I have encountered opposition from the right wing that usually consists of them saying that climate changes, so get over it. My retort is that the conversation must focus on what effect an industrialized world has on this climate change. To me, it makes sense that human actions affect the natural world in ways that were unthought-of prior to said human actions.
The conversation once again fits that classic mold.
Fox News’s Eric Bolling of tweeted as the snow was falling on Friday “Hey A Gore…earliest snow in NYC since the Civil War…where’s your global warming now, see?” To borrow some mockery from Jon Stewart, that is like saying it was sunny at noon, but now at 8 p.m. it’s dark so we must be in a global darkening stage.
I am not trying to rally the left into hating on Fox News, they do an adequate job of that on their own. Anybody with any idea of how the world works, even my contingent conservative friends, knows that Fox News is a horrific example of how news media is supposed to work. Without fail on any major political or social issue, Fox shows no regard for journalistic objectivity, which makes their slogans of “Fair and Balanced” and “We report, you decide” so much more of a laughing matter.
But back to the latest transgression, climate change.
Bolling, host of “Follow the Money,” has had a supposed global warming expert on his show. In June, Bolling brought in David Kreutzer. Kreutzer was identified as an unspecified research fellow for the Heritage Foundation. For those of you who do not cringe at the thought of the Heritage Foundation acting as any sort of authority on climate, know that the Heritage Foundation is one of the oldest and most-recognized conservative think tanks in the nation.
Conservative policy centers are not an accurate resource for an unbiased scientific case for anything, let alone an issue as supported by the left and contested by the right as global warming.
If Kreutzer is in fact a scientist, he represents the vast minority who think it is okay to give carte blanche to capitalists’ environmental ventures.
I hope we can all be in agreement, regardless of our respective acknowledgement or denial of global warming, that human actions have an some impact on our environment. That impact seems to be overwhelmingly negative to me, but that is the portion that needs to be debated.
It should be studied by scientists who then present their findings to policy makers. Think tank representatives should not debate these conclusions with media outlets with an agenda.
If Fox really wanted to bring on a scientist who would provide information and entertainment, they need look no further than Richard Muller. Formerly a climate change skeptic, Muller has recently announced his conversion, prompted by findings from his own study. One-quarter of this study, $600,000, was bankrolled by the Charles Koch Foundation. Billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch, themselves global warming skeptics, run an American oil company and also financially back the Tea Party.
Muller, who recently completed his scientific study said, “[Global warming] skeptics raised valid points and everybody should have been a skeptic two years ago … now we have confidence that the temperature rise that had previously been reported had been done without bias.”
Instead, they went with the Heritage Foundation.
Alas, the fight is already lost if we try to fight with Fox News.
