SpacePunk
11/05/09, 08:12 AM
I'm sure most people on this forum have made their minds up about Climate Change.. so I simply want to talk about mainstream news coverage around Climate Change - what they fail to mention in their reports, and why.
"Then there is the problem that global temperatures have actually been falling since 1998: I appreciate there are reasons for that which don't completely undermine the global warming case but when people in countries like Britain don't see much change in their own climate they start to question..."
"There is much coverage of claims that the Arctic is melting...
Very little mention that Antarctica, which counts for 90% of the world's ice, has been cooling for the past three decades."
"And we need to be very wary indeed of events that are clearly stunts: there was much unquestioning coverage of the recent underwater meeting of the Maldives cabinet, meant to highlight the danger to the islands of rising sea levels, caused by global warming.
"Hardly anybody bothered to ask the question: are the seas around the Maldives actually rising? The answer, from the world's greatest authority on the subject, the Commission on Sea Level Change, would seem to be no.
It has visited the Maldives regularly in recent years. Its studies show that sea levels today are about 20 centimetres LOWER than they were in the years below 1970, that the current lower level is stable and there is no sign the islands are about to be submerged."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/dailypolitics/andrewneil/2009/10/apocryphal_some_might_even_say.html
Why does the news media leave these facts out of their coverage? Are they (rightly or wrongly) actively pushing a Climate Change agenda? Or is it simply because 24 hour news is shunning balance and rationalism in favour of shock and awe sensationalist coverage?
"Then there is the problem that global temperatures have actually been falling since 1998: I appreciate there are reasons for that which don't completely undermine the global warming case but when people in countries like Britain don't see much change in their own climate they start to question..."
"There is much coverage of claims that the Arctic is melting...
Very little mention that Antarctica, which counts for 90% of the world's ice, has been cooling for the past three decades."
"And we need to be very wary indeed of events that are clearly stunts: there was much unquestioning coverage of the recent underwater meeting of the Maldives cabinet, meant to highlight the danger to the islands of rising sea levels, caused by global warming.
"Hardly anybody bothered to ask the question: are the seas around the Maldives actually rising? The answer, from the world's greatest authority on the subject, the Commission on Sea Level Change, would seem to be no.
It has visited the Maldives regularly in recent years. Its studies show that sea levels today are about 20 centimetres LOWER than they were in the years below 1970, that the current lower level is stable and there is no sign the islands are about to be submerged."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/dailypolitics/andrewneil/2009/10/apocryphal_some_might_even_say.html
Why does the news media leave these facts out of their coverage? Are they (rightly or wrongly) actively pushing a Climate Change agenda? Or is it simply because 24 hour news is shunning balance and rationalism in favour of shock and awe sensationalist coverage?