Washington Post Magazine
Scoffs at Global Warming Skeptics
Rival paper Washington Times, meanwhile,
presents views on both sides of vigorous debate on warming and
hurricane strength.
By Ken Shepherd
Business & Media Institute
May 30, 2006
Days before the 2006 hurricane season begins, The
Washington Times noted that scientists are hotly debating the
impact, if any, that global warming has on the strength of tropical
cyclones. Unlike the Times, however,
Joel Achenbach
presented a dismissive look at scientists skeptical of the global
warming link in his May 28 Washington Post magazine article.
This isnt a theory anymore. This is happening now, Achenbach
insisted of global warming. He added that many scientists warn
listening to skeptics could cause inaction that could lead to a
wildly destabilized climate for the first time since the dawn of
human civilization.
The Post writer agreed with those scientists, dismissing skeptics as
inhabiting a parallel Earth where global warming isnt
happening, or that it is happening, but not from human causes and
without catastrophic impact. To knock down critics like the
University of Virginias Pat Michaels, Achenbach set up a government
scientist as a voice of dispassionate reason.
They argue not as scientists but as lawyers, Achenbach quoted
National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
scientist Pieter Tans. Their purpose is to confuse, so that the
public gets the idea that there is a raging scientific debate. There
is no raging scientific debate, Tans scoffed.
But as The Washington Times Tom Carter reported on May 29, other
government scientists including a colleague of Tans at NOAA
strongly disagree about the nature of the global warming debate.
Everyone here is doing science. This debate is confusing for us.
Im sure it is confusing for everyone else, Carter quoted Chris
Landsea, science and operations officer at NOAAs National Hurricane
Center.
Landsea
chalks up intense hurricanes to a natural multi-decade cycle, not
global warming.
Landseas view is similar to Michaels, who in the Oct. 20, 2005,
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
argued that only 10
percent of storm-to-storm variation in intensity is related to sea
surface temperatures. Ninety percent is due to other factors, some
of which are actually less favorable to hurricanes in a warmer
world.
The
Business & Media Institute has previously documented how the
media have treated global warming
science
as settled and beyond debate.
