FINALLY! Climate Alarmists on Defensive; Fox News States ‘Skeptics’ Have Science on Their Side — Jim Lakely

 

Wednesday evening was the second night in a row the new report from the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) was featured on “Special Report with Bret Baier” on the Fox News Channel. It should be noted: Baier’s show destroys its competition on cable news with about 1.7 million viewers each night.

FNC covered the press conference the Heartland Institute and NIPCC held Wednesday morning at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. It informed a fantastic story from Doug McKelway, who said the NIPCC report presents “a torrent of new data… poking very large holes in what the President has called the scientific consensus about global warming.”

Watch it below, and read the transcript below that, which I preserve for posterity. When a reporter on the most-watched nightly news show on cable states the following, it’s worth filing away: “Skeptics believe [alarmist] statements are demonstrably false. They point to observable data, not computer modeling, to prove their point.”

Baier: The earth may, or may not, be heating up. But there’s no debate that the fight over man-made climate change certainly is. Despite repeated proclamations that science comes down on one particular side, it turns out many scientists do not agree. Correspondent Doug McKelway reports tonight on the deepening divide over an issue that is part science and part politics.

[Clip: Barack Obama]: But the debate is settled. Climate Change is a fact.

McKelway: A torrent of new data is poking very large holes in what the president has called the scientific consensus about global warming.

Roger Pilon, Cato Institute: The dirty little secret is that we’re now at 17 years and eight months of no global warming. Their models have failed, year in and year out.

McKelway: Backed by thousands of peer-reviewed papers, a study released today by the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change contrasts starkly with the recently released UN report that finds severe impacts from global warming. The new report finds that warming from greenhouse gases will be so small as to be indiscernible from natural variability. The impact of modestly rising CO2 levels on plants, animals, and humans has been mostly positive. And the costs of trying to limit emissions vastly exceed the benefits. The report may only heighten debate over climate change, where both sides are armed with their own opinions and their own facts.

[Clip: Hillary Clinton]: Climate change is a national security problem, not just an environmental problem.

[Clip: John Kerry]: And all of the predictions of the scientists are not just being met, they are being exceeded.

McKelway: Skeptics believe those statements are demonstrably false. They point to observable data, not computer modeling, to prove their point.

Joseph Bast, President, Heartland Institute: Carbon dioxide has not caused weather to become more extreme. And it is not causing polar ice and sea ice to melt. It’s not causing sea-level rise to accelerate.

McKelway: All of which is leading Congressional doubters to further question EPA regulations.

[Clip: Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)]: The sheer number of proposed rule-makings coupled with cost of compliance with a vast array of regulations already on the books and, what at times are the unreasonable consequences of their enforcement is very, very frustrating.

McKelway: Climate change skeptic Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma introduced leg just last week that would tackle the administration’s regulatory end-run around Congress. It would prevent the EPA from issuing any final rule until it conducts an economic analysis as required under the Clean Air Act.

In scientific circles, data is like the Grim Reaper: It will have the final word … even among those who present computer models as “science.” This is a historic moment in media coverage of the cliamte: The world leader in cable news reversed the dynamic on the professional climate alarmists: Prove it! 

Catch up with the latest media reports, op-eds, podcasts, and videos about the NIPCC reports at ClimateChangeReconsidered.org.

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  1. Valiuth Member
    Valiuth
    @Valiuth

    Who exactly is behind the NIPCC?

    • #1
  2. Eeyore Member
    Eeyore
    @Eeyore

    Valiuth:

    Who exactly is behind the NIPCC?

     Fred Singer, professor emeritus of environmental science [and his puppetmasters, Biiiiiiig Oiiiiil !!!]

    • #2
  3. Eeyore Member
    Eeyore
    @Eeyore

    Like who cares what Faux News says, Man?!?!?

    Like that’s all Koch Brothers financed propaganda!

    • #3
  4. user_566710 Inactive
    user_566710
    @JimLakely

    @Valiuth and @Eeyore, and others:

    NIPCC
    is composed of scores of scientists from around the world who dare to share their data — which happens to differ from the political science of the UN’s IPCC. Those scores of scientists review and critique every NIPCC report.

    Dr. Fred Singer unwittingly birthed NIPCC while conversing with fellow scientists after a climate conference in Italy in 2003. Dr. Singer and others were unimpressed with the science, so they started to apply the scientific method to the IPCC’s reports,

    Their work was then compiled in several 1,000-page volumes starting in 2008, and has continued since. No corporate funds are involved in the publication of the Climate Change Reconsidered series, published by The Heartland Institute. All funds come from three family foundations that have no stake in energy policy.

    So … now that we have the usual ad hominems out of the way, let’s deal with the actual data, not faulty computer models.

    • #4
  5. Valiuth Member
    Valiuth
    @Valiuth

    My question wasn’t accusatory, I was just curious as to who wrote it.

    • #5
  6. Eeyore Member
    Eeyore
    @Eeyore

    Jim Lakely:

     

    So … now that we have the usual ad hominems out of the way, let’s deal with the actual data, not faulty computer models.

     [Man, am I bad at making sure folks can tell when I’m snarkisizing, ‘r what?]

    • #6
  7. Songwriter Inactive
    Songwriter
    @user_19450

    I don’t understand why we need scientists to tell us that the issue of Climate Change is an overblown pack of mumbo-jumbo.  Every citizen of Tennessee knew it was a load of nonsense the moment Al Gore began crying out that the sky is falling.  If Al Gore says it, you can take it to the bank that it is a self-serving lie, self-righteous lie.

    • #7
  8. lesserson Member
    lesserson
    @LesserSonofBarsham

    Songwriter:

    I don’t understand why we need scientists to tell us that the issue of Climate Change is an overblown pack of mumbo-jumbo. Every citizen of Tennessee knew it was a load of nonsense the moment Al Gore began crying out that the sky is falling. If Al Gore says it, you can take it to the bank that it is a self-serving lie, self-righteous lie.

     As a born and bred Tennessean I couldn’t agree more.

    • #8
  9. user_138562 Moderator
    user_138562
    @RandyWeivoda

    The statement from John Kerry is the most confounding.  So if I make a prediction that doesn’t pan out and then make another even more extreme one, the second one proves that my original prediction was righter than I thought?

    • #9
  10. NYC Supporter Inactive
    NYC Supporter
    @RedFishBlueFish

    Question:   Would the support for the global warming/climate change crowd evaporate if the government stopped funding the research, assuming that the funding was replaced by private funding dollar for dollar?

     I think the reason why the debate is so politicized is because the source of the funding is itself political.  Academics that “proved” global warming are professionally invested in perpetuating a (fake) public consensus in order to keep their research funded.  Hillary Clinton then goes out of her way to claim its a national security issue because, well, no better way to make sure the gravy train keeps flowing than linking your work to national security.  Everyone claps and, more importantly, gives more money to candidates who then support more research funding.  This is what makes this different than, say, physics.  We have an environmental movement that in many ways predates the science.  The science hooks into that movement for funding, and then the whole thing becomes self-reinforcing, immune to real scientific debate because of the money at stake.

    Am I being Captain Obvious here or is that not broadly understood?

    • #10
  11. user_435274 Coolidge
    user_435274
    @JohnHanson

    The entire purpose of the IPCC at the UN has very little to do with climate.   Global Warming, later “Climate Change” because any effects were global, crosses nation boundaries.  Thus for the very large majority of small countries who want a lot more “Foreign Aid” from the few “Developed Countries”  read the US, and some of Europe, maybe Japan, Australia and New Zealand, it becomes the excuse of the day to justify one of their main goals, a global tax scheme (Read carbon taxes) that have the effect of transferring resources to them from the minority of developed nations. Catastrophe offers the excuse.  Huge government programs increase centralization of power, and transfer of wealth.  Once in a while some UN bureaucrat admits as much in a public speech.  Many scientists are just rent-seekers under this regime.

    • #11
  12. ParisParamus Inactive
    ParisParamus
    @ParisParamus

    Wait. Science was always on our side.  It’s the media morons who were not.

    • #12
  13. Cutlass Inactive
    Cutlass
    @Cutlass

    I’m as much a climate change skeptic as anyone, but isn’t it a bit hyperbolic to say it’s a “historic day” for media coverage of climate issues because FOX News is giving voice to skeptics? It’ s not as if  true believers are going to be swayed by anything on Fox, nor do they care how many viewers Fox News has.

    • #13
  14. user_566710 Inactive
    user_566710
    @JimLakely

    Yes. My apologies. You can imagine that most comments like that I see are not joking at all.

    • #14
  15. user_385039 Inactive
    user_385039
    @donaldtodd

    Cutlass:

    I’m as much a climate change skeptic as anyone, but isn’t it a bit hyperbolic to say it’s a “historic day” for media coverage of climate issues because FOX News is giving voice to skeptics? It’ s not as if true believers are going to be swayed by anything on Fox, nor do they care how many viewers Fox News has.

    Its the others who might catch the Fox presentation that are important.  One hopes that others see the same newscast we’ve just seen.

     

    • #15
  16. user_428379 Coolidge
    user_428379
    @AlSparks

    Powerline (John Hinderocker, Stecve Hayward) has been saying for some time that the climate change lobby has been running out of gas.  But to say that this view has hit the mainstream because Fox News says it’s so, is a big stretch.  First, is this the first time for Fox News?  I don’t view them enough to say.

    There are a lot of things Fox says which I will agree with, that still don’t make the mainstream.  Remember their high percentages are comparisons between other cable news channels.  The broadcast networks still have much more viewers.  Also remember that entertainment television in general has more viewers than the news.

    • #16
  17. Proud Skeptic Inactive
    Proud Skeptic
    @ProudSkeptic

    I wouldn’t get my hopes up on this one.  The “Warmist Community” has already branded NIPCC and Fred Singer as tools of Big Oil.  I believe Heartland is behind the NIPCC and Heartland has no credibility with climate change believers…even with impartial thinkers. 

    The IPCC, in spite of all of the politics and the corrupting big government money seems to be able to peddle itself as the true purveyor of pure science.  They have a Hell of an edge here in the propaganda department. 

    Impartial opinions are hard to come by in this arena and VERY few of them come from people who really understand the science.

    Like I said…don’t get your hopes up.

    • #17
  18. Proud Skeptic Inactive
    Proud Skeptic
    @ProudSkeptic

    Al Sparks…

    Steve Hayward is a smart guy and knows a fair amount about this topic.  I love reading his articles. 

    That said, I think he is overly optimistic about the climate lobby running out of gas.  There is a major push going on by the climate lobby…whether it is a last gasp or not, we shall see.  IPCC AR5, Working Group 2 draft is out and it sounds like the two different sides are reading completely different documents.

    The 3rd world wants this to be true because it gives them access to OPM.  The scientists love it for the 4.7 billion reasons written on those little green pieces of paper with George Washington on them.  The Democrats love it for the power it could bring and for the smoke screen it can provide to cover their failures in the upcoming election.

    This thing ain’t close to dying.  There is way too much money and power to be had.

    • #18
  19. user_18586 Thatcher
    user_18586
    @DanHanson

    I’m a little uncomfortable with the NIPCC.  First of all, the name itself is misleading – they’re clearly trying to establish themselves as the counterweight to the IPCC by trading on the name.  It implies a similarity in scale and credentials.  But in fact, it’s really a small group of people who are presenting opposing evidence.

    Also, their list of ‘scientists’ includes some actual scientists with serious credentials, but they’ve padded it with a lot of people whose credentials are more suspect, I suppose to give the impression of a wide skeptical consensus in the ‘scientific community’.

    I understand that this is just marketing to some extent, but it gives their opponents easy fodder to attack.    I don’t think anyone in the climate science community is going to take this report seriously.

    • #19
  20. user_7131 Member
    user_7131
    @TommyDeSeno

    I should win a Nobel Prize.  I’ve been asking Anthropogenic Global Warming enthusiasts for years to tell me how much the average global temperature rose in the 20th century, and whether that rise is within the standard deviation for climate change in all centuries.

    Looks like this report tackles that very issue.

    The only response I get from them is anger and frustration.   You see, my questions are usually asked right after they snobbishly accuse conservatives of not understanding science.

    • #20
  21. Southern Pessimist Member
    Southern Pessimist
    @SouthernPessimist

    At my men’s book club last month we discussed Jonathon Haidt’s  The Righteous Mind which tries to explain the difference between liberal and conservative thinking. We had a good discussion but got bogged down in climate change. The mostly liberal members of the group refused to accept that the science was not settled. I made two points, 1. If the science is settled, why have they started calling global warming climate change and 2. Why do they assume that a warmer planet is a catastrophe? Everything seems to grow better and thrive in a warmer climate. They had no answer but I could tell that they felt like they were talking to a complete idiot.

    • #21
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