that the refudiaters are wrong in their critique?
A little voice keeps whispering in my ear that the reason you don’t cover stories like this one is that they prove the refudiaters wrong. But if that’s the reason, fair-and-balanced coverage would be out the window, right?
I look forward, Mr. Sammon, to your addressing my concerns with fair-and-balanced reporting that contradicts the refudiaters. It would also be helpful in your directives to ask your correspondents to point out that when it comes to scientific issues, anyone can criticize but critics can just be plain wrong.
filed under: climate change, faculty, global warmingand: Bill Sammon, COP15, Copenhagen, Fox News, ice, ice age, Jotunheimen mountains, media, Media Matters, Norway, refudiate
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Ken Towe wrote: “There are, of course, many other examples of where scientific consensus WAS WRONG.” (Emphasis added.) Of course that’s true. The incorrect scientific conclusions you list, and many others, have been abandoned because new evidence was discovered. This is how science works. How it does not work is to set the best current understanding aside merely because it warns of unpleasant changes in the future, or because acting on that understanding may upset the status quo. Quite a number of people assert that climate change is not happening. If and when valid evidence to support this assertion turns up, concern over climate change will be abandoned as well. But don’t start buying beachfront properties just yet…
“Quite a number of people assert that climate change is not happening.” Chris… Sadly, that’s true, but many who believe that it IS happening, as it has done for billions of years, don’t categorically accept that this time it must be the result of man-made GHGs. Similar changes have taken place in the recent past, clearly not the result of man-made GHGs. You added: “The incorrect scientific conclusions you list…have been abandoned because new evidence was discovered.” OK, but like it was with the age of the Earth, much OLD evidence is being ignored, minimized, or “adjusted”. Read, please, my other post on 12/29 about the negative temperature anomalies. The Norse were pleasantly living in the Arctic when temperatures were LOWER than in 1975? How does that make sense? 77 years ago: J.B. Kincer, Monthly Weather Review, 11/33. Is our climate changing? “â¦other weather features directly related to general temperature conditions were examined such as the occurrence of frost in the fall and spring, the number of days in winter with certain low temperatures, the occurrence of freezing weather in the fall and spring seasons, the length of the winters, as indicated by the first frost in fall and the last in spring, etc. All of these confirm the general statement that we are in the midst of a period of abnormal warmth, which has come on more or less gradually for many years.” Or…J.P. Kohler, MWR, 1938, five years later… âRecent studies indicate that the tendency to higher temperatures which set in about 1900 has been definitely outstanding in the last decade.â
Ken, Sad it is indeed that some who continue to deny a human hand in climate change choose to ignore thermodynamics and continue to make the logical fallacy that if something occurred because of “A” in the past then that same something must be caused by “A” now.
JIM… While I’m waiting for my comment to be posted (sent in on Dec. 21st) I’d like to make a comment on your science by consensus. Please consider this (from internet sources): Peptic Ulcers: “Although stress and spicy foods were once thought to be the main causes of peptic ulcers, doctors now know that the cause of most ulcers is the corkscrew-shaped bacterium Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori).” “At the time, the conventional thinking was that no bacterium can live in the human stomach, as the stomach produced extensive amounts of acid of a strength similar to the acid found in a car battery. In their original paper, Warren and Marshall contended that most stomach ulcers and gastritis were caused by infection by this bacterium and not by stress or spicy food, as had been assumed before.” Be careful what you rely on your physician to know about. It might be what USED to be conventional thinking…what 98% of them USED to say. There are, of course, many other examples of where scientific consensus was wrong. Age of the Earth; continental drift; symbiogenesis. Only have 275 words.
It’s the winter solstice today…almost 2011, with record temperatures and retreating glaciers exposing artifacts. The northern hemisphere temperature anomaly stands near plus 0.6°C. But in 1921, also with record temperatures, with unseen Norwegian pack ice at 81°N, and retreating glaciers exposing soils and moraines, the NH anomaly charts indicate that the temperatures were colder, near minus 0.5°C. Similar climatic evidence but a full degree cooler. Melting glaciers at minus 0.5 and at plus 0.6. When these just now discovered Norse artifacts were being made and used it was obviously also warmer, warmer even than today, or in the 20s. That does not suggest a negative anomaly, but it is there on the charts. Why should the NH anomaly also be minus at that time?
I rather like Sarah Palin’s coining the word “refudiate.” The deniers may not have “refuted” all of the catastrophic claims of the supercilious doyens in the AGW camp, but they certainly have raised enough valid questions to cause the unwashed masses to “repudiate” virtually all of the command and control nostroms favored by the self-anointed holders of the received AGW wisdom. Kudos to Sarah Palin. Travis
Why would you trust Sarah Palin on any matter of scientific concern? Please put your trust in the scientific consensus and the experts, not a pundit. 98% of active climatologists believe in AGW and that it is caused by human activity, by their publications. If 98% of nureosurgeons said you needed a procedure to save your life, and 2% said you didn’t need it, who would to go with?
“Doesn’t this winter’s blizzard on the East Coast mean there is no global warming?” Here’s one question that’s often raised. It is valid in the sense that it’s grammatically well-formed and raises a point that could be true. However, like many of the questions you refer to, it has been raised and answered often enough, in enough places, that anyone who’s paying attention should know not to ask it again. Because the answer is still “No.” And the temperature data on which that answer is based are still easy to find. But of course the game is to raise the same questions over and over, in order to convince “the unwashed masses” that the science is shaky when it isn’t. [P.S. The secret word is "drink." Given the name of this blog, I rather like that coincidence.]