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Examining Climate Change and the Media Hearing S. HRG. 109–1077 EXAMINING CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE MEDIA HEARING BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION DECEMBER 6, 2006 Printed for the use of the Committee on Environment and Public Works ( Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress.senate U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 52–324 PDF WASHINGTON : 2009 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800 Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001 COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma, Chairman JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia JAMES M. JEFFORDS, Vermont CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, Missouri MAX BAUCUS, Montana GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut LINCOLN CHAFEE, Rhode Island BARBARA BOXER, California LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware JOHN THUNE, South Dakota HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, New York JIM DEMINT, South Carolina FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, New Jersey JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia BARACK OBAMA, Illinois DAVID VITTER, Louisiana ANDREW WHEELER, Majority Staff Director KEN CONNOLLY, Minority Staff Director (II) CONTENTS Page DECEMBER 6, 2006 OPENING STATEMENTS Bond, Hon. Christopher S., U.S. Senator from the State of Missouri ................. 15 Boxer, Hon. Barbara, U.S. Senator from the State of California ........................ 10 Inhofe, Hon. James M., U.S. Senator from the State of Oklahoma .................... 1 Jeffords, Hon. James M., U.S. Senator from the State of Vermont .................... 5 Lautenberg, Hon. Frank R., U.S. Senator from the State of New Jersey ........... 13 Voinovich, Hon. George V., U.S. Senator from the State of Ohio ........................ 11 WITNESSES Carter, R.M., Ph.D., Marine Geophysical Laboratory, James Cook University, Australia ............................................................................................................... 20 Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 74 Deming, David, Ph.D., University of Oklahoma, College of Earth and Energy . 17 Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 54 Gainor, Dan, The Boone Pickens Free Market Fellow, director, Business & Media Institute ................................................................................................. 24 Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 85 Oreskes, Naomi, professor, Department of History and Program in Science Studies, University of California, San Diego ..................................................... 22 Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 83 Schrag, Daniel, Ph.D., Laboratory for Geochemical Oceanography, Depart- ment of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University ............................ 18 Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 66 ADDITIONAL MATERIAL Articles: Ancient Lessons for Our Future Climate, Daniel P. Schrag and Richard B. Alley .......................................................................................................... 72 A New York Times-line, Business & Media Institute ................................... 87 Climate Warming in North America: Analysis of Borehold Temperatures, David Deming, Science, Vol. 268, June 16, 1995 ....................................... 55 Charts: Carbon Dioxide Concentrations from an Antarctic Ice Core ......................... 68 Northern Hemisphere Ice Coverage ................................................................ 70 Map, Southeastern U.S. Coastlines and Coastlines if Half of the Greeland Ice Sheet Melted ................................................................................................... 71 Photographs of the Quelccaya Ice Cap Between 1977 and 2002 .................. 69 Report, Fire and Ice, Business & Media Institute ................................................ 88 (III) EXAMINING CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE MEDIA WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2006 U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS, Washington, DC. The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m. in room 406, Senate Dirksen Building, the Hon. James M. Inhofe (chairman of the committee) presiding. Present: Senators Inhofe, Isakson, Bond, Voinovich, Boxer, Thune, Jeffords, Lautenberg. OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES M. INHOFE, U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA Senator INHOFE. The hearing today is the fourth global warming hearing that I have held as Committee Chairman. This time, we are going to examine the media’s role in presenting the science of climate change. I have to say, Senator Boxer, that we had decided to have this fourth hearing before the Republicans lost the majority on that fateful Tuesday. So we are going to go ahead and have this, and I am sure that we will have an opportunity to explore this much more under your chairmanship. Poorly conceived policy decisions may result from the media’s over-hyped reporting. Much of the mainstream media has sub- verted its role as an objective source of information on climate change into a role of an advocate. We have seen examples of this overwhelmingly one-sided reporting by 60 Minutes reporter Scott Pelley, ABC’s Bill Blakemore, CNN’s Miles O’Brien, who I believe is here with us today or will be, Time Magazine, the Associated Press, Reuters, just to name a few. There are three types of climate research: first, the hard science of global warming by climate scientists; second, the computer mod- elers; and finally, the researchers who study the impacts. Rather than focus on the hard science of global warming, the media has instead becomes advocates of hyping scientifically un- founded climate alarmism. I am not the only one who believes that. Here are just a few examples of believers. Now these are people who believe, well, first of all let us clarify what the issue is. I think all of us know that we are going through cycles, and we have throughout recorded history where it gets warmer and gets cooler. We are going through a warmer cycle now, and I have con- tended, as many scientists have, that this is due to natural causes. But if you don’t believe that and believe that it is due to anthropo- (1) 2 genic gases or manmade gases or methane or CO2, then you are in that camp. So, some of the people who believe that still believe the media is wrong in the way they have been reporting it. Mike Hulme, the director of the U.K.-based Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, a group that believes humans are the driving force behind global warming, chastised the media and envi- ronmentalists last month for choosing to use ‘‘the language of fear and terror to scare people.’’ Hulme noted that he has found himself ‘‘increasingly chastised by global warming activists because his public statements have not satisfied the activists’ thirst for environmental drama and exagger- ated rhetoric.’’ Second, a report in August 2006 from the U.K.’s Labor-Leaning Institute for Public Policy Research also slammed the media pres- entation of climate science as—this is what they said; these are people who are believers in the other side of this about manmade global warming—‘‘a quasi-religious register of doom, death, judg- ment, heaven and hell, using words such as catastrophe, chaos, and havoc.’’ The report also compared the media’s coverage of global warming to ‘‘the unreality of Hollywood films.’’ Now these are the believers we are talking about. In addition, NBC newsman, Tom Brokaw’s one-sided 2006 Dis- covery Channel, his 1-hour program, a global warming documen- tary, was criticized by a Bloomberg News TV review that noted, ‘‘You will find more dissent,’’ referring to the presentation that was made by Tom Brokaw, ‘‘You will find more dissent at a North Ko- rean political rally than in this program.’’ The media often fails to distinguish between predictions and what is actually being observed on the Earth today. We know from an April 23, 2006 article, in the New York Times by Andrew Revkin that ‘‘Few scientists agree with the idea that the recent spate of potential Hurricanes, European heat waves, African droughts, and other weather extremes are, in essence, our fault, a result of manmade emission. There is more than enough natural variability in nature to match the difference.’’ Again, we are talking about someone who generally would be on the other side. The New York Times is essentially saying no recent weather events including Hurricane Katrina is because of manmade global warming, yet most of the media fails to understand this funda- mental point and instead focuses on global warming computer model projections of futures as if they were proven fact. This is per- haps the easiest scientific area for the media to exaggerate and serve as advocates for alarmism. Climate modelers project all kinds of scary scenarios. This allows the media to pick and choose which one they want to show and demonstrate and characterize as being true. Hysteria sells, and people are out there doing it. Clearly, we cannot today somehow disprove catastrophic pre- dictions of our climate in the year 2100, but if the observations of what is happening today are not consistent with what global warm- ing models predict
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