‘Nuff said. Or not. On Sunday, The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank was echoing Broder’s work in a column which quoted Romm and Masters, among others. It didn’t add much, but contained a more forceful, albeit campy, declaration that skeptics’ use of the recent snows to refute global warming. The column’s other strong suit was that it held environmentalists equally culpable for using events such as the lack of snow at the Winter Olympics to prove it.
Indeed, no single weather event proves or disproves global warming, but it has become common practice for journalists to write that some storms are “consistent with” with global warming. In the last few days a number of reporters have responded to skeptics’ suggestions that global warming is bunk by pointing out that some scientists think heavy snowstorms could become more common in a warmer world. That is because warm air holds more moisture and it doesn’t need to be very cold to snow.
The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Time, and NPR handled the climate-snowstorms argument fairly responsibility by keeping the discussion theoretical. In other words, they used the recent weather as a reason for bringing it up, but avoided saying that the weather was the result of global warming.
A few opinion pages, on the other hand, got carried away. On Sunday, The Washington Post ran an op-ed by environmental activist Bill McKibben under the ridiculous headline, “Washington’s snowstorms, brought to you by global warming.” The Baltimore Sun was even worse. In a op-ed there, Mike Tidwell, the executive director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, wrote that “the growing pattern of extreme snowfall in our region has the fingerprints of climate change all over it.”
No, it doesn’t. It is currently impossible to tease the climate signal out of short-term, regional weather patterns. To discern humanity’s contribution to climate change, scientists still need decades’ worth of data collected from around the globe. So while it’s worthwhile to examine the current state of scientific opinion related to how climate change will affect storm patterns, reporting that climate change caused the snows in the east, or the lack thereof in Vancouver, is just wrong.
Taking into account all the above considerations, it’s unfortunate that weather events are so often the peg for articles exploring our knowledge about the connections between climate and various types of storms. While weather helps draw attention to climate issues, it also inflames political passions—and, as Milbank put it in his column, “Argument-by-anecdote isn’t working.”
Actually, argument-by-anecdote IS working — for climate change skeptics. It's just not working that well to convince humanity of a central truth: We're like a kid driving a car. We've got the pedal to the metal, but we're just too darn short to see out the windshield, and not wise enough to take our foot off the damn pedal.
#1 Posted by Tom Yulsman, CJR on Tue 16 Feb 2010 at 11:40 PM
Thanks for another level-headed article. The unfortunate influence of politics started with Al Gore, who has done more to discredit science than promote it. There may or may not be AGW - who knows? It's not verifiable - but having a situation where your answer depends on your political persuasion hardly inspires confidence.
Unfortunately my guess is that if we have one or two years of high temperatures we'll go right back to full-throated AGW alarmism. If so, I would appreciate it if you and others recalled this discussion.
#2 Posted by JLD, CJR on Wed 17 Feb 2010 at 08:45 AM
Curtis, "intent"??
We are years into the climate change problem, and the Times' coverage has been dismal compared to what it should have been, and should be, under the circumstances.
I'm not suggesting that there is "intent" to write a misleading or under-par article in this case. Nor am I even suggesting that there is "intent" to offer dismal coverage. At least, I hope there isn't.
But, what's MISSING are the serious intent and warranted paradigm necessary to produce excellent coverage that will truly help the public achieve the public good.
If you are going to take the time to note that the "intent" was certainly good -- I think you did that twice, near the front of your piece -- are you going to question and examine the combination of paradigm-and-intent that is resulting in coverage that is WAY below what is called for? Or, are we going to spend time telling each other that the "intent" was at least good?
The media need to get their acts together on this climate change and energy problem. SERIOUSLY. Is CJR going to do anything more than give gentle commentary as the problem continues?
#3 Posted by Jeff Huggins, CJR on Wed 17 Feb 2010 at 12:09 PM
The intent of all of these stories is to lend false balance to the wildly off course sceptics. It's just reporting the food fight and not the substance.or lack thereof.
Look how many disproved lies get trotted out on these threads ad nauseam. The posters don't know any better and refuse to be convinced so they disrupt any conversation on the subject. Rinse and repeat. It works.
In the sceptical vein, it's been 85 for three days here in LA so I guess warming is back.
#4 Posted by Mark A. York, CJR on Wed 17 Feb 2010 at 12:38 PM
Argument by anecdote worked for the left and the media on global warming for years. The big thing conservatives did here was throw it back in their faces. No global warming is not causing a century of fires, increased prostitution, the Haitian earthquake, Hurricane Katrina et al. But the left has gotten away with all of those claims for years. Now, when they get their faces rubbed in it, they turn around and say blizzards are also global warming.
Is there any reason to believe this kind of hype any more?
#5 Posted by Dan Gainor, CJR on Wed 17 Feb 2010 at 06:25 PM
Dan Gainor wrote: "Is there any reason to believe this kind of hype any more?"
padikiller responds: Having seen environmental regulations on car emissions work wonders on urban American skies (my teenage sons did not know what smog was until we recently traveled to Mexico), I was initially susceptible to the Gorian Prophecy of Doom.
However, as soon as I started digging into the AGW silliness in 2003, it became obvious that there was no factual basis behind any of it.
It is nothing but an absurd, left-wing anticapitalist fairy tale that won't survive the slightest bit of objective scrutiny. The MSM, who aided and abetted its nascence and pubescence, is just now beginning to take notice of its inglorious demise - better late than never, I suppose.
#6 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Wed 17 Feb 2010 at 06:40 PM
I am saddened, and really disturbed, by the vapid, head-in-the sand comments here on the CJR website. These comments are exactly the kind we get here where I live in the Bible belt--a total denial of science. I had assumed the level of debate would be a little higher here. I am disappointed, and more gloomy about our future than ever. What can be done?
#7 Posted by Larry Chamblin, CJR on Wed 17 Feb 2010 at 09:07 PM
"Larry" whined: " What can be done?"
padikiller suggests: How about antidepressants?
Or antipsychotic medication?
Aside from acceptance of reality, I don't see a non-prescription remedy for you.
#8 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Wed 17 Feb 2010 at 09:20 PM
Well cheer up Larry. Most of those vapid, head up the butt comments come from this rural Virginia whackjob, padikiller. He can't have much time to work given the amount of time he has to defend climate winguttery here, so probably a welfare dad bunking in with his girlfriend for the check. Good night Jim Bob.
#9 Posted by Mark A. York, CJR on Wed 17 Feb 2010 at 10:48 PM
Wow, Mark, that was almost as immature as I'd see on an ordinary site.
If you don't like what someone says, he's a "rural Virginia whackjob." And what sort of whackjob are you? Are you the kind of person who might, hypothetically speaking, not even list himself as a journalist first on his blog? Something like: "Fishery biologist, journalist, Historian, Eagle Scout, and novelist."
If you wish to defend the obviously corrupt practices and bad science of the UN IPCC, you need to rethink your position. If business had been guilty of this kind of data manipulation, data destruction, sloppy science and propaganda, the media would be up in arms. As it is, they barely choose to cover it.
#10 Posted by Dan Gainor, CJR on Thu 18 Feb 2010 at 05:09 AM
I'm a supporter of sound science and that's what I report on. Those nutbag deniers are what they are and don't deserve any respect. They've shown, and you have confirmed, time and again that they, and you, don't know shiite from shinola about science. Nothing is corrupt but the criminal smears on legitimate researchers. Show us your credentials if you dare. I predict not, and the temperatures will continue to rise.
#11 Posted by Mark A. York, CJR on Thu 18 Feb 2010 at 04:10 PM
First, the main findings of IPCC over the years, have they been seriously cast in doubt? No….
On balance if you look at all the things the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the body of experts convened by the United Nations to advise governments in responding to global warming] has been doing over the last number of years, they were trying very hard to put in all the peer-reviewed serious stuff. I’ve actually always felt that they were taking a somewhat conservative stand on many issues and for justifiable reasons….
They should be able to say that this is serious science and take a somewhat conservative view. If you look at the climate sceptics, I would have to say honestly, what standard are they being held to? It’s very asymmetric. They get to say anything they want. In the end, the core of science is deeply self checking.
That’s Energy Secretary Steven Chu in his new interview with the Financial Times (regis. req’d).
#12 Posted by Mark A. York, CJR on Thu 18 Feb 2010 at 04:36 PM