Climate skeptics to once again get airtime on PBS

Uh oh. I’m sure this will cause brain explosions over at Joe Romm’s place and also at his politically bought and paid for ex-buddy Brad Johnson’s “Forecast the Facts” propaganda outlet. Maybe Brad will start another petition to keep us off PBS altogether this time.

Here’s the Press Release from PBS, followed by the preview video below.

Coming October 23, 2012. FRONTLINE explores the massive shift in public opinion on climate change.

Four years ago, climate change was hot. Politicians from both parties, pressed by an anxious public, seemed poised to act. But that was then.

Today, public opinion about the climate issue has cooled, and politicians either ignore the issue or loudly proclaim their skepticism of scientific evidence that human activity is imperiling the planet. What’s behind this reversal? FRONTLINE correspondent John Hockenberry of PRI’s The Takeaway goes inside the organizations that fought the scientific establishment, environmental groups, and lawmakers to shift the direction of debate on climate issues and redefined the politics of global warming.

Watch on air and online beginning October 23 at 10 pm ET on PBS.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/climate-of-doubt/

I expect by about mid-November, after yet another skeptic media event following this PBS Frontline report (no, I’m not telling you who’s airing it) both Joe and Brad won’t have any brains left to explode. This time it isn’t just one climate skeptic they’ll have to start a campaign against.

Of course, they may like it, since you can see in the video that they are using the usual iconic visuals. Unfortunately, the Frontline editors won’t listen to people who tell them that steam being vented from power plant cooling towers has nothing to do with CO2 and its AGW effects, but that’s another story.

Let the games begin.

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Otter
October 3, 2012 4:14 pm

Let the Hack job begin, is more likely.

cui bono
October 3, 2012 4:16 pm

Hmm. The “who is behind it?” question at the end of the trailer is redolent of more ‘Exxon cheque d*n*alism’ BS. This could be a hatchet job, especially if you weren’t asked to participate, Anthony.

R. Shearer
October 3, 2012 4:23 pm

Science has much less to do with it than corruption.

eqibno
October 3, 2012 4:30 pm

I wonder how many times they will state that the Climategate scientists were absolved by independent enquiries…

Henry
October 3, 2012 4:36 pm

I was wondering when Frontline was going to tackle this whole debate. This ought to be very interesting.

Ian H
October 3, 2012 4:39 pm

From the blurb it sounds like they are going looking for some kind of publicity campaign or conspiracy to overturn the findings of climate science. Of course there is no such campaign or conspiracy. But that doesn’t mean they won’t manage to “find” one. If the media isn’t in a mood to play fair, they have the capacity to construct massive lies out of nothing by selective quoting and misconstruction of snippets of fact. We all know this. Whether or not that is what they choose to do depends on what their motivations are.
Is this just a hatchet job on sceptics constucted to appease the rabble who screamed at them so loudly last time? Or are they actually going into this with open minds to tell the truth as they find it. The former would be pretty much business as usual for sceptics. We are already routinely equated to criminals and holocaust deniers, blown up in videos, and so on. There seem to be no limits as to what people think they can say about sceptics. The PBS can’t exactly hurt us compared to that no matter what lies they choose to tell. But a rational reasoned and well balanced piece … that would be massive.
Nah … my bet is that it’ll be a hatchet job. I just don’t think they are brave enough to tell the truth.

PaulH
October 3, 2012 4:41 pm

It looks like the smoke at 0:23 is flowing back into the smokestack. An example of carbon capture and storage? ;->

Bill Illis
October 3, 2012 4:41 pm

I think Frontline is one of the best documentary / in-depth news shows on TV (although some producers of individual programs can be from the left of the spectrum but not all are).
Its usually not a hack-job but it probably won’t be balanced discussion. Some will take notice of the issues raised.

David Ball
October 3, 2012 4:42 pm

Without grants, without funding, without a bias media behind us we still have them on their back heels. We have something better than any of those things.

eric1skeptic
October 3, 2012 4:53 pm

I’d rather see them investigate the WWF ($500 million for various projects including climate propaganda), the UN (many billions for boondoggles and not very much output), and the groups that promote cap and trade that gave piles of money to numerous candidates like Obama in 2008. Anyone think Goldman Sachs gives a crap about science or the environment?
Instead we’ll hear all about the Koch brothers and Heartland (cue some scary music).

WTF
October 3, 2012 4:53 pm

From the way PBS reacted to Anthony’s interview I suspect this will be a bone thrown to their subscribers and it will show people that doubt AGW as believing the moon landings were faked or something.

October 3, 2012 4:56 pm

Given the weak response by PBS to the roar of criticism of them for airing Anthony in September, I am extremely cautious in my optimism for balance in this next PBS airing of critics/skeptics of warming biased alarming science endorsed by the IPCC. Basically, I have almost zero positive expectations of PBS . . . . but hope springs eternally from by breast . . . .
I suggest some research to see if Mann is a consultant to the PBS for communicating the CAGW science in this second PBS airing . . . . that would be great news for skeptics.
John

October 3, 2012 5:05 pm

If this Frontline episode on public attitudes regarding the climate debate includes an honest recounting of L’Affaire Gleick I will be amazed, and impressed, because it should. I fear that if they mention Gleick at all it will be for the purpose of illustrating the frustration that climate activists feel regarding the public’s move away from climate alarmism, and to present him as a martyr who was driven to do what he did by our collective sins.

polistra
October 3, 2012 5:16 pm

Frontline has a pretty good record of showing the non-Establishment side fairly. They were the only network program that gave us SOME truth about the 2008 Goldman Coup. Everyone else went along with the official crap that it was just an inevitable consequence of an inevitable housing bubble.

Paul Westhaver
October 3, 2012 5:17 pm

PBS is trolling for ratings from people unlikely to view or donate to the never ending left wing propaganda outlet….PBS.
I will deny them 😉 my attention. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

geran
October 3, 2012 5:27 pm

PBS must know that 97-98% of “scientists” concur with AGW. If they are seriously challenging that meme, then they must need more funding from “big oil”.
(I’m so confused now, I don’t even know if I need to turn off the “sarc” light, or leave it on….)

jim2
October 3, 2012 5:28 pm

Romney wants to cut PBS funding, so I’m sure anything they can do to stoke up the climate crazies will be done.

Editor
October 3, 2012 5:32 pm

A few weeks to explain both sides to the ombudsman and maybe he’ll be able to stand up to some of the more vocal responders. Or perhaps he’s given up on the idea of making Frontline into a housecat.
Could be interesting.

JJB MKI
October 3, 2012 5:33 pm

“loudly proclaim their skepticism of scientific evidence that human activity is imperiling the planet”
This line gives them away. The sceptic position is that what has been cited as evidence for CAGW is actually nothing of the sort. The idea that sceptics would close their ears to hard evidence like a group of suspicious Luddite ‘anti science’ bible-thumpers is an entirely warmist projection. I am not skeptical of any evidence. On the contrary, I am skeptical of extraordinary claims based on a total lack of evidence and a great deal of creative interpretation of a narrow range painstakingly cherry picked data, trumpeted monomaniacally by a group of people with an obviously political / emotional axe to grind.

October 3, 2012 5:34 pm

Speaking of heads exploding, here’s what threatens to cause mine to: Some at this site appear to be such slow learners as actually to harbor the hope that PBS will come within shouting distance of treating the catastrophic-anthropogenic-global-warming issue even-handedly.

banjo
October 3, 2012 5:41 pm

After being savaged by the greens i suspect this will be a crude sop, atonement if you will by PBS.
“Forgive me warmists for i have sinned,I spoke unto a sceptic and yea,i did not spit upon him”
“Gaia will forgive you,doubter you must say five `We`re all going dies.` two `Won`t someone think of the childrens.` and as many `Hail Micheal Manns` as you can before breakfast.Do this or ye shall recharge thy Prius by windmill for all eternity!”
(Which probably wouldn`t be half long enough anyway)

clipe
October 3, 2012 5:56 pm

Maybe PBS realises it pays to be controversial.

October 3, 2012 5:58 pm

Notice how that PBS Frontline video preview page has its comments section locked already (screencapture of its still-current condition http://i47.tinypic.com/ofzvk2.jpg ). But I at least slid one in there for moderation two days ago when it was not closed: http://i47.tinypic.com/2ymjdde.jpg
A quick email to PBS Ombudsman earlier today about my comment not appearing there yet yielded this result indirectly from Frontline “We don’t open comments until the broadcast, and leave them open for two weeks. It appears that for some unknown reason comments were briefly open. We always moderate our comments. So what he probably saw was the system accepting the comment but it’s not actually published until we approve it. Because it was a prebroadcast comment, we did not approve it.”
Awaiting a reply from them as to why such a condition was not explicitly noted in the first place…….

Mickey Reno
October 3, 2012 6:02 pm

Frontline is essentially PBS, and PBS and NPR talk about CAGW as fact, almost universally. They will probably do back flips trying to maintain this illusion, and smear the skeptics, without even understanding what they’re doing. My prediction is that Frontline will be more like the Ombudsman response than an open, honest investigation into this debate.

DD More
October 3, 2012 6:05 pm

Who knew they reprogrammed the ‘red button’ from the 10:10 video to the PBS station numbers on your TV remote.

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