Associated Press &
Global Warming: Never Let Facts Get in the Way of a Good Theory
BACKGROUND: The Associated Press has recently
run two global warming stories by AP Special Correspondent Charles
P. Hanley that misrepresent objective facts about climate, apparently
for the purpose of leading readers to believe that human activities
are causing the planet to warm significantly.
The AP published the same faulty
information in another Hanley article1
nearly a year ago (see Ten Second Response
#032204, Global Warming: Why Can't the Mainstream Press
Get Even Basic Facts Right?).
The re-publication of information
the AP should know to be faulty falls on the heels of another
grossly misleading AP story2 about a global warming report entitled "Meeting the Climate
Challenge." Readers of the AP story about the report would
likely conclude the report was issued by scientific research
organizations - but the sponsors were liberal activist groups.
TEN SECOND RESPONSE:
News organizations using AP materials would be well advised to
independently confirm information in AP stories before publishing.
THIRTY SECOND RESPONSE:
The New York Times and CBS News once were considered beyond the
reach of public criticism. They are no more. Wire services such
as the Associated Press may be less obviously vulnerable because
its reporters are less visible personalities while its work product
tends to be presented in a low-key manner. Nonetheless, the AP
is hugely influential while the accuracy of its reporting is
questionable at best. If this volatile mix continues, increased
scrutiny is inevitable.
DISCUSSION:
The most recent Haney stories
(for examples, see "Glaciers
Shrinking in a Warming World," Washington Post, January
29, 2005, and "Antarctica's
Ice Seems to be Safe, at Least for Now," USA Today,
February 7, 2005) contain the following:
"Temperatures globally
rose about 1 degree Fahrenheit in the past century, most of that
attributed by scientific consensus to the accumulation in the
atmosphere of carbon dioxide and other warming "greenhouse
gases," mostly from fossil fuel-burning."3
and
"The warming will continue
as long as "greenhouse gases," primarily carbon dioxide
from the burning of fossil fuels, accumulate in the atmosphere,
say the U.N. panel and other authoritative scientific organizations."4
The sentences quoted above
are fairly transparent attempts to convince the reader that the
global warming hypothesis is true. They go beyond editorializing
to provable inaccuracy, however. Here are the facts:
Half or more of 20th century
global warming occurred in the first few decades of that century,5 before the widespread burning of fossil
fuels (and before 82 percent of the increase in atmospheric carbon
dioxide observed in the 20th century).6
The primary greenhouse gas
is water vapor, not carbon dioxide.7
Most of the carbon dioxide
in the atmosphere does not come from the burning of fossil fuels.
Only about 14 percent of it does.8
On the second matter, the AP
article on the report "Meeting the Climate Challenge,"
the AP began its story:
Global warming is approaching
the critical point of no return, after which widespread drought,
crop failure and rising sea-levels would be irreversible, an
international climate change task force warned Monday.
The report, 'Meeting the Climate
Challenge,' called on the G-8 leading industrial nations to cut
carbon emissions, double their research spending on green technology
and work with India and China to build on the Kyoto Protocol.
"An ecological time-bomb
is ticking away," said Stephen Byers, who co-chaired the
task force with U.S. Republican Senator Olympia Snowe, and is
a close confidant of British Prime Minister Tony Blair. "World
leaders need to recognize that climate change is the single most
important long term issue that the planet faces."
The independent report, by
the Institute for Public Policy Research in Britain, the Center
for American Progress in the United States and The Australia
Institute, is timed to coincide with Blair's commitment to advance
international climate change policy during Britain's G-8 presidency...
...According to the report,
urgent action is needed to stop the global average temperature
rising by 2 degrees Celsius above the level in 1750 -- the approximate
start of the Industrial Revolution when mankind first started
significantly polluting the atmosphere with carbon dioxide.
Beyond a 2 degrees rise, "the
risks to human societies and ecosystems grow significantly"
the report said, adding there would be a risk of "abrupt,
accelerated, or runaway climate change."
It warned of "climatic
tipping points" such as the Greenland and West Antarctic
ice sheets melting and the Gulf Stream shutting down.
No accurate temperature readings
were available for 1750, the report said, but since 1860, global
average temperature had risen by 0.8 percent to 15 degrees Celsius.
The two degrees rise could
be avoided by keeping the concentration of carbon dioxide in
the atmosphere below 400 parts per million (ppm). Current concentrations
of 379 ppm "are likely to rise above 400 ppm in coming decades
and could rise far higher under a business-as-usual scenario,"
the report warned...."9
Readers could be forgiven for
believing the three organizations sponsoring the report are independent,
objective scientific research organizations. Certainly nothing
in the AP's text tells anyone not already familiar with the groups
that they are anything but objective:
The Center for American Progress,
in its "What We're About" section on its website, gives
one of its four reasons to exist as "responding effectively
and rapidly to conservative proposals and rhetoric with a thoughtful
critique and clear alternatives." The other three cited
reasons are various methods of promoting liberal political ideology.10
A publication by The Australia
Institute openly revealed that the report's purpose was to influence
governmental action, not to provide new scientific information
about the climate.11
Other Australia Institute publications, including press materials
about the report,12 also make
this clear. Readers of the AP story, however, are never told
this.
Britain's Institute for Public
Policy Research says starkly at the top left of its Internet
home page "IPPR is the UK's leading progressive think tank."13 It also says of itself, "IPPR
was formed... to act as a dynamic, independent catalyst for progressive
thinking on the centre-left... [IPPR's] emergence was crucial
in providing an alternative space to rival the thinking of free-market
think-tanks."14
The three left-of-center organizations
were more open about their agenda than the AP was on their behalf.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Charles J. Hanley, "Antarctica's
Ice Seems to Be Safe, at Least for Now," Associated Press,
February 2005, available on various websites, including USA Today
(February 7, 2005) at http://www.usatoday.com/weather/resources/coldscience/2005-02-01-warming-2-6-antarctica_x.htm
Charles J. Hanley, "Glaciers
Shrinking in a Warming World," Associated Press, January
2005, available on various websites, including the Washington
Post (January 29, 2005) at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47696-2005Jan29.html
and the Deseret News (January 30, 2005) at http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,600108419,00.html
Ed Johnson, "Report: Global
Warming Approaching Critical Point: 'An Ecological Time-Bomb
is Ticking Away,'" Associated Press, published on CNN.com
at http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/01/24/climate.change.ap/
on January 24, 2005; also published online January 24, 2005 online
at the Natural Resources Defense Council website at http://www.nrdc.org/news/newsDetails.asp?nID=1596
Charles J. Hanley, "CO2
Buildup Accelerating in Atmosphere," Associated Press, as
run by USA Today on March 21, 2004 at http://www.usatoday.com/weather/news/2004-03-21-co2-buildup_x.htm
Dr. Robert Balling, "The
Increase in Global Temperature: What It Does and Does Not Tell
Us," George C. Marshall Institute, September 1, 2003 at http://www.marshall.org/article.php?id=170
Summary of remarks of Dr. S.
Fred Singer at the Scientific Alliance conference Apocalypse
No! held at the Royal Institution, London, January 27, 2005 at
http://www.sepp.org/NewSEPP/Apocalypse-NO.htm
"The Increase in Global
Temperature: What It Does and Does Not Tell Us," George
C. Marshall Institute, December 7, 2004 at http://www.marshall.org/article.php?id=268
by Amy Ridenour
Contact the author at: 202-543-4110 or [email protected]
The National Center for Public
Policy Research
501 Capitol Court, N.E.
Washington, D.C. 20002
Footnotes:
(1) Charles J. Hanley, "CO2 Buildup Accelerating in Atmosphere,"
Associated Press, March 2004, available on various websites,
including http://www.usatoday.com/weather/news/2004-03-21-co2-buildup_x.htm,
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/3/21/170709.shtml,
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/8241534.htm
and many others (headlines used vary).
(2) Ed Johnson, "Report:
Global Warming Approaching Critical Point: 'An Ecological Time-Bomb
is Ticking Away,'" Associated Press, published on CNN.com
at http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/01/24/climate.change.ap/
on January 24, 2005; also published online January 24, 2005 online
at the Natural Resources Defense Council website at http://www.nrdc.org/news/newsDetails.asp?nID=1596.
(3) Charles J. Hanley, "Antarctica's
ice seems to be safe, at least for now," Associated Press,
February 2005, available on various websites, including USA Today
(February 7, 2005) at http://www.usatoday.com/weather/resources/coldscience/2005-02-01-warming-2-6-antarctica_x.htm
(headlines used vary).
(4) Charles J. Hanley, "Glaciers
Shrinking in a Warming World," Associated Press, January
2005, available on various websites, including the Washington
Post (January 29, 2005) at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47696-2005Jan29.html
and the Deseret News (January 30, 2005) at http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,600108419,00.html.
(5) This is based on a review
of global satellite and balloon temperature measurements and
high-quality U.S.-based surface temperature station measurements.
For additional details understandable to laymen, we recommend
the short document "There Has Been No Global Warming for
the Past 70 Years," published by The Center for the Study
of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change.
(6) "Environmental Effects
of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide," Oregon Institute
of Science and Health, 2001, http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm.
(7) See "The Greenhouse
Effect and Greenhouse Gases: An Overview," Energy Information
Administration, U.S. Department of Energy (available at http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/pubs_html/attf94_v2/chap2.html)
for a good summary of this issue understandable to the layman.
(8) "Frequently Asked
Global Change Question: What percentage of the CO2 in the atmosphere
has been produced by human beings through the burning of fossil
fuels?," Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak
Ridge National Laboratory, March 2004, available at http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/pns/faq.html
as of February 8, 2005.
(9) "Report: Global warming
approaching critical point: 'An ecological time-bomb is ticking
away,'" Associated Press, published on CNN.com at http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/01/24/climate.change.ap/
on January 24, 2005.
(10) "What We're About,"
Center for American Progress, available online at http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=3459
as of February 8, 2005.
(11) "Newsletter No. 38,
March 2004," The Australia Institute, available online at http://www.tai.org.au/ as
of February 8, 2005.
(12) For example, a December,
2004 Australia Institute press release entitled "International
Climate Change Taskforce Meets in Sydney," available at http://www.tai.org.au/ as
of February 8, 2005.
(13) The Institute for Public
Policy Research's home page at http://www.ippr.org.uk/home/
as of February 8, 2005.
(14) "About IPPR: IPPR's Influence
on Policy," The Institute for Public Policy Research,
available online at http://www.ippr.org.uk/about/index.php?current=influence
as of February 8, 2005.
