SENATOR INHOFE & CNN ANCHOR IN HEATED EXCHANGE OVER GLOBAL WARMING COVERAGE

CNN anchor cited fictional Hollywood global warming movie, "The Day After Tomorrow," to defend his science reporting

On CNN American Morning today, Senator James Inhofe, the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee engaged in a heated exchange with CNN newsman Miles O'Brien over CNN's biased and erroneous coverage of global warming. Senator Inhofe questioned the journalistic integrity of CNN anchor for `Scaring A Lot Of People' with hyped climate reporting. Senator Inhofe also questioned O'Brien about his 1992 CNN report regarding fears of a coming ice age. O'Brien responded by citing the 2004 fictional Hollywood global disaster movie "The Day After Tomorrow" to back up his science reporting.

Senator Inhofe demanded equal time following a CNN segment by O'Brien last week that attempted to discredit the Senator 12 times in a several minute long report. Senator Inhofe debunked global warming alarmism and harshly criticized the media's unfounded climate hype last week in two separate Senate floor speeches which can be found here and here.

The Senator accused the media in his speech last week of dismissing "any pretense of balance and objectivity on climate change coverage and instead crossed squarely into global warming advocacy." This despite the fact that there is no scientific "consensus" that humans are causing a climate catastrophe, as a letter sent to the Canadian Prime Minister on April 6 of this year by 60 prominent scientists who question the basis for climate alarmism clearly explained:

The 60 scientists wrote: "`Climate change is real' is a meaningless phrase used repeatedly by activists to convince the public that a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause. Neither of these fears is justified. Global climate changes occur all the time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural `noise.'"

Senator Inhofe criticized CNN for its September 28 segment, (click here to read Senator Inhofe's speech critiquing the CNN segment) noting that O'Brien made multiple erroneous scientific assertions about Antarctica, the state of Arctic polar bears, the `Hockey Stick' temperature graph and attempted to discredit Senator Inhofe because he has accepted money from oil and gas interests.

O'Brien also declared on CNN on February 9 of this year, that scientific skeptics of human caused catastrophic global warming "are bought and paid for by the fossil fuel industry, usually." But when O'Brien interviewed global warming alarmist James Hansen on several different occasions most recently in August 2006, he failed to inform CNN viewers about Hansen's partisan funding from Teresa Heinz Kerry's left-wing Heinz Foundation, or Hansen's subsequent endorsement of John Kerry for President.

O'Brien's 2005 global warming CNN special "Melting Point", also questioned attempted to smear scientific skeptics of global warming as tools of industry. But O'Brien ignored alarmists like Hansen and his obvious ties to environmental special interests and scientists like Michael Oppenheimer -- a paid partisan of the group Environmental Defense and Michael Mann who co-publishes a global warming propaganda blog reportedly set up with the help of an environmental group. When he is asked how much oil and gas money he gets, the Senator responds "Not Enough, -- especially when you consider the millions partisan environmental groups spend." The media never points out that environmental special interests, through their 527s, spent over $19 million compared to the $7 million that Oil and Gas spent through PACs in the 2004 election cycle -- a ratio of 3 to 1.

Excerpt of the Exchange between Senator Inhofe and CNN newsman Miles O'Brien:

INHOFE: I heard your piece [CNN's March 2006 Global Warming Special called `Melting Point'] on that, and you did a very excellent piece. You scared a lot of people when you did your special.....

INHOFE: And I wonder also, Miles, it wasn't long ago -- you've got to keep everyone hysterical all the time. You were the one that said another ice age is coming just 12 years ago.

O'BRIEN: I said that? I didn't say that.

INHOFE: You didn't say that. Let me quote you...

O'BRIEN: No, no, no. I'd be willing to tell you there are stories like that. But there's not...

(CROSSTALK)

INHOFE: ... quote you so I'll be accurate. I don't want to be inaccurate.

O'BRIEN: All right, go ahead.

INHOFE: You said, in talking about a shift that was coming -- you said, "If the Gulf Stream were to shift again, the British Isles could be engulfed in polar ice and Europe's climate could become frigid. [From CNN Transcript titled Scientists Research the Rapidity of the Ice Age dated December 19, 1992.]" That's another scary story.

O'BRIEN: But that also is a potential outgrowth of global warming when you talk about the ocean currents being arrested. This is "The Day After Tomorrow" scenario that we're talking about.

The above is part of a press release from Sen. Inhofe





Cooling Down The Climate Scare

Environment: The country is drowning in wild alarums warning of impending doom due to global warming. Yet there has risen - from the U.S. Senate, of all places - a lone voice of rational dissent. While Al Gore drifts into deeper darkness on the other side of the moon, propelled by such revelations as cigarette smoking is a "significant contributor to global warming," Sen. James Inhofe is becoming a one-man myth-wrecking crew. Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma, took to the Senate floor two days last week to expose the media's role in the global warming hype. This is a man who more than three years ago called the global warming scare "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people" and has made a habit of tweaking the left-leaning environmental lobby.

One member of the media, Miles O'Brien of CNN, responded last week to Inhofe's criticism of the media with a piece criticizing Inhofe and challenging his arguments. If anything, it seems that O'Brien's reply simply motivated Inhofe to continue his effort to undress the media's complicity and bring light to the issue.

We hope so. The "science" on global warming and the media's propaganda campaign need to be picked apart. The assumptions made by gloomy theorists should be revealed for what they are: mere conjecture. The lies and carefully crafted implications, many of them discharged like toxic pollutants by a former vice president, deserve a thorough and lasting deconstruction. What the public needs - and deserves - is a credible voice to counter the sermons from Gore, on whose behalf cigarettes were distributed in 2000 to Milwaukee homeless people who were recruited by campaign volunteers to cast absentee ballots. Inhofe could be that voice.

He's no John the Baptist crying out in the wilderness. What he is, in fact, is a thrice-elected senator, a former member of the House and, before that, a state senator and representative. For those not impressed by a political background - after all, Gore, far out of proportion to his qualifications, rose to the second most powerful position on Earth - consider that Inhofe is an Army veteran and longtime pilot, and has actually worked in the private sector. Unlike most in the Senate, Inhofe is willing to stand on a soapbox and expose his head to his opponents' rhetorical stones. Name another in that august body who would dare label as a hoax the premise that undergirds the day's most trendy pop cult. Is there anyone there who would want to try to stand up to the likes of O'Brien?

O'Brien's biased report is not exactly the type of exposure global warming skeptics hope for, though. The goal, say the skeptics, should be to teach and inform, to provide an alternative to the flood of hyperbole and intentionally misleading thunder that's passed off as settled science.

There are enough scientists to fill a fleet of Humvees who can express scepticism over global warming, despite Gore's claims that the matter has been resolved in favor of his conclusions. But none has the forum a U.S. senator can command. With rare exceptions, scientists can marshal media attention on the climate change issue only by spouting the party line that man-made emissions are causing Earth to warm. That's the sort of stuff the press laps up like a starving dog.

Without the wind of a compliant media at his back, Inhofe nevertheless got his message out to America, primarily through C-Span and the Drudge Report, which linked to his speeches at the Web site of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Among those responding to Inhofe's first speech included a scientist and a meteorologist. Both hold views on global warming that are in line with the senator's - which puts them at odds with the environmental lobby's assertions of "consensus" that have been relentlessly beaten into the masses for more than a decade.

The most important audience, though, is among the Americans who have no links to science. They're the ones who have a lot to learn and will benefit the most from someone who has mass access to the public and is willing to challenge the widely - and often uncritically - accepted claims about climate change.

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Climate hype outstrips climate facts

When gasoline prices hit $3 per gallon, everyone screamed for the government to "do something." The only thing to do to really solve the problem is to increase the supply of domestic petroleum, while continuing to develop affordable alternative energy sources. Both the administration, and the House of Representatives set out to do this by enacting legislation to expand offshore petroleum production, and to open a tiny portion of the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge.

Even before gasoline prices began to fall, environmental organizations, and their Congressional benefactors, took steps to "monkeywrench" the legislation. "Liberal Lamar" Alexander, as the junior Senator from Tennessee is known, introduced a bill that would confiscate $450-million per year for five years from offshore oil revenue, for the Land and Water Conservation Fund. This has become a slush-fund that the feds use to provide grants to states and to environmental organizations to buy up private property, that all too often, gets added to the bloated government land inventory. "Liberal Lamar" has blocked passage of the offshore drilling legislation until his provision is included.

Environmental organizations quickly increased the frequency of their TV ads that show ANWR to be lush, pristine wilderness, full of cuddly animals and beautiful flowers. The ads deliberately mislead, claiming that the ANWR reserves equal only about six months of petroleum usage. They fail to say that this would be true only if there were no other source for energy. In reality, pumping all that the Alaska pipeline could handle, the ANWR supply would last about 30 years. Interestingly, "Liberal Lamar" joined his colleagues, Ted Kennedy and John Kerry, in opposing the development of alternative energy sources, windmills, off the coast of Cape Cod. This could be, according to Washington Watcher, Mike Hardiman, because Lamar also has a summer vacation home in the area.

Almost as if coordinated, when efforts to expand domestic energy production began to gain momentum, the media was awash with reports of "new studies" that forecast doom-and-gloom consequences of global warming. Headlines screamed: " Hottest in a million years." NASA's Jim Hansen headed this most recent study. He is the same Jim Hansen who first announced global warming at a Senate hearing conducted by then-Senator Al Gore. He is the same Jim Hansen whose studies have been funded by the Heinz Foundation, headed by John Kerry's wife, and the same Jim Hansen who endorsed John Kerry for president.

Senator James Inhofe went to the Senate floor and delivered a scathing rebuttal, documenting not only the science that contradicts Hansen's study, but also pointing to the cyclic nature of the media's reporting about global warming and global cooling over the years. Inhofe provides direct quotes from major media that warned of an imminent "Ice Age," in the 1970s. These same media are now proclaiming that the earth is hotter than it's been in 12,000 years, and that by 2050, it will be hotter than it has ever been - one degree hotter than it is today.

Only a few months ago, climate experts were predicting that this year would produce even worse, and more hurricanes than last year - because of global warming. Obviously, they were wrong. These same climate experts are not embarrassed, they just offer forecasts that cannot be proven wrong for 50 years - as their 1970s forecasts about global cooling have proven wrong.

The climate debate is job security for bureaucrats and compliant scientists, a fund-raising source for environmental organizations, and very expensive entertainment for the observers. The reality of here and now requires policies that affect the here and now - not the pipe dreams of people who can't know what the future may hold.

The reality is that the United States government is denying its citizens the use of their own vital resources, namely, petroleum that lies offshore, and in reserves in ANWR and throughout the country. Consequently, the nation is dependent upon the likes of Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Venezeula's Hugo Chavez, to supply its critical energy needs. Billions of U.S. dollars flow to these countries for oil, instead of flowing to Americans. How stupid is this policy? Americans should demand that Congress override "Liberal Lamar," and the rest of the Kennedy- Kerry crowd that has blocked expanded oil production for years. Petroleum fuels the nation's economy; there is plenty of it available in U.S.-controlled territory. It is absolutely ridiculous not to use it, thereby remaining dependent upon our enemies for this vital commodity.

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GLOBAL WARMING: A JOURNALIST BLAMES THE "EXPERTS"

He does not mention that it is only the scary "experts" that journalists listen to most of the time

In a speech from the floor of the U.S. Senate, the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., accused me, my parents, my grandfather and my great-grandfather of peddling hysterical eco-doom. Actually, Inhofe didn't mention me or my family. He just blamed the media for generating centuries of environmental scares. Peddling eco-doom must come naturally to me due to my family's journalism history.

"Since 1895, the media has alternated between global cooling and warming scares during four separate and sometimes overlapping time periods," Inhofe said in a speech he titled "Hot and Cold Media Spin: A Challenge To Journalists Who Cover Global Warming."

Inhofe is hot over global warming reporting, which he describes as alarmist, hysterical, unfair, one-sided and unbalanced. Well, what can I say? Nobody's perfect. From 1895 until the 1930s, Inhofe said the media pedaled a coming ice age. Then it switched to hype global warming until the 1960s. After that, Inhofe said, the media issued dire warnings again about how a coming ice age would wipe out Canada and Europe and cause the world's population to starve. Now, according to Inhofe, the modern global warming scare is the "fourth estate's fourth attempt to promote opposing climate change fears during the last 100 years."

At the very least, Inhofe has to admit we're getting better at it. I clearly remember when the newspaper where I worked and others around the nation ran stories quoting scientists who warned about the threat to the human race due to the coming ice age. It seemed to me at the time that there was a clear consensus that an ice age was coming.

In his speech, Inhofe referred to a Dec. 29, 1974, New York Times article that said climatologists believed "the facts of the present climate change are such that the most optimistic experts would assign near certainty to major crop failure in a decade." According to Inhofe, the article stated that unless government officials reacted to the coming catastrophe, "mass deaths by starvation and probably in anarchy and violence" would result. That article and others referred to global cooling, a condition considered inevitable by many scientists.

In 1933, Inhofe said the Times was reporting record hot spells marking a 25-year increase in temperatures. A decade earlier, there were stories predicting that a large part of Europe and Asia would be wiped out by the coming ice age, Inhofe said in his speech. I could go on. Inhofe certainly did. His speech provided incontrovertible evidence that news reporting of predicted climate catastrophes has flip-flopped back and forth over many decades.

In defense, I quote the poet: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." I also defend my colleagues and ancestors with the reminder that those stories always quoted scientists, climatologists and others who were supposed to be experts. The editorials, columns and opinion pieces written on global cooling or global warming were based on the belief that the experts knew what they were talking about. Perhaps we need better experts. About the same time we were reporting on the coming ice age, we also were quoting experts who predicted mass starvation and disease as a result of overpopulation. I believed it. I heard it so often from experts at the time that I thought it was inevitable. There simply was no way for the planet to support so many people without immediate zero population growth.

Global warming didn't become a moral imperative until the Clinton-Gore administration pushed it into a partisan, liberal-conservative issue. I would like to see a non-partisan study on the subject, but frankly I don't know whom to trust. Maybe I can find an expert to help me.

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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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