A Common Informer in an Age of Global Warming

I was an environmental journalist once, for about ten years. Now I am what GK Chesterton described as a common informer. I like it that way, better.

If you are a journalist, sooner or later you’re going to be pitching someone else’s story line and it’s no longer about telling the truth as best you can, but rather pushing an agenda and labeling it news. Possibly this is nowhere near more sordid than in the ranks of environmental and science reporters on anthropogenic global warming.

Amid all the fog, the real news story is the one about politicizing science. It's not reported.

The Story Line and the Professional Practice of Propaganda

A recent Associated Press news article on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed rules to cap carbon emissions from coal fired electric power plants is a case in point.

Dina Cappiello, writing for the Associated Press noted while the EPA is proposing regulations to limit greenhouse gas emissions from coal fired power plants will reduce U.S. carbon emission, increases in the amount of U.S. coal exports threaten to negate those gains [Full Text]. Fair enough, it’s an interesting sidebar to the proposed carbon rule.

But here’s where she steps in it: “Carbon dioxide, regardless of where it enters the atmosphere, contributes to the sea level rise and in some cases severe weather in the U.S. and the world.”

That statement of “fact” on sea level rise and severe weather isn’t attributed to anyone. It reflects hypothesis more than scientific fact. Yet, nevertheless, it has become so imbedded in the global warming narrative that it has become immutable.

Thank you Dina, I always like my news generously spiced with propaganda.  

The Brief History of Anthropogenic Global Warming

In telling the truth on this story one has to acknowledge, that according to the United Nations International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), there was no anthropogenic carbon forced warming until 1995, and what there was of it, was iffy at best. It emerged as minor edit to the 1995 science report so that it jived with the Summary for Policy Makers (SPM).

Alec Rawls wrote on the history of the scientific high jacking recently on a Watts Up with That blog. [Full Text]

“It all traces back to the first human-attribution claim in the Summary of the Second Area Report (1995), which ran strongly counter to the scientific report, which was then edited to conform with the politically negotiated Summary. This case was recently discussed here at WUWT by Tim Ball:

An early example of SPM increased alarmism occurred with the 1995 Report. The 1990 Report and the drafted 1995 Science Report said there was no evidence of a human effect. Benjamin Santer, graduate from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) and shortly thereafter lead author of Chapter 8, changed the 1995 SPM for Chapter 8 drafted by his fellow authors that said,

“While some of the pattern-base discussed here have claimed detection of a significant climate change, no study to date has positively attributed all or part of climate change observed to man-made causes.”

to read,

"The body of statistical evidence in chapter 8, when examined in the context of our physical understanding of the climate system, now points to a discernible human influence on the global climate.””

Since the 1995 assessment that “discernible influence on the global climate” has morphed into this. According to the 2013 IPCC’s Summary for Policy Makers (SPM): “It is extremely likely (>95% confidence) that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.” (SPM AR5)

What’s happened between 1990 and now, the scientific discussion over CO₂ forced anthropogenic global warming has become a nasty political debate. [FullText with Video] Once that happens, whoever best spins the mass market news outlets wins. Looking back, Al Gore won that battle in 1992 with his book and movie “Earth in the Balance.” Now AP reporter, Dina Cappiello writes without attribution about carbon forced global sea rise and extreme weather events. It’s a common story line that no longer needs attribution. It’s the “truth” everyone knows because it’s been repeated so often.

And worse once that happens, the researchers understand the research grant dollars, from both government and nongovernment organizations, flow to those proposing to conduct studies supporting the political narrative.

Blowback

Judith Curry, a once prominent climate scientist who has fallen somewhat from grace because she takes exception to the political narrative. According to Alex Rawls, her take on the latest United Nations report goes like this:

“[s]everal key elements of [AR5] point to a weakening of the case for attributing [post-1950] warming of human influences.”

“ She lists:  Lack of warming since 1998 and growing discrepancies with climate model projections; Evidence of decreased climate sensitivity to increases in CO2; Evidence that sea level rise in 1920-1950 is of the same magnitude as in 1993-2012; Increasing Antarctic sea ice extent; and Low confidence in attributing extreme weather events to anthropogenic global warming.

In a recent blog post “Politicizing the IPCC Report" she reviewed a United Kingdom’s House of Commons Energy and Climate Commission’s report on the latest IPCC assessment. [FullText] Two climate “skeptics” on that commission observed that buried in the IPCC’s scientific assessment was this:

“About one third of all the CO2 omitted by mankind since the industrial revolution has been put into the atmosphere since 1997; yet there has been no statistically significant increase in the mean global temperature since then.

“By definition, a period with record emissions but no warming cannot provide evidence that emissions are the dominant cause of warming!”

Curry closes her post concluding:

“In the global debate about climate change and energy policy, science is increasingly becoming a side show, and used when it is convenient to justify a politically desirable policy.  Well, that is politics. I have two concerns:

“1. ‘Using’ climate science in this way has a very unfortunate impact on climate science itself: ‘inconvenient’ questions don’t get asked and inconvenient science doesn’t get funded.

“2. If people are concerned about the adverse impacts of extreme weather events, reducing CO2 emissions are not going to have any impact on policy relevant time scales, even if you accept the IPCC analyses.  Resources expended on energy policy are in direct conflict with reducing vulnerability to extreme events.”

The Economy of a New Era of “Extreme Weather & Rising Seas”

Well: the oceans will rise to flood our coastal cities; the polar caps will melt; the polar bears will become extinct; storms of all sorts will rage; we will all swelter in a sauna like climate; and tropical diseases will become pandemic. With this reasoning the USEPA has proposed to put caps on carbon emissions from coal fired power plants.

EPA’s Big Lie

There is a heavy price we will all pay personally for this in our utility bills. A larger one will come from the regulatory brake imposed on the U.S. economy. In all of that here’s what we’re buying: using the EPA’s carbon calculator, the rule will reduce global warming by about .02C degrees by the turn of the century. [Full Text] (And that’s assuming U.S. hasn’t shipped its coal to Europe and the Fareast to fire new coal burning generating plants.)

But what would I know? I’m no longer a journalist after all. I’m just a “common observer.”