Fire or Ice
Journalists have
warned of climate change for 100 years, but can’t decide
weather we face an ice age or warming
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Here's the full report, if you want
it (PDF)
Thanks
to the release of Al Gore’s latest effort on global warming
– this time in book and movie form – climate change is the
hot topic in press rooms around the globe. It isn’t the
first time.
The media have warned about impending climate doom four
different times in the last 100 years. Only they can’t
decide if mankind will die from warming or cooling.
As the noise from the controversy has increased, it has
drowned out any debate. Journalists have taken advocacy
positions, often ignoring climate change skeptics entirely.
One CBS reporter even compared skeptics of manmade global
warming to Holocaust deniers.
The Society of
Environmental Journalists Spring 2006 SEJournal included a
now-common media position, arguing against balance. But that
sense of certainty ignores the industry’s history of hyping
climate change – from cooling to warming, back to cooling
and warming once again.
The Media Research Center’s Business & Media Institute
(formerly the Free Market Project) conducted an extensive
analysis of print media’s climate change coverage back to
the late 1800s.
It
found that many publications now claiming the world is on
the brink of a global warming disaster said the same about
an impending ice age – just 30 years ago. Several major
ones, including The New York Times, Time magazine and
Newsweek, have reported on three or even four different
climate shifts since 1895.
In addition, BMI found:
-
“Global
Cooling” Was Just as Realistic: Several publications
warned in the 1970s that global cooling posed a major
threat to the food supply. Now, remarkably, global
warming is also considered a threat to the very same
food supply.
-
Glaciers
Are Growing or Shrinking: The media continue to
point to glaciers as a sign of climate change, but they
have used them as examples of both cooling and warming.
-
Global
Warming History Ignored: The media treat global
warming like it’s a new idea. In fact, British amateur
meteorologist G. S. Callendar argued that mankind was
responsible for heating up the planet with carbon
dioxide emissions – in 1938. That was decades before
scientists and journalists alerted the public about the
threat of a new ice age.
-
New York
Times the Worst: Longtime readers of the Times could
easily recall the paper claiming “A Major Cooling Widely
Considered to Be Inevitable,” along with its strong
support of current global warming predictions. Older
readers might well recall two other claims of a climate
shift back to the 1800s – one an ice age and the other
warming again. The Times has warned of four separate
climate changes since 1895.
source: http://businessandmedia.org/specialreports/2006/fireandice/fireandice_execsum.asp
