In Wake Of Black Friday Climate Report, Lie After Lie Permitted By TV's Trained Seals . . .

[hatrack]

Assembled by 300 scientists and 13 federal agencies of President Donald Trump’s government, the National Climate Assessment points out the damage a changing climate has already wrought in the country and warns that unless serious action is taken immediately, the economy will be further damaged and additional American lives will be lost. Among the dire economic ramifications: “Annual losses in some economic sectors are projected to reach hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the century — more than the current gross domestic product (GDP) of many U.S. states.”

But many of the talking heads featured on TV over the weekend contradicted not just the report’s findings, but even the well-established, widely agreed upon basics of climate science. The first sentence of the nearly 2,000 page report reads: “Earth’s climate is now changing faster than at any point in the history of modern civilization, primarily as a result of human activities.” Even that was up for debate. NBC’s Meet the Press, for instance, invited Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, to share her opinions on the report on Sunday. (AEI, which is known for sowing doubt about climate change, has received millions of dollars in donations from Exxon Mobil and the Koch Foundation.) “I’m not a scientist,” Pletka said (truthfully), before saying: “We need to … recognize we just had two of the coldest years, biggest drop in global temperatures that we have had since the 1980s, the biggest in the last 100 years. We don’t talk about that because it’s not part of the agenda.”

This is not true. “Of the 10 coldest years on record since 1880 in NOAA's database, none of those occurred after 1913,” said Jonathan Erdman, senior meteorologist at weather.com. "While some regions have had a few cooler years recently," he added, "when considering global temperatures as a whole, the data clearly shows warming has dominated and accelerated since the 1980s."

EDIT

This is unfortunate, as there is no shortage of scientists eager to inform the public on climate change. Climate scientist Michael E. Mann tweeted at Chuck Todd, moderator of Meet the Press, on Sunday, “Why didn't you have one of us on to discuss the report? Many of us are practiced at media & appeared on other national news programs … to provide the authoritative, objective assessment viewers deserve.”

Link to tweet

EDIT

https://weather.com/science/environment/news/2018-11-29-climate-deniers-found-themselves-on-tv

[Canoe52]

1. Billions are going to die while MSM keeps debating the issue.

But anything to help ratings and improve the bottom line.

[NickB79]

2. "I'm not a scientist but....."

Then get the fuck off my show, we're here to discuss science with scientists.

That's the response I'd like to see from every TV commentator every time that line is used.