Fanaticism brought us hacked emails and ClimateGate

You probably know the story by now; about a 1,000 emails and 3,000 documents were leaked or stolen from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in the UK. The contents of these emails sent deniers of man-made climate change into a frenzy. While writing this I found 14 ClimateGate related reports out of the 66 total on NewsBusters and 8 of the 31 reports on Pajamas Media were about ClimateGate. However, I found only one report about the hacked emails on CNN’s website and saw nothing in more than an hour watching CNN during the 5-6:30 p.m. timeframe. I found only one report, dated Saturday, in The New York Times on the hacked emails.

Is this ClimateGate /hacked email story another Van Jones issue for the mainstream media? Are they ignoring reports they don’t like until the blogoshphere forces action? Or is this just “something below impressive scientific and personal behavior,” as Scientific American suggests, that has fueled “Political, not scientific, opponents?”

There are other bloggers better suited to answer that question than I am. I can tell you that I have written several articles about the orange air we have here in Atlanta on hot summer mornings. I can tell you that the CRU emails will not help with efforts to reduce that smog. I can also tell you that this internet media frenzy is like the Van Jones story and the Tea Party/Town Hall story and every other report where mainstream media’s pseudo intellectuals ignore or just don’t see what is occurring in the real world. That ignorant behavior feeds these Internet media frenzies.

James Taranto of Best of the Web Today reminds us of Al Gore’s statement in an interview with Grist, “I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis.” In plain English, the former Vice President and Presidential candidate supports lying in favor of the causes he believes in and supports.

Taranto even manages to turn up a Stanford University professor, Stephen H. Schneider, who explained to Discover that in order to make the world a better place scientists sometimes have to “offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have.”

My favorite, of very recent note, was a NewsWeek crush piece on Al Gore, Evolution of an Eco-Prophet in which we learned that “Gore’s views on climate change are advancing as rapidly as the phenomenon itself.” That’s impartial???

According to the article, “The potential for soils to absorb more of the CO2 that our utilities, factories, and vehicles spew poses a dilemma for Gore, one of two where his scientific and political instincts collide. With better management, soils could sequester much more carbon than they do now. The question is how much more.”

The answer is apparently the dilemma for Gore. “If we feed the biology and manage grasslands appropriately, we could sequester as much carbon as we emit,” says Timothy LaSalle, CEO of the Rodale Institute.”

To many people, me included, this sounds like a great idea that requires immediate investigation. However, that is not the answer Gore wanted. “If you tell people soils can be managed to suck up lots of our carbon emissions, it sounds like a get-out-of-jail-free card, and could decrease what little enthusiasm there is for reducing those emissions—as one of Gore’s assistants told LaSalle in asking him to dial down his estimate. (He didn’t).”

The story goes on to report that Gore does give soil management some of its due but only after the scientist refused to, “dial down his estimate.”

Folks, if you didn’t understand before, do you see now why there are legitimate doubts about global warming?

The typical complaint among global warming supporters is that the evil oil, coal, and other moneyed interests, plus Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, Beck, and Boortz, are working to distort the truth and hide the facts about global warming. These evil people are fooling the poor masses into ignoring or outright denying the existence of a global warming crisis. But if you apply critical thought to what is happening, you see that it is in fact the people that are trying to warn the world about global warming and encourage action that are busy distorting the truth and wiping out their credibility.

It is the folks in the mainstream media like The New York Times, CNN, Washington Post, Atlanta Journal Constitution, and the so-called Eco-Prophets and now CRU scientists that are creating the public doubt. Global warming supporters are so fanatical that they are marginalized just like all other fanatics are marginalized, and their issue is marginalized with them. If the folks I have just listed really believe in a global warming crisis than I suggest they jump on this ClimateGate story now and don’t let go. The mainstream media needs to reestablish its credibility before the public will view climate news as credible. The mainstream media needs to run this story as though it deserves the Gate suffix that scandals of the significance of Watergate deserve. The emails present enough bad behavior to warrant serious investigation; either the mainstream media will investigate or the Internet media will. Take your pick.

The mainstream media needs to force the scientific community to police itself and demand legitimacy, because right now, ClimateGate is looking too much like a cover-up Richard Nixon would be proud of.

Tagged as: Al Gore, beck, Boortz, carbon, carbon sequestration, climate, climate change, Climate Research Unit, Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in the UK, climategate, cru, eco-prophet, ecology, global climate change, global warming, gore, green, hacked emails, newsweek, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, soil management, stanford university, Stephen H. Schneider, University of East Anglia, van jones