Journalistic Misfeasance

By Alan Caruba

The Gallup Organization has just released the results of a poll that, for the fourth straight year, reveals that the “majority of Americans say they have little or no trust in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly. The 57% who now say this is a record high by one percentage point.”

Those that do express trust in the media (43%) tie a record low. “Nearly half of Americans (48%) say the media are too liberal…Overall, perceptions of bias have remained quite steady over this tumultuous period of change for the media, marked by the growth of cable and Internet news sources.”

A perfect example of the reason for this mistrust is an October 3rd article in The Washington Post by staff writer, Juliet Eilperin. “Threat of global warming sparks U.S. interest in geoengineering.”

There is no threat of global warming. The Earth has been a cooling cycle for a decade.

Unless Washington Post editors and this reporter have been living in complete isolation for a while, it would have been impossible to ignore the fact that we are coming up on a one-year anniversary of the leak of thousands of emails between the handful of scientists responsible for the global warming hoax. These were the men who provided misleading and false data to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The leaked emails led to the complete collapse of last year’s Copenhagen international climate conference.

Why, then, is the reporter referencing global warming as if it had any basis in fact? Perhaps because, on October 6th, in Washington, D.C., the Woodrow Wilson Center will be the site of a presentation by James Roger Fleming, a professor of science, technology and society at Colby College and author of “Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control.”

If, as the Washington Post article suggests, there is an interest in geoengineering, Fleming writes that “Geoengineering is in fact untested and dangerous. We don’t understand it, we can’t test it on smaller than planetary scales, and we don’t have the political capital, wisdom, or will to govern it.”

The key words here are “political capital” as clearly, without it, geoengineering cannot garner the billions equivalent to those squandered on the many scientists who received taxpayer funding for utterly bogus research to demonstrate that everything and anything was caused by global warming.

Ms. Eilperin covers herself nicely by noting that “For years it was considered downright wacky in official Washington to discuss geoengineering; altering the climate by reflecting sunlight back into the sky, sucking carbon dioxide from the air or a host of gee-whiz schemes.”

The reason for this is that it is wacky. That, however, did not deter Secretary of Energy, Dr. Steven Chu, from suggesting that global warming could be deterred by painting roofs and highways white!

The primary method put forth to stop a non-existent global warming is to limit "greenhouse gas emissions", especially carbon dioxide (CO2). Ms. Eilperin cited the fact that the British government will spend $4.5 million over the next three years on geoengineering research, but neglected to mention that the Royal Society just backed off its support for global warming, sending a small shock wave through the international scientific community.

The bad news for Americans is that a Cap-and-Trade bill to control CO2 emissions awaits a Senate vote and, failing that, the EPA intends to exert control.

This article and all the thousands that preceded it, claiming a global warming threat, is nothing more than journalistic misfeasance. It is deceptive. It picks and chooses the information it imparts but neglects to mention that the Earth is cooling, not warming.

Little wonder that the public holds U.S. media in such low esteem. The so-called mainstream media has earned it.

Happily, people seeking to make sense of the news and issues of the day turn to Internet news and opinion sites they do trust.

© Alan Caruba, 2010