CBS NEWS PROMOTES CLIMATE REALISM ON EVENING NEWS
While we thank CBS News for including us in its Earth Day coverage, the clips from the interview they used and their manner of presenting them reveal the network’s continued bias against sound science and economics in the climate change debate. We had hoped for better. Here are some things we think were especially unfair:
- The opening sentence of the feature has a host saying “they call themselves ‘climate realists,’” as though the term were new, made up, or not in general use. It might be new to CBS reporters, but we and other groups and individuals have been using it for many years (see here, here, here, and here) to distinguish our views from “alarmists” who make no secret that they are using rhetoric and even “myths” to frighten the public into adopting their political agenda.
- Reporter Dean Reynolds says The Heartland Institute works out of “this office park” in Arlington Heights, Illinois. The image shown is of our building… we own and fill the entire 13,000 s.f. building with more than 30 staff plus interns, a public meeting space, and research library. We’re proud of our new headquarters.
- Reynolds contrasts Joseph Bast’s views on climate change with “scientists” and is careful to point out that “Bast is not a scientist.” True, and Bast acknowledged that prior to the interview, during the interview, and many times in past interviews. But Bast has co-edited four volumes in the Climate Change Reconsidered series summarizing and citing thousands of peer-reviewed studies on climate change, a series so highly regarded it has been cited more than 100 times in peer-reviewed articles and was translated into Chinese and published by the Chinese Academy of Science. He has been publisher of Environment & Climate News for twenty years. He understands the issue and is qualified to write and speak on it.
- Reynolds, who admitted during the interview that “I don’t know the science,” claims Bast’s views are “dismissed … as propaganda for fossil fuels” by scientific and government entities. In fact, thousands of scientists, possibly most scientists in the world, agree with Bast (see here, here, here, and here). Moreover, most independent conservative and libertarian think tanks in the world have endorsed climate realism. Nearly 100 of them have cosponsored one or more of The Heartland Institute’s conferences on climate change,
Bill Nye Freaks Out On CNN After Scientist Schools Him On Climate Change
…CBS News: An 11-Year-Old Is Suing Trump for His Climate Skepticism – Kid declares: ‘Trump is a climate change denier’
CBS News celebrated an eleven-year-old who is suing President Trump for his climate change skepticism. The kid, Avery McRae, said, “Trump is not doing anything to help stop climate change. He’s a climate change denier, and we’re going to prove that to — to the world.” CBS felt like this was the cutest thing ever — to possibly cost taxpayers oodles of money and perpetuate fake news. The journalist said, “Although their lawsuit may seem leak a long shot, who better to fight for the future than those who will be here to see it?”
CNN criticized on Earth Day for daring to air a climate skeptic
There was a certain melancholy about Earth Day 2017. The decades of failed predictions of doom, those damn frackers giving us cheap gas back, and now the Trump administration cutting regulations. No wonder some of the front men are getting a little testy.
Like Bill Nye, the guy who doesn’t have a science degree. Matthe Balan ofMediaite caught him revealing his inner authoritarian:
TV personality Bill Nye criticized CNN on New Day Saturday for letting a skeptic of man-made climate change participate in a panel discussion.
“I will say, much as I love CNN, you’re doing a disservice by having one climate change skeptic, and not 97 or 98 scientists or engineers concerned about climate change,” Nye contended.
Nye appeared with May Boeve of the green action group 350.org and Princeton University physics professor William Happer, who has downplayed the impact of carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. So despite the two-to-one slant in favor of the environmentalists, the former PBS host wasn’t satisfied.
The message of the American Left has devolved into “shut up!”
CBS Evening News Runs Story on Heartland Institute ‘Climate Realist’ Joe Bast for Earth Day
By Jim Lakely
Earth Day coverage dominated the CBS Evening News on April 22, as one might expect. A glowing report on the March for Science opened the show, and there were three other stories about climate change. What distinguished tonight’s CBS Evening News from every other edition ever aired was the inclusion of a perspective from “climate realists.” The climate realist featured in the video above was Heartland Institute President Joseph Bast. And yes. Joe does actually type that fast. He wasn’t faking it for the B-roll.
The perspective of the journalist from Chicago’s CBS affiliate, Dean Reynolds, is that of an alarmist — and one not all that informed on the science of climate change. At the bottom of this post is Joe Bast’s raw, hour-long interview with Dean Reynolds of CBS News, conducted on April 3, 2017. I apologize for the weird camera angle, but that’s where CBS set it up. You can judge for yourself how fair the report was. The interview was pretty revealing.
For more information on why Heartland, Joe Bast, and many scientists are climate realists, visit the Climate Change Reconsidered site (NIPCC), which contains more than 4,000 pages of peer-reviewed literature that shows humans are not causing a climate crisis. You can also see all the presentations by scientists who do not think humans are causing a climate crisis at the archive page for Heartland’s 12 International Conferences on Climate Change. We also recommend you visit Heartland’s Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy, our Action plan for President Trump, and our page that outlines why Trump should reject the Paris Climate Treaty— including coverage of Heartland’s trip to Paris for COP-21 in December 2015. While you’re at it, subscribe to Heartland’s Climate Change Weekly email, and listen to Heartland’s podcasts on iTunes.
So, yeah. When the CBS Evening News was looking for the leading authority on climate realism, they came to the right place.
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Think Progress Attacks NY Times For Hiring Climate ‘Denier’
By Julia A. Seymour
Climate Progress founding editor Joe Romm is furious with The New York Times for hiring a person he claims is an “extreme climate science denier.”
Romm was referring to Pulitzer Prize winner Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal. His rant on Think Progress against the Times included Holocaust denialism and brought up the KKK.
On April 12, both newspapers announced that Stephens joined the Times as a columnist in part of the newspaper’s efforts to “further widen” the range of views it presents.
In his prior job at the Journal, Stephens criticized global warming “panic” and the religious fervor of environmentalists, wrote about Climategate and funding for alarmist science, among other things. The left-wing Huffington Post admitted that the Times defended Stephens by saying he’s not a “climate denialist.” Stephens told HuffPost he is a “climate agnostic.”…
L A Times article deceptively hides 750 million metric tons of U.S. Greenhouse Gas emission reductions
Guest essay by Larry Hamlin An April 16, 2017 L A Times article entitled “Climate goal in peril” presents a graph which portrays US greenhouse gas emission reductions as falling short of Obama’s voluntary and unenforceable 2015 Paris agreement pledge.
NYT Somehow Ties Trump To Years Of NASA Mismanagement On Climate Data
‘Giving my colleagues and myself heart palpitations’
Source: NYT Somehow Ties Trump To Years Of NASA Mismanagement On Climate Data…
Enviro-Funded Report Ties Exxon Crusade To Largest Oil Spill In History
Climate scientists believe the LA Times is taking a leap of faith
Source: Enviro-Funded Report Ties Exxon Crusade To Largest Oil Spill In History…
Slick Rewrite: L.A. Times Blames Climate Change for 28-Year-Old Oil Spill
By Aly Nielsen | April 6, 2017 | 5:26 PM EDT
The Los Angeles Times has struck once again in a feeble attempt to sink ExxonMobil. This time, rewriting the story of a 28-year-old shipwreck.
The April 6 L.A. Times story, by Columbia Journalism School researchers, used 2,340 words to reject years of court cases and research. Instead, the agenda-driven story blamed the 1989 Exxon Valdez shipwreck and resulting oil spill on climate change.
The anti-Exxon hit piece is part of the Energy and Environmental Reporting Project at Columbia Journalism School, which also produced the 2015 #ExxonKnew campaign. Both reports were published by the L.A. Times and funded by George Soros, The Rockefeller Brothers Fund and The Rockefeller Family Fund. Steve Coll, Dean of the Columbia Journalism School, has been attacking Exxon for years and is tied to at least $1.6 million from Rockefeller foundations. He wrote a book smearing Exxon in 2013 while president of the New America Foundation.…