Bad Science

David Mastio, via RCP:

Next time you read a magazine cover story like the one Time just published ("Be Worried. Be VERY Worried. Polar Ice Caps Are Melting ... More And More Land Is Being Devastated ... Rising Waters Are Drowning Low-Lying Communities... The climate is crashing, and global warming is to blame") you should remember one little fact: U.S. media companies, including Time Warner, donate more to the environmental movement than any other industry. Companies like The New York Times, Gannett, Tribune, ABC, CBS and NBC have donated more than a half-billion worth of ad space since the 1990s to raise money for some of the nation's most extreme environmental groups. And yes, that was billion with a B.....

We know, because the Ad Council tells us so, that "global warming is the most serious environmental issue of our time." The world as we know it is at stake. We also know, because the Ad Council tells us so, that there is "one simple way" to care for the environment - give money to Earth Share.

We also know, that in the short term, there are four kinds of energy society can use that are a) widely available and b) will lower our impact on the global climate: Hydro-electric, wind power, nuclear energy and natural gas.

Yet in every case, the Ad Council is using its vast resources to raise money that makes turning to those sources of power harder, not easier.

So here we have the mainstream media donating free ad space to groups spreading environmental propoganda. And they go beyond this, to writing companion news stories that give credibility to the claims of these groups. Hype sells.

Unfortunately for real scientific progress, hype can also drive public policy and funding, to the point where research and scientists who don't fit the politically correct mold are stifled. Richard Lindzen, WSJ:

But there is a more sinister side to this feeding frenzy. Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis.

Lindzen, an atomospheric science professor at MIT goes on to say that global temperatures have risen slightly, but this is neither cause for alarm nor is it caused by man.

Yet all this alarm gives environmental groups more power to block needed energy exploration and discourages genuine scientific inquiry, driving the cost of energy up for all of us. And stopping energy progress in the US has serious consequences for our national security.

So greet hysterical pronouncements by politicians and popular press stories on science with skepticism. One scientist has made it his career to expose bad science: Don't Dumb Me Down. Too bad he's in the UK, not here, but you can track some of the same kinds of stories in his column called, naturally, Bad Science.