COMMENT ON THE RECENT FOX FOLLY ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING

It began with all the hype of a Hollywood movie trailer. Flickering scenes of smokestacks, trucks and cars whizzing down the highway and dead fish in a stream were overlain with this ominous message: "The earth is sending out a desperate alarm." That's how Fox News began its self-described "special on climate change and global warming." "The Heat Is On" went downhill from there, piling on a steady stream of left-wing activists, Hollywood celebrities, inaccuracies and exaggerations to paint a picture of a global climate apocalypse.

The broadcast showed terrifying images of Hurricane Katrina with a voiceover by reporter Rick Folbaum, who hosted the documentary. "And this past summer, a preview of another threat of global warming," he said ominously. However, a statement on the FoxNews.com Web Site by Folbaum made it clear he didn't even believe that was true. "Did global warming cause Hurricane Katrina? We wanted to know, since we were working on this report at the same time the Gulf Coast was devastated. The answer we got was no," said Folbaum's statement.

Fox News Live's Jamie Colby introduced the special by saying that a Fox poll found "77 percent of Americans believe global warming is happening." She told viewers, "You'll hear primarily from those experts and citizens who believe that global warming is a crisis." Colby added that "Many people disagree with that statement," but none of them was cited in the hour-long documentary. She vowed that "We will continue to investigate the science and hear from others in future Fox programming."

"The Heat is On" was a quite a departure for Fox. A Nov. 8, 2004, Free Market Project (FMP) study found Fox News the best of all five major TV networks in its news stories about global warming and the Kyoto Protocol. FMP analyzed news coverage from Jan. 20, 2001, until Sept. 30, 2004, and found "The Fox News Channel delivered better and more balanced reporting on global warming."

The heat has actually been on Fox News for several days as climate change critics heard about the impending broadcast. According to a Cybercast News Service story by Randy Hall and Marc Morano, Competitive Enterprise Institute senior fellow Chris Horner "is also criticizing Fox News Channel, not only for its decision to air the documentary, but for featuring Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a prominent agenda-driven environmentalist and registered lobbyist for green causes ... as a 'special correspondent' for the show."

Folbaum made it clear on the Web site that he had made up his mind ahead of time: "I've learned this simple fact: the earth is heating up," or as he put it in the broadcast, "Now for the bad news. The heat is on." Folbaum didn't stop there. He talked about assigning blame: "Is this our fault? There are scientists out there who argue that none of this is human-related. But those experts appear to be in the minority." So much so that he left them out of the entire report. However, Folbaum started off his broadcast with this vow: "And here at Fox News Channel, we like to examine the big issues facing Americans: terrorism, crime, health care, just to name a few. Tonight, we make a commitment to shed light, not heat, on one of the biggest issues looming on the horizon."

The only thing Folbaum shed was balance. In all, the "Fair & Balanced" network included nearly 30 people in the broadcast and nearly all were strong believers in climate change. The only other people represented were a few environmentally friendly speakers who took no public position on the issue. Folbaum went so far as to describe the U.N.-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as the place "where policy makers turn for the last word on global warming." What he left out is that the only policy makers who do that are the ones with a global warming agenda.

The Realities of Global Warming:

There are three major issues involving climate change: 1) Is it happening?; 2) If so, who is to blame?; and 3) What might we do about it? The Fox special left no doubt about the first two. Yes, Folbaum said it is happening, although scientists dispute how much warming has really occurred. The Fox report claimed the earth has warmed two degrees in the last hundred years. Many other scientists claim the change is just one degree, and there are strong questions about the accuracy of the measurements.

In answer to the second question, Folbaum was quick to let the Sierra Club place blame on corporate America. "So who is to blame for global warming?" he asked and then let Dan Becker, the club's Global Warming and Energy Program director, answer. According to Becker, industry was clearly at fault and he was trying to stop "corporate polluters claiming to solve the problem."

The special was light on what really could be done about climate change. While it included some possible choices including ethanol, bio-diesel and hydrogen energy sources, it also undermined those options. "While ethanol has plenty of fans already, environmentalists argue ethanol production and even corn farming is very polluting," said Folbaum. He went on to point out other problems with various alternatives, including the million-dollar cost for a hydrogen-powered car.

A Hollywood Production:

The Fox program was a quintessential Hollywood production - complete with celebrities from Alan Alda to NASCAR driver Paul Dana and filled with songs from "The Electric Slide" to the theme from the cartoon "Speed Racer." It wouldn't be a climate change report without clips from the left-wing propaganda film "The Day After Tomorrow," and this broadcast was no exception. Not only did Folbaum use clips from the movie, he interviewed Jeffrey Nachmanoff, a "co-screenwriter" of the movie. Folbaum even included the major life changes Nachmanoff was making to stop climate change. "I changed out light bulbs in my house to make them high-efficiency light bulbs," explained the screenwriter.

Much of the broadcast focused on the efforts of Laurie David, the wife of TV writer/actor Larry David, the creator of "Seinfeld." The November edition of Outside magazine claimed she had managed to convince Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes to do the special. David had been on Fox's "On the Record" where she admitted "I'm not a scientist." That didn't matter for a program that made its point with numerous scary scenarios that included sharks, numerous horrific diseases, widespread floods and "death and destruction" as one graduate student Folbaum interviewed put it.

Some Errors That Slipped Into the Broadcast:

In addition to the one-sided propaganda of the Fox broadcast, there were several factual errors:

* Folbaum claimed that "Eight years ago, the Kyoto Protocol was pushed as a solution. The agreement required the U.S. to cut emissions by 7 percent" by 2012. That is incorrect. The U.S. received the strongest sanction and was required to cut emissions 7 percent below 1990 levels - nearly 20 percent below 2004 estimates.

* He quoted former President Bill Clinton advocating for Kyoto. "But the Bush White House said Kyoto would cost companies and the American taxpayers too much money," he added. Actually, the massive cost and job loss figures for Kyoto don't come from the Bush White House. They come from the government's Energy Information Administration and were calculated during the Clinton administration. According to EIA, Kyoto would cost the United States between $225 billion to more than $400 billion per year. The agency also predicted signing the treaty would cause widespread employment loss nationwide ranging from 1.1 million to 4.9 million jobs. And it wasn't only the Bush White House that rejected the treaty, either - that was a 95-0 Senate vote.

* The report quoted Michael Oppenheimer of Princeton University, who claimed, "It's become too late for the U.S. to realistically meet its Kyoto goals." Since the U.S. never signed on to the treaty, that is irrelevant. But what the report left out is that other nations won't meet Kyoto goals, either. For example, even the Sierra Club of Canada admitted in its 2004 report card that Canada "has made little progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions." Aftenposten reported in September that Norway's "greenhouse gases" had actually increased.

Source






ECO-WARRIORS TARGET BLAIR: COAL DUMPED OUTSIDE DOWNING STEET

The usual exhibitionists and self-promoters at work

Greenpeace activists blockaded three entrances to Downing Street with several tonnes of coal in protest at what they see as the Prime Minister's failure to tackle global warming. The protesters simultaneously dumped sacks of the polluting fuel across the Horse Guards Road entrance, the King Charles Street entrance and the access point of Horse Guards Parade.

The campaigners informed police what they were about to do before a truck emblazoned with the slogan "Blair - Climate Failure" tipped the mounds of coal in front of the gates to Tony Blair's residence. Another tipper truck destined for the Whitehall entrance, with 14 tonnes on board and the slogan "Things can only get wetter", was stopped by police.

Greenpeace claim Mr Blair is "rowing back" on his commitment to the Kyoto Protocol - the international and legally binding agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. The environmental campaign group also claims that, in a series of statements in recent weeks, the Prime Minister has appeared to cast doubt on his long-term support for the global agreement and they are unhappy that carbon dioxide emissions have risen since Labour came to power.

Stephen Tindale, a former environment adviser to Labour and now the executive director of Greenpeace, said: "We've blockaded Downing Street with coal because Tony Blair has failed on climate change. "We hope he clears his diary and spends the day in his office working to strengthen Kyoto and cut British emissions, because so far all he's done is make speeches. "They told us things can only get better, but Blair's burning more coal than ever, our CO2 emissions have gone up, he's set to miss his own global warming targets and now it seems he's trying to kill off the Kyoto Protocol."

Greenpeace is preparing to publish a dossier detailing what it considers to be Mr Blair's failures on the issue of climate change. The group points to the rise in CO2 emissions since Mr Blair became Prime Minister, the failure to stem the flow of wasted energy from Britain's buildings and the growth in the use of cars.

Source




GLOBAL WARMING AND RISE IN SEA-LEVEL LINKED TO OBESITY

British scientists have confirmed that recent rises in UK temperatures and sea levels are directly linked to the obesity rate and not to pollution levels as was originally thought.

Doctor Greg Mullet of the British Medical Association, said: "The BMA has carried out its most extensive research effort ever over the past couple of days. We have identified that the rise in UK temperatures is due to the increased calorie intake of some of our population, equivalent to an additional 29.597 billion Giga-Joules of heat energy, and that the 'perceived rise' in sea levels around the UK is simply due to the fact that the UK is sinking with the increased weight of its population".

"We can also back these findings with archaeological evidence that shows this has happened before. Not many people are aware that around 600 years ago, next to the Isle of Wight, was the 'Isle of Left' whose major exports were chocolate and sponge cakes. This island sank without trace around the year 1376 with no survivors - as all the boats sank when the population tried to leave."

The BMA report also highlights links to the number of motorway repairs, cracks in pavements, and the reduction in the number of carriages that can now be pulled by the average British locomotive. The report also identifies that a minor tsunami on Blackpool beach earlier this year was caused by two members of the Mullet family, on holiday from Sheffield, entering the water at the same time.

Professor Douglas Ramsbottom of the global research organisation 'Scientists for Lowering Obesity' (SLOB) said: "With one in five of the British population officially classed as a 'salad-dodger', we believe at this rate of increase in obesity that the UK will be totally submerged in about fifty years."

According to a Downing Street spokesman: "The government is taking the report seriously and considering a variety of options, including forcibly redistributing some of the population more evenly across the UK, and sending John Prescott as Ambassador to Iran."

Source (Yes. It is a spoof. Hard to tell these days, though)

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

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