Fake News: #ExxonKnew Campaign In LA Times Claims ‘Global Warming’ Caused 1989 Exxon Valdez Spill – Point By Point debunking

How irrelevant and desperate has the #ExxonKnew campaign become? Well, they’re now claiming that global warming caused the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, and that Exxon should have known it would happen. The claims were made in yet another article written by graduate students at the Columbia Journalism School, which was published today in the Los Angeles Times.

The article – fit more for The Onion than the LA Times – claims that ExxonMobil had evidence that the Columbia Glacier was calving due to climate change, but allowed one of its tankers to put itself in the way of the icebergs anyway.

Anyone who has ever followed the story knows that the only ice responsible for the Exxon Valdez spill would be the ice cooling the captain’s many cocktails that night. But for anti-Exxon campaigners, no alternate theories (or should we say alternative facts?) are too outrageous to publish.

For background, this is the LA Times’ latest installment of a series authored by graduate students at the Columbia School of Journalism, who were bankrolled by wealthy anti-fossil fuel foundations such as the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF) and Rockefeller Family Fund (RFF). The school’s dean, Steve Coll, also wrote an anti-Exxon book, Private Empire, while serving as President of the New America Foundation, which – surprise! – is also funded by the Rockefellers.

And yes, this is the same group that was criticized last week by a federal judge who said the Columbia School of Journalism and InsideClimate News (which is also funded by the Rockefellers and wrote its own anti-Exxon series) were “trying to pursue the same climate change policy agendas” as the attorneys general who have launched investigations into ExxonMobil.

Now why would the LA Times, which presumably wants to be seen as an objective news outlet, print such obviously paid-for (and ridiculous) “journalism”?

Perhaps it has to do with money. Recall that the LA Times failed to disclose that the original #ExxonKnew series it published in late 2015 was funded by the Rockefellers. It only did so months after other news outlets discovered the lack of disclosure. Even the Columbia Journalism Review said not disclosing this funding was a mistake, noting “the rollout after publication was botched. While this particular misstep occurred on the most contentious of stories, the question of when and how to disclose funding for such

27 Years later, LA TIMES NOW Blames Exxon Valdez Spill on — Global Warming! & Exxon Knew It!? (Soros funded article)

http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-na-exxon-valdez/
 

The role a melting iceberg played in Exxon’s biggest disaster
By DINO GRANDONI, ASAF SHALEV, MICHAEL PHILLIS, SUSANNE RUST – APRIL 6, 2017

In the wee hours of March 24, 1989, the channel connecting the Alaskan port of Valdez with Prince William Sound was riddled with icebergs shed from the deteriorating Columbia Glacier, a massive river of ice that had begun breaking apart only a few years earlier.
With an inexperienced third mate guiding the massive, oil-laden tanker, the Exxon Valdez swerved out of its designated shipping lane to avoid the ice. It was a standard maneuver carried out hundreds of times before.
But this time, on this night, before the third mate could correct course, the tanker careened into the rocky outcropping of Bligh Reef where it ultimately released roughly 11 million gallons of crude oil into the waters of Prince William Sound.
#

Fake News: #ExxonKnew Campaign Claims ‘Global Warming’ Caused 1989 Exxon Valdez Spill – Point By Point debunking

Enviros Freak Over Trump’s EPA Climate Order, But The Earth Will Not Notice

Take a look at the Clean Power Plan — Obama’s most ambitious climate change effort. Despite the costs of this regulatory monstrosity, the Clean Power Plan would have no discernible impact in global carbon dioxide emissions over the next three decades.

That’s not the conclusion of climate change “deniers.” That’s what the Obama administration’s own Department of Energy said in a report issued in May 2016.

As part of its International Energy Outlook, the Energy Information Administration provided long-term forecasts of energy-related CO2 emissions, comparing global emissions with the Clean Power Plan, and without it.

What it shows is that with the Clean Power Plan, global carbon emissions would still climb 32% in 2012 and 2040, only slightly below what the increase will be without it. (See nearby chart.)

This growth in global emissions, by the way, comes despite continued improvements in decarbonizing economies in both the developed and developing world.

As we noted in this space recently, without any government mandates, energy-related CO2 emissions in the U.S. fell 12.4% from 2007 to 2015. Overall carbon intensity — a measure of how much CO2 it takes to produce a dollar of GDP — declined an average 1.5% a year since 2005.

These gains are due both to the fracking breakthrough, which unleashed massive supplies of lower-carbon natural gas, and the unending pressure the free market puts on businesses to be more efficient.

This same market-driven decarbonizing trend has been happening around the world.

Between 1990 and 2012, the carbon intensity of developed nations dropped by 33%, and by 25% in developing countries. By 2040, the carbon intensity of developed nations will be cut in half, the report projects, and will drop by almost 40% in developed countries, the Energy Department report shows.

Yet overall energy-related CO2 emissions will still climb by 51% in developing countries, and 8% among industrialized nations, from 2012 to 2040 — even with the Paris agreement.

Why? “Increases in output per capita coupled with population growth overwhelm improvements in energy intensity and carbon intensity,” the report explains.

In other words, barring some miracle scientific breakthrough, the only reliable way to cut global carbon emissions would be to depopulate the planet or kill economic growth.…

When climate change warriors can’t keep their stories straight

When climate change warriors can’t keep their stories straight

Mark Twain, author of the now politically incorrect Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, once said, “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.” Good advice, especially for those who play fast and loose with facts and truth. And relevant in the internet age when articles, headlines, words and photos are preserved in perpetuity.

Lies, built upon lies, eventually become so tangled that the truth may be forever lost down the rabbit hole. Rather than starting with the truth, to avoid having to remember the labyrinthine path taken by each additional falsehood.

CNN, the network famously referred to by President Trump as “fake news”, should heed the advice of Mark Twain. Otherwise they are likely to be tripped up over their own contradictory stories, in this case only a few years apart.

In 2015, CNN ran a story with the headline, “Did climate change cause California drought?” Less than two years later, CNN ran this headline, “California’s drought is almost over.” Is the irony of these two headlines lost on the journalistic mavens of CNN? Probably. But the internet remembers, happy to take CNN to task over their contradictions.

Despite the accusatory headline tying the drought to climate change, buried in the article is a report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration arguing that the California drought is not due to climate change. In fact, this region suffered “megadroughts” eons ago, long before humans were driving SUVs and burning coal for electricity.

In other words, the recent California drought is one of many in this arid region. Likely made worse by water supply and demand, rather than climate change. A growing population in Southern California, consuming ever increasing amounts of water. And the cyclical nature of droughts.

Those who only scan headlines, without reading the entire article, only see “California drought” and “climate change” linked together. The few who read the article completely recognize the “fake news” headline for what it is. Much like another recent story in CNN with a similarly misleading headline, “Is there a link between climate change and diabetes?” Buried in the article is the truth that such a link is speculative, an association rather than causation. Regardless of the headline proclamation.

Human activity “may” cause this or “could” cause that. Maybe. Or maybe not.

Chris Wallace goes full warmist: Touts UN ‘guesswork’ as hard science & ‘carbon pollution’ in interview with EPA chief

Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace uncritically cited “guesswork” by UN scientists as some sort of hard science during an interview with EPA chief Scott Pruitt on April 2. Wallace also hyped discredited “hottest year” claims and referred to carbon dioxide, a trace essential gas humans exhale as “carbon pollution.” Wallace also praised China’s emission efforts and implied that EPA regulations and UN agreements would impact climate change. (Full transcript & video here)

Wallace asked Pruitt about his recent statement noting that carbon dioxide was not the control knob of the climate. See: EPA chief says CO2 not primary contributor to ‘global warming’ – Calls UN Climate Treaty ‘a bad deal’ (Note: Pruitt’s statement was scientifically sound and climatologists defended his comments. See:  Climatologist Dr. Judith Curry on EPA chief Pruitt’s CO2 comments: ‘I think these two statements made by Pruitt are absolutely correct’ – Curry: ‘I do not find anything to disagree with in what Pruitt said’)

Wallace claimed: “Mr. Pruitt, there are all kinds of studies that contradict you.” He then cited the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 2013 claim that there it a “95% likely” that “human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.”

Wallace even featured this onscreen graphic to make his question look official:

Apparently absent in Wallace’s show preparation was the fact that the UN IPCC’s “95%” claim is nothing more than guesswork and has no statistical basis whatsoever.

Even Reuters news service recognized this in a 2013 article.  Reuters explained that the UN IPCC’s 95% confidence of human causation of global warming was “based on a discussion among the authors,” not a scientifically sound statistic. 

Reuters essentially exposed that the fact that UN scientists (who are hand-picked by governments to support the IPCC’s political mandate that it seeks to further the human climate change narrative) talked their way to the 95% claim!

“Scientists use a mixture of data and ‘expert judgment’ to decide how likely it is that climate change is man-made and rule out other factors, such as changes in the sun’s output,” Reuters wrote. [Note: Many UN scientists have turned against the organization. See UN Scientists Who Have Turned on the UN IPCC & Man-Made Climate Fears — A Climate Depot Flashback Report]

‘No more scientific a process than a show of hands’

Lord Christopher Monckton, a former …

PANIC: NYT Melts Down Over Trump ‘Denialists’ ‘Risking the Planet’

By Scott Whitlock | March 29, 2017 | 1:50 PM EDT

The New York Times on Wednesday offered a collective freak out, devoting no less than four articles to how the “denialists” in the Trump administration are “risking the planet” by rolling back Barack Obama’s climate regulation. That amounted to almost 4000 words. Jettisoning any pretense of objectivity, the liberal paper included this biased headline: “Climate Change Denialists in Charge.” Writer Coral Davenport warned, “Climate denial starts at the top.”

Calling skeptics “deniers” is the type of loaded term that the New York Times would never throw around when it comes to liberal causes. Are pro-abortion liberals life- deniers? In an op-ed, the paper warned of coming doom: “Only 10 weeks into his presidency, and at great risk to future generations, Donald Trump has ordered the demolition of most of President Barack Obama’s policies to combat climate change by reducing emissions from fossil fuels.”

The paper described it as an “assault” and then shifted to Trump’s “ignorance”:

Perhaps most important, Mr. Trump’s ignorance has stripped America of its hard-won role as a global leader on climate issues.

<<< Please support MRC’s NewsBusters team with a tax-deductible contribution today. >>>

The unsigned editorial moved to “madness”:

Are there ways to avert this madness? Yes. Mr. Trump’s orders will not take effect right away. The E.P.A. will need a year or longer to develop a replacement for the Clean Power Plan.

“Demolition, “assault,” “ignorance,” “madness.” The Times on Wednesday reads like an angry e-mail that someone accidentally sent to the whole office.

But that wasn’t enough, the front page article by Mrs. Davenport and writer Alissa J. Rubin sounded apocalyptic:

President Trump, flanked by company executives and miners, signed a long-promised executive order on Tuesday to nullify President Barack Obama’s climate change efforts and revive the coal industry, effectively ceding American leadership in the international campaign to curb the dangerous heating of the planet.

Tom Friedman was no less worried. The headline for his op-ed sneered, “Trump Is a Chinese agent.” The liberal columnist raged:

Trump took his Make China Great campaign to a new level on Tuesday by rejecting the science on climate change and tossing out all Obama-era plans to shrink our dependence on coal-fired power. Trump also wants to weaken existing mileage requirements for U.S.-made vehicles. Stupid.

NYTimes Claim: The Trump Administration’s War on Science

I fixed the headline (and more) for the New York Times. Below is today’s attack on President Trump’s proposed cuts to the government ‘science’ budget. My comments in blocked-off italics. ### The Trump Administration’s War on Science By The Editorial Board, March 27, 2017 “Think of the marvels we can achieve if we simply set … Continue reading NYTimes Claim: The Trump Administration’s War on Science

Source: NYTimes Claim: The Trump Administration’s War on Science