Global Warming? What Global Warming?
Middle paragraphs from Climate change denials new offensive, by Bill McKibben...
Most of the media pays remarkably little attention to whats happening. Coverage of global warming has dipped 40 percent over the last two years. When, say, theres a rare outbreak of January tornadoes, TV anchors politely discuss extreme weather, but climate change is the disaster that dare not speak its name.
And when they do break their silence, some of our elite organs are happy to indulge in outright denial. Last month, for instance, the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by 16 scientists and engineers headlined No Need to Panic About Global Warming. The article was easily debunked. It was nothing but a mash-up of long-since-disproved arguments by people who turned out mostly not to be climate scientists at all, quoting other scientists who immediately said their actual work showed just the opposite.
Its no secret where this denialism comes from: The fossil fuel industry pays for it. (Of the 16 authors of the Journal article, for instance, five had had ties to Exxon.)Writers from Ross Gelbspan to Naomi Oreskes have made this case with such overwhelming power that no one even really tries denying it any more. The open question is why the industry persists in denial in the face of an endless body of fact showing climate change is the greatest danger weve ever faced.
http://www.salon.com/2012/02/07/climate_change_denials_new_offensive/
I always shake my head in disgust whenever "extreme weather" leads a nightly newscast, with the anchor and meteorologist acting all, "What the heck could be causing this?"