The 10 Most Ridiculous Things Media Figures Said About Climate Change And The Environment In 2017

Media Matters - Kevin Kalhoefer

Sarah Wasko / Media Matters

1. Breitbart’s James Delingpole claimed 400 new scientific papers show global warming is a myth.
Numerous studies have found near-unanimous scientific agreement on human-caused climate change, with perhaps the most well-known study on the matter finding that 97 percent of scientific papers taking a position on the cause of global warming agree that humans are behind it. And this year, a review of the 3 percent of papers that deny climate change found that they were all flawed. Nonetheless, Breitbart writer Delingpole claimed that 400 scientific papers published this year demonstrated that climate change is a “myth,” basing his article on a post on the denialist blog No Tricks Zone.The fact-checking website Snopes roundly debunked Delingpole’s article, giving it a “False” verdict after speaking with authors of some of the cited papers who said their work was grossly misinterpreted or misrepresented.

2. The Daily Mail claimed government researchers “duped” world leaders with "manipulated global warming data."
Daily Mail reporter David Rose alleged that climate scientists "rushed" to publish an "exaggerated" paper in an attempt to convince leaders to support the Paris agreement and spend billions to fight climate change. Rose, who has written his fair share of climate misinformation for the Mail, based his story on an “exclusive interview” with and a blog post by retired U.S. government scientist John Bates. The error-ridden article quickly made its way around right-wing media in outlets such as The Daily Caller, National Review, and Breitbart, and was even promoted by GOP members of the House science committee, including its chairman Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX). The story’s claims also received “at least 752,300 shares, likes, comments, or other interactions on social media,” according to a Buzzfeed analysis. But the claims in the article were widely discredited by climate scientists, including Bates’ former colleagues and even Bates himself. The errors in the Mail’s article were so significant that the Independent Press Standards Organization (IPSO), an independent media regulator in the U.K., issued a ruling that "the newspaper had failed to take care over the accuracy of the article ... and had then failed to correct ... significantly misleading statements." The Daily Mail was required to publish IPSO's reprimand.

3. Radio host Rush Limbaugh said he was "leery" of hurricane forecasts because they advance a "climate change agenda."
As Hurricane Irma barrelled toward Florida, Limbaugh spun conspiracy theories and told his listeners that hurricane warnings are part of a scheme to benefit retailers, the media, and people like Al Gore who want to "advance this climate change agenda." Notably, Limbaugh didn’t have any skepticism about the danger Irma posed when it came to his own well-being, as he fled from his Florida home to Los Angeles before Irma made landfall. It's not the first time Limbaugh has spouted irresponsible conspiracy theories about hurricane forecasts. He was criticized last year for doing the same thing during Hurricane Matthew, earning himself a spot on the 2016 edition of this list.

4. New York Times columnist Bret Stephens argued that because political operatives were wrong in predicting Hillary Clinton would win the election, people should be skeptical of climate science.
After Trump’s election, The New York Times launched an ad campaign billing itself as the antidote to Trumpian “alternative facts.” Shortly after that campaign, though, the Times hired Stephens as a columnist -- a serial misinformer who had called climate change a “sick-souled religion” during his time at The Wall Street Journal. In his inaugural column for the Times, Stephens encouraged skepticism of climate scientists and compared those who advocate climate action to Cold War-era authoritarians. Stephens’ column was short on actual facts and science; the one time he cited a scientific report, he got it wrong. The Times added a correction to the column, but numerous scientists pointed out that the correction wasn’t sufficient, and a number of scientists canceled their subscriptions over Stephens’ hiring, his problematic column, and the Times public editor’s dismissive defense of Stephens’ column. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt later cited Stephens' column to defend the Trump administration's decision to pull out of the Paris agreement.

5. Conservative media commentator Stephen Moore claimed that Trump created tens of thousands of coal jobs in the first few months of his presidency.
Experts and journalists have repeatedly noted that President Donald Trump's campaign promise to bring back coal jobs is an empty one, since the decades-long decline in coal mining jobs has been driven much more by economic forces, such as increased automation and competition from natural gas and renewables, than by government regulations. But that didn’t stop Moore, a frequent Fox and CNN commentator and former Trump economic advisor, from proclaiming in op-eds in The Washington Times and Breitbart that Trump had already made good on his promise after just a few months in office. Moore cited jobs reports from March and April to claim that Trump had added tens of thousands of mining jobs, thereby restoring the coal industry. But Moore grossly misrepresented the data he cited, which actually included jobs in a number of sectors like oil and gas. Had Moore bothered to look at the actual coal mining jobs category, he would have seen that it had only grown by approximately 200 jobs through April, barely moving since Election Day.

6. Radio host Hugh Hewitt recommended appointing Rush Limbaugh to a national commission to study climate change.
In an op-ed for The Washington Post, Hewitt proposed creating a “national commission led by men and women of impeccable credentials” to determine whether and how the U.S. should address climate change, arguing that the country needs a group of “[d]iverse, smart non-scientists who are going to listen to the scientists -- all of them -- and report back on what ought to be done.” But Hewitt’s proposal instantly lost all credibility when he suggested including Rush Limbaugh as one of the commission members. Limbaugh has repeatedly called climate change a hoax, promoted dangerous climate-related conspiracy theories, misrepresented research in an attempt to dispute that global warming is happening, and even criticized a TV show for portraying climate change as a reality.

7. Fox hosts attacked a journalist and called him "stupid" for asking a Trump official about the links between hurricanes and climate change.
2017 was a record year for hurricanes, as Harvey, Irma, and Maria wreaked havoc along their respective paths. A number of climate scientists have explained how climate change exacerbates some of the worst impacts of hurricanes. While CNN and MSNBC frequently aired segments discussing the link between climate change and hurricanes like Harvey and Irma, Fox News hosts almost exclusively covered the climate change-hurricane link by criticizing others who raised the issue. The September 11 episode of Fox's The Five, for example, featured a lengthy discussion in which hosts criticized CNN's Jim Acosta for asking Homeland Security Advisor Tom Bossert whether there's a link between climate change and powerful hurricanes. The hosts said that Acosta was “anti-science” and looked “stupid” and “dumb,” and they called his question was "politically opportunistic." Fox's Jesse Watters said concern about climate change stems from liberal “guilt” and a desire to control people’s lives. Likewise, on the radio show Breitbart News Daily, host Alex Marlow pushed EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to deny the link between climate change and hurricanes, which Pruitt did, stating, “For opportunistic media to use events like this to, without basis or support, just to simply engage in a cause-and-effect type of discussion, and not focus upon the needs of people, I think is misplaced."

8. Rush Limbaugh argued that the historic BP oil spill caused no environmental damage.

Limbaugh cited an article in the right-wing Daily Caller headlined “Bacteria Are Eating Most Of The 2010 BP Oil Spill” and concluded, “The BP spill didn’t do any environmental [damage].” The Deepwater Horizon spill, which leaked oil for 87 days, was the largest accidental spill of oil into marine waters in world history. Researchers have documented a wide array of negative environmental impacts from the disaster. For example, a 2016 study found that the BP spill may have caused irreversible damage to one of the Gulf shore’s most important ecosystems. The spill is believed to have killed tens of thousands animals in 2010, and for years afterward, dolphins and other animals in the area continued to die at higher-than-normal rates.

9. Fox News’ Jesse Watters claimed, “No one is dying from climate change.”

During a discussion about Al Gore’s warnings on climate change, Watters, a co-host of Fox News’ The Five, declared, “People are dying from terrorism. No one is dying from climate change.” Rush Limbaugh also made the same assertion this year. But an independent report commissioned by 20 governments in 2012 concluded that climate change already kills more people than terrorism, with an estimated 400,000 deaths linked to climate change each year.

10. Radio host Alex Jones said it was "suspicious" that Hurricane Irma came along shortly before the release of a climate disaster movie.

Jones briefly speculated about the possibility that Hurricane Irma was “geoengineered” or created by humans before stating, “Meanwhile, though, right on time with these superstorms, we have the new film Geoengineering (sic) 2017, coming soon on October 20. Oh, just a little bit more than a month or so after Irma is set to hit. Isn’t that just perfect timing? Like all these race war films they’ve been putting out. This is starting to get suspicious. Here it is, Geostorm.” The action movie Geostorm featured satellites that controlled the global climate. Jones' speculation about the film is just one of the countless conspiracy theories he has promoted over the years.

Links

• 2017 was a terrible year of climate disasters -- and too many media outlets failed to tell the story
• Far-right media seize on flawed Bloomberg article to push bogus "deep state" theories
• CNN hosts a scientist to explain why Trump’s government agencies banning words is dangerous and anti-science
• Pruitt’s war on the press continues as EPA hires firm to create media-tracking "war room"
• Breitbart writer: Pope Francis supports the Paris climate agreement "because of his dislike of the First World, and particularly the United States"
• CNN shows the right way to report on hurricanes and climate change
• Highlighting Media Matters research, Al Jazeera calls out "gaping hole" in media coverage of climate change

Cabinet Papers: Keating MPs Considered Carbon Tax To Tackle Climate Change

The Guardian - Anne Davies

Cabinet debated how to cling on to government’s ‘no regrets’ policy while maintaining Australia’s influence at international bargaining table

Australia’s response to climate change and meeting international obligations proved difficult for Paul Keating’s government in 1994 and 1995, according to cabinet papers. Photograph: Getty Images

Australia’s response to climate change and the challenge of meeting its international obligations proved as difficult for the Keating government in 1994 and 1995 as it would for future governments.
Cabinet papers released by the Australian National Archives on Monday show that much of the debate in the Keating cabinet was about how to cling on to the government’s “no regrets” policy while maintaining Australia’s influence at the international bargaining table.
The “no regrets” policy meant Australia would consider only measures that involved cutting emissions without any adverse impact on the economy or trade competitiveness. That ruled out most measures to tax fossil fuels, which would increase the cost of electricity.
It meant Australia relied mainly on creating carbon sinks by limiting land-clearing and planting trees.
Australia had signed on to targets at an international conference in Toronto in 1990 on the basis that the convention would recognise Australia’s high dependence on fossil fuels.
But by September 1994 ministers were told Australia was falling woefully behind the implied target set in the Framework Convention on Climate Change and the interim planning target it had set itself.
The interim target involved stabilising greenhouse gas emissions at 1988 levels by 2000, with a 20% reduction by 2005.
The cabinet was told Australia would achieve only 54% of the target, mainly through the One Billion Trees program.
“Estimates of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions and sink activity for 2000 indicate that Australia will not achieve either the implied target in the convention or the IPT,” the cabinet documents say.
The papers note the Australian government was under increasing pressure from Europe and Pacific island nations to take tougher steps to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
The truth was that the “no regrets” policy made Australia’s efforts to cut emissions ineffectual, as officials acknowledged in the cabinet papers.
But instead of taking tougher measures, most of the discussion in cabinet was about how to manage Austalia’s “relatively poor domestic greenhouse gas response”.
The cabinet devised a two-pronged negotiating strategy for the next round of international meetings: advancement of the principle of “equitable burden sharing” and the “promotion of realistic and achievable means to to involve developing countries in emissions reductions”.
“Equitable burden sharing” was a nebulous idea that countries who were similarly dependent on fossil fuels should “share the burden” in the way the EU was doing across its member states. The cabinet identified Norway, Canada, the Russian Federation and Poland as possible allies, as well as Sweden and New Zealand.
But it warned there could be opposition from fossil fuel importers such as the EU – in particular Germany – and from Japan and Austria.
The second leg of the negotiating policy was to press for some type of commitment from developing countries. This was a theme that would continue throughout the negotiations of future agreements and was taken up with gusto by the US president, George W Bush, after 2001.
A 1994 cabinet paper included an option of withdrawing from future negotiations altogether but it warned that Australia faced a real risk that it could have bans placed on its exports as a result.
By December 1994, with a further conference looming in March 1995, the cabinet was again wrestling with Australia’s poor performance.
It began developing further “no regrets” policies.
Among the policy responses considered was a carbon or energy tax. But modelling by the Australian Bureau of Agriculture Resource Economics found the tax would be at about $US118 a tonne by 2000 compared with an average of $US24 for OECD countries.
The costs of meeting the IPT target with a carbon tax alone would be prohibitive, the papers warn. Again there was discussion of abandoning the target.
Instead the cabinet agreed to implement a voluntary program for industry called “Response to the Greenhouse Challenge”. The cabinet was told there was support for the voluntary approach from manufacturers and the mining and electricity sectors.
There was also discussion of a spending package to boost renewable energy and tree-planting, which ranged from $45m to $78m.
The finance department was highly critical, saying it “questioned the essentiality” of bringing the submission forward outside the 1995-96 budget. It described the spending as “mostly short-term” and said it would have little impact on the target gap.

Links

• Cabinet Papers
• 'We didn't know exactly what we needed to do': The climate change battle in 1994
• Cabinet papers 1994-95: Keating’s climate policy grapples sound eerily familiar
• Cabinet papers: emissions reduction targets plagued Keating
• It’s 30 years since scientists first warned of climate threats to Australia
• Government infighting over old growth forest logging revealed in 1995 cabinet papers