Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Scientists weigh in on flawed AP article

I wrote about this article at length the other day. Nice to see that some REAL scientists are standing up to be counted as critics of all this relentless fear-mongering and propaganda, still occurring in the face of overwhelming scientific and empirical data that dispels the myth of global warming.

Melting ice? Please read the last bits in the article below. Dr. O'Brien makes some excellent scientific points, which alarmists will promptly ignore.

FOXNews.com - Scientists Call AP Report on Global Warming 'Hysteria':

Scientists skeptical of the assertion that climate change is the result of man's activites are criticizing a recent Associated Press report on global warming, calling it "irrational hysteria," "horrifically bad" and "incredibly biased."

They say the report, which was published on Monday, contained sweeping scientific errors and was a one-sided portrayal of a complicated issue.

"If the issues weren't so serious and the ramifications so profound, I would have to laugh at it," said David Deming, a geology professor at the University of Oklahoma who has been critical of media reporting on the climate change issue.

In the article, Obama Left with Little Time to Curb Global Warming, AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein wrote that global warming is "a ticking time bomb that President-elect Barack Obama can't avoid," and that "global warming is accelerating."

Deming, in an interview, took issue with Borenstein's characterization of a problem he says doesn't exist.

"He says global warming is accelerating. Not only is it continuing, it's accelerating, and whether it's continuing that was completely beyond the evidence," Deming told FOXNews.com.

"The mean global temperature, at least as measured by satellite, is now the same as it was in the year 1980. In the last couple of years sea level has stopped rising. Hurricane and cyclone activity in the northern hemisphere is at a 24-year low and sea ice globally is also the same as it was in 1980."

Deming said the article is further evidence of the media's decision to talk about global warming as fact, despite what he says is a lack of evidence.

"Reporters, as I understand reporters, are supposed to report facts,"Deming said. "What he's doing here is he's writing a polemic and reporting it as fact, and that's not right. It's not reporting. It's propaganda.

"This reads like a press release for an environmental advocacy group like Greenpeace. It's not fair and balanced."


***

He took issue with the AP article's assertion that melting Arctic ice will cause global sea levels to rise.

"When the Arctic Ocean ice melts, it never raises sea level because floating ice is floating ice, because it's displacing water," O'Brien said. "When the ice melts, sea level actually goes down.

"I call it a fourth grade science experiment. Take a glass, put some ice in it. Put water in it. Mark level where water is. Let it melt. After the ice melts, the sea level didn't go up in your glass of water. It's called the Archimedes Principle."

He called sea level changes a "major scare tactic used by the global warming people."

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