I complained last week about cable tv coverage of global warming by inviting know-nothing antis instead of using interviews they had already done with real climate scientists. Looks like others are taking notice.
The Weather Channel collected links.
The Trump administration released a landmark climate report on Black Friday, but instead of becoming Thanksgiving leftovers, the 1,656-page report, a rigorous outline of the present and near-future hazards climate change poses to the U.S., was featured prominently on TV networks over the weekend and into the next week. Much of the coverage, however, included inaccurate, misleading or outright incorrect misinformation.
….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.)
And a lot more.
Yesterday, the New York Times chimed in.
As Steven J. Milloy, a skeptic of human-caused climate change and a member of the Trump transition team, said, there had been no need “to stop the deep state” from releasing the report when “this is made-up hysteria, anyway.”
Thankfully, cable news came to the rescue by making sure that those who commented on air about a report produced by scientists across 13 federal agencies were trained experts.
No, wait. That’s not what happened.
On CNN, the former senator Rick Santorum disputed the findings with a canard: “A lot of these scientists are driven by the money that they receive,” he said. The network later came under fire when “AC360” had Mr. Santorum on again but canceled a planned interview with an author of the government report, the atmospheric scientist Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech University.
A lot more there too, particularly about red tides in Florida. What is notable is that Jim Rutenberg calls the denialists what they are.
Slow, but progress.
And open thread!
Al Z.
So the “Deep State” now includes career government scientists. Gotcha.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Cheryl, Russian state media apparently called Trump an “unbalanced person” today, and Putin was noticeably cool in Argentina. Do you have any insight into what’s going on here? What does this mean about the state of play between Trump and Russia?
Chris G
So basically, by 2100, this planet is going to look somewhere between Elysium or Mad Max.
Elizabelle
Good for Jim Rutenberg. And the photo of the dead bottlenose dolphin on the beach is heartbreaking.
NY Times also did a big story last week on the silent extinction: all the insects that are no more. They have stepped up and done a wonderful job on climate change, for some years now.
The denialists cannot wish away gravity either. Shame on those who take them seriously or give them airtime for “balance.”
rikyrah
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Vlad hasn’t gotten his payoff.
The sanctions are still there…and, he’s mad.
MattF
Inviting Santorum to comment on the climate change report is like inviting Bozo to comment on Kant’s moral philosophy. WTF CNN?
Cheryl Rofer
@Dorothy A. Winsor: There was quite a string of invective against Trump yesterday on Russian media. I tend not to follow Russian media closely, so I don’t know if that was just one channel (seemed that way) or whom it came from. I just took the fact that puff pieces on Trump seem not to be in fashion.
It’s hard to come up with reliable interpretations of this sort of thing beyond generalities. For a while, Russian media were indeed puffing Trump. But he hasn’t come through on sanction relief, in fact it seems like the rest of the government is running on policies similar to Obama’s, if not more stringent.
It’s easy to spin a story about promises made and broken, and there’s some evidence to support that. We may see more when Michael Flynn is sentenced tomorrow, although I’m not holding my breath. Mueller is holding those cards very close.
It could be just a poke, stronger than on Facebook, to remind Trump of his promises. It’s not a big break. Putin needs Trump – or someone! – to lift those sanctions and stop more, which look likely as a result of the Russian attack on Ukrainian ships.
Putin was clearly put out about having his meeting canceled via Tweet. Who wouldn’t be?
Al Z.
@MattF: In fairness any form of global warming denialism can be described as “Santorum”.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Speaking of ole Vlad and climate change. His destabilizing strategies aren’t helping. There’s more to the world than Russia and he’s not just fucking over his own people or even the rest of humanity; he’s fucking over those that are yet born as well as the planet itself. He’s an arrogant, shortsighted asshole who’s helping to destroy what may be the only intelligent species in the known universe.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Cheryl Rofer: Thanks. That’s useful.
TenguPhule
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
And not only is he endangering the whales, but he’s risking our lives too!
MattF
@Cheryl Rofer: My guess is that there’s a direct cause. Mueller has threatened someone in Putin’s immediate vicinity.
MobiusKlein
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Trust nothing the Russian state media says. It is non-formation.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
That is certainly a curious state of mind were an adult insists on pretending their own faults were done by someone else. Typical it’s something most people outgrow in the teens.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Elizabelle:
Flat Earthers pretend there is no such thing as gravity, we’re in the age of stupid. And here, here on the second part.
The Dangerman
Update from downstairs on Spacex launch today; launch window is 30 minutes starting at 10:32a PST. Weather is great (cargo shorts and flip flops, baby!), wind is fine, maybe a little hazy down towards Vandyland. Typically windows have been like 6 hours and mostly dead of night, but this one is convenient. Looking forward to a good show.
https://www.spacex.com/webcast
tobie
I was kind of curious what proposals major candidates had made to tackle climate change. Not surprisingly I found this summary on Hillary Clinton’s campaign website and this more lengthy assessment of the full proposal on VOX. I hope whoever is put on the Special Committee on Climate Change will look at this. It has the benefit of being much more detailed than the recent proposal for a Green New Deal, which has a lot of stuff about the authority of the Special Committee being proposed but very little when it comes to actual policy measures.
Matt McIrvin
There was a time when the Weather Channel was a major offender. They’ve come around.
Wapiti
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
The US media needs to ask Pence if Trump is having problems. Follow up on this Russian accusation, press-people! (Get Pence on record now that Trump is mentally fit, to prevent Trump’s lawyers from claiming incompetence later, and/or to knee-cap Pence’s future.)
Matt McIrvin
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: Russia is an extractive-industry economy. That’s what much of this is about.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@TenguPhule:
Lol. I’d just like to sit down with Putin and ask him how he can justify acting in such an irresponsible way. That he’s dooming humanity.
Cheryl Rofer
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: Petroleum and arms sales are all that is keeping the Russian economy afloat.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Matt McIrvin:
Sometimes I wonder if we’d all be better off if Gorbachev’s reforms had somehow succeeded and the USSR stuck around in some form.
Mike in DC
@Cheryl Rofer: That explains the ludicrously over the top rhetoric portraying their weapon systems as invincible and unstoppable.
Mandalay
@MattF:
Two things:
– Santorum is paid to be a “senior political commentator” on CNN so they want to get their money’s worth out of him.
– More importantly, they pay Santorum precisely because he is an ignorant fuckwit who will spout nonsense.
CNN still hasn’t really moved on from their dated Crossfire model that Jon Stewart debunked years ago: they want people on a panel arguing, and shouting at each other. Santorum is perfect for that assignment: he provides the gasoline and the spark.
ETA: This is one of the many reasons that CNN’s ratings are in the toilet. Viewers have outgrown their juvenile approach.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Cheryl Rofer:
But is it worth destroying civilization and the planet? None of his efforts at propping Russia up will matter once CC becomes bad enough and wrecks the global economy irrevocably.
TenguPhule
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Putin: “Da, Comrade! What is good for Putin is good for Mother Russia and I am the only one who matters.”
TenguPhule
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
He plans to be safely dead by then.
West of the Rockies
@Al Z.:
Deep State: any and all non-White (or allied POC), non-Evangelical, non-cis-heterosexual, science-believing humans.
Matt McIrvin
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: Putin figures he’ll be dead before it’s too bad for him personally. Probably true if you’re the richest man in the world and own your own country.
Cheryl Rofer
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: To Putin, Russia is all that matters. And global warming is opening up the Arctic seaway, which he plans to charge others for using. He’s not a long-range thinker.
Cheryl Rofer
@Mike in DC: yup
TenguPhule
@Matt McIrvin:
Not to mention almost total control over Russia.
joel hanes
@Al Z.:
can be described as “Santorum”.
Sorry, that term has already been taken to mean “a frothy mix of …”
Better choices would be “Inhofe’s Folly”, or as “The Heartland Institute effect”
TenguPhule
Homeland Security, Commerce, State, Justice and Interior are all facing a possible shutdown come December 7th.
Notably, all of these Departments are ones that Trump does not give a shit about and would gladly see idled.
Friday should be a dump of epic proportions.
Litlebritdifrnt
I would recommend David Attenborough’s recent speech on this. It was factual, heart felt and passionate.
grandpa john
As I have stated many times over.The death of our form of democracy and the descent into becoming another third world country can be laid directly at the feet
of our so called media and its control of who we hear and what we read,it delivers neither truth in what we hear, and is most certainly not unbiased in what we read
Cheryl Rofer
Amir Khalid
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
The USSR was not going to survive in the long term, I think. Liberalisation meant that the political forces pulling it apart would inevitably get stronger. The failure to build Russia up to its potential and to prevent it being looted by the oligarchs make me think that over the next few decades Russia will weaken, instead of growing stronger as Putin thinks he is achieving.
Mandalay
@Cheryl Rofer:
According to this Daily Beast article (caveat emptor!) it was an attack on multiple fronts, and translating the Russian pages the article links to supports that. Some money quotes from the Russian media about Trump:
I don’t know exactly what Trump did, but he has really upset Putin.
MattF
OT. Looks like the hopes that gravitational wave detection will open a new window on the universe are coming true. Also the Astronomy Picture Of the Day has a neat visual simulation of orbiting black holes.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@TenguPhule: @Cheryl Rofer: @Matt McIrvin:
I wish I could drop by the Kremlin and kick that fucker’s head off his shoulders, sending it flying over the Volga.
Huh, wonder what the fallout from a superhuman doing that would be?
Al Z.
@joel hanes: I stand by my comment. ;-)
TenguPhule
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Days of Future Past.
TenguPhule
Stop Helping, Comey.
cmorenc
Who is Jim Rutenberg? Why would anyone familiar with Rick Santorum and would give even a moment’s serious attention to his perspective – listen to the unfamiliar Jim Rutenberg who they’ve never heard of?
The point I’m making is NOT that knowledgeably sensible folks should give Santorum’s arguments any sort of respectable deference out of bothsider-ism – the problem is how to gain traction with folks who aren’t yet knowledgeable by trying to counter Santorum with a purported rebuttal by someone they’re completely unfamiliar with? Or in other words, how to combat the tendency of less knowledgeable folks (many voters particularly) who may be inclined to shrug off a rhetorical clash between a known figure like Santorum who comes across well on TV (even though we can see right through him) and a relatively unknown figure making a more sound, sophisticated, (in other words more complex) case for the science of global warming?
chris
@Cheryl Rofer:
Or he’s really taking the long view. In a +4C world Siberia and Russia will be the new Asia. Millions if not billions of people will be forced to move north sooner than we think. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Di94GbEWwAAUCtO.jpg
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@chris:
You’re making the assumption the Russian state would survive the global chaos that would result from rising temperatures to take advantage. Billions would die and the world as we know it would be over.
cmorenc
@Mandalay:
Among the most repulsive artifacts of the confrontational panel is – during the time when a progressive-leaning member of the panel is speaking, the stock wide-angle camera pan to include showing the RW-leaning member of the panel wearing a shit-eating (or alternatively, a cat about to eat the easy-pickings canary) grin of total disrespect for the speaker. Of course, sometimes CNN does the complementary thing to include a smugly grinning progressive while a RWer is speaking, which is also an irritating gesture, even if the RWer is indeed spouting pure bullshit. (OK, so even worse is talking heads chronically interrupting and incivilly shouting over each other)
CNN is trying to sell viewers the drama of the conflict, not the search for truth and validity.
chris
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: I’m not assuming anything. The only thing we know for sure is that climate change is coming and it will be catastrophic. We have no clue what the end game will be.
trollhattan
Yesterday’s “On the Media” had a sharp interview with Lisa Hymas, “director of the climate and energy program at Media Matters for America, on climate denialism in environmental coverage.” She breaks down how each Sunday new show dealt with the Black Friday report drop and notes that it was the first time in YEARS any of them covered the topic. I need to follow her now, because she’s very invested in keeping tabs of climate coverage and knows the players well.
Dan B
@tobie: As I understand Hillary’s team put together detailed policy perfect for a candidate. The Green New Deal is designed for a political process, to involve a group, the Congress. It’s also designed to issue updates to the media and to reach a conclusion in 2020, during the next election. That’s why It’s a framework. It will no doubt discuss and incorporate much of Hillary’s detailed policy. The task force can then decide if it makes sense to credit Hillary. This would get MSM attention, much of it slanted. No media is bad media unless you don’t have the capacity and trained talking heads to counter the corporate (fossil fuel money) tsunami.
Dan B
@chris: Moving North is a crazed dream. Siberia, and the Canadian far north, will most likely become a melting bog from hell. Permafrost is not designed for rain or for building foundations, or roads, or agriculture. Besides, there will be brutal cold snaps when arctic air, aided by a weakened Jet Stream, makes incursions into southern Siberia. El Nino is causing one in the eastern and middle of North America right now.
The investment opportunity might be in products to deal with SAD for people in the few dry areas.
Dan B
@cmorenc: My friend who is a communication (political) pro believes this is the biggest problem for Dems and progressives. Who are the media skilled climate leaders that are familiar to the American public? Al Gore, Bill McKibben? I asked a number of educated Seattle liberals if they knew of Katharine Hayhoe, Michael Mann, or Bill McKibben. They looked them up… They’d heard of Van Jones and Al Gore. Both of them made their name on their own. The Dems, wealthy progressives, and progressive environmental groups have not invested big money in leaders who are media savvy like the Kochs and Mercers have. It takes years of steady dollars to build solid and pervasive influence.
The difference is that progressives don’t have to deceive do we can make rapid strides … if…. we keep focused and learn to avoid the circular firing squad trap.
Years ago Stephen Schneider, a prof at Stanford with media savvy, persuaded Gov. Schwarzenegger to pass climate change legislation. Schneider helped spearhead the media push. He passed away suddenly but I learned how he was instrumental, and that we can do it again.
chris
@Dan B: I know, I’ve been there. At best, I’m hoping for Lovelock’s projection, a few million people living in sealed high tech environments north of 60. When I see Santorum or Pletka on TV I think Lovelock was an optimist.
Cheryl Rofer
@cmorenc: Jim Rutenberg is the reporter on the NYT article. The only point I was making was that a NYT reporter was starting to get stuff right.
Neldob
Bret Stephens at the nyt is a human caused climate change denier. Makes everything he says suspect. I cancelled my sub for about a year when they hired him.
J R in WV
@TenguPhule:
Homeland Security is probably Trump’s most loved department, they are the ones in charge of tormenting foreign brown people!!
TenguPhule
@J R in WV:
Health and Human Services are the ones in charge of the Concentration Camps.
And for border suppression, why go military-lite when he can order the military to do the job?
andy
I guess she’s not quite an expert, but just uploaded a pretty great video about it a couple days ago. She also had a pretty useful to a page that has refutations to the most common climate denier talking points.
Procopius
That Pletka person stated that we “just had two of the coldest years on record.” Of course she was doing the Gish Gallop, and quite well, too, so no one could break in and ask her what the hell she was talking about, what years was she referring to, but someone should have. We haven’t had any “coldest year on record” since 2000. We had several unusual cold spells that might have been coldest on record for those days, but the years, even just in America, were overall warmer.
andy
I guess she’s not quite an expert, but Contrapoints just uploaded a pretty great video about it a couple days ago. She also had a pretty useful link to a page that has refutations to the most common climate denier talking points.
*Now* the links work!
Chris Johnson
@Procopius: And that’s normal, because climate change is feeding more energy into the chaotic system that is climate.
The range of outliers, of insane weather and unprecedented disaster, is increasing and will continue to increase. Things get less stable. Part of that is increased intensity of ALL things, including cold snaps. It’s most certainly not only increased heat outbursts. The total range covered, expands.
That’s dangerous.