The media is now the biggest problem. We climate change skeptics are excited that we now have a
President of the United States who is basically a climate change skeptic. He has appointed climate change skeptics to key cabinet positions.
While the Republican congress is rather wimp-ish on most issues including climate change, it is not going to continue the Algorian policies of the last eight years. The Courts tend to stand down on scientific issues. So that leaves just one big problem for those of us who are devoting out lives to the effort to correct the bad science behind the climate change frenzy: The media.
The Fox News Channel is not strongly opposed to we skeptics and gives us occasional opportunities on the evening opinion programs and gives the President and his cabinet reasonable coverage on the topic.
But otherwise the media seems to regard we skeptics as low-life deniers who are endangering the future habitability of planet Earth.
CNN and particularly MSNBC are straight out hostile to us. CBS, NBC, ABC and PBS all regard us as wrong, a minor fringe group and not worth covering. The newspapers are some-what less hostile but on the whole not friendly to we skeptics.
The Heartland Institute, the Chicago based think tank that has been friends of we skeptics and employs several very strong skeptical experts has conducted a dozen International Conferences on Climate Change featuring outstanding skeptical scientists from around the world.
It also employs a friend of mine, James Lakely, as it media relations expert. He is excellent and works very diligently. However, (though he and Joe Bast the great head of Heartland point out the coverage they have obtained for we skeptics with pride.) the truth is, those huge events and the strong collection of experts they feature gain almost no coverage. It drives me nuts. And, all other Heartland efforts result in mostly minor coverage on local conservative radio talk shows and an occasional opinion piece in a newspaper.
This year’s survey of television Meteorologist found that nearly half (49%) are convinced that the climate change over the past 50 years has been mostly or entirely due to human activity, and an additional two in ten (21%) think it is more-or-less equally caused by human activity and natural events. About two in ten (21%) think the change has been primarily or entirely due to natural events. This is an increase in Algorian attitude by the TV station’s experts and many of them cover the climate change topic on the air with an Algorian approach.
Any time climate change comes up at any events where reporters are able to ask questions, they challenge any skeptical views. In contrast if someone says the oceans are rising, polar bears are dying, storms are getting worse, heat waves will kill millions, etc the reporters cover every claim without question.
Almost every reporter, news writer, editor and producer has a college degree in Journalism.
That four years under the control of far left, Democrat, Socialist and Communist college professors has a strong impact on the young minds. As the son of Communist college professor I know how strong and unrelenting they are and that they are totally unwilling to leave any room for opposing views.
So here we skeptics are trying to reach millions of Americans and give them our skeptical view of climate change and explain that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant and is not going to create uncontrollable climate change. We just want our science back; that is all we want.
I was a Journalist and a television Meteorologist for 61 years. I worked among the media crowd. All of my colleagues were died in the wool Algorians everywhere I worked including ABC, CBS and NBC in New York and Chicago.
Only at my last TV station (KUSI-TV in San Diego) did I find a comfortable home for a climate change skeptic. The owner of the independent TV station was a true climate change skeptic like me and we did lots of programs and news reports from the skeptical point of view. It was so positive for me I worked far longer than I should have, not retiring until I was 79. But that was a one of kind TV situation with little national impact (except that the videos of my work there was posted on You Tube).
Now I look at the national media and wonder what to do next. How are we ever going to overcome this situation? The answer, I am told, is social media. I have what you may regard as a strange attitude about that.
I have made a personal rule of no climate change or politics on Facebook. I have even taken on an altered name and limit my Facebook “Friends” to personal friends, former work colleagues, relatives and the like. I try to keep Facebook as a place to escape from the rest of the world and keep track of my daughter and son and their families, etc.