This was originally called “CBS News Presents: Global Warming: The Melting
Ice Caps” at the CBS affililiates resource site they call it “CBS News Presents: The Age of Warming” for Sunday.
http://www.cbspressexpress.com/div.php/cbs_entertainment/schedule
here is the synopsis of a previous segment “The Age of Warming”
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/03/30/60minutes/main2631210.shtml
They are focusing on Antarctica on that one. The original aired in April 2007, then they did a “revised” version in August 2007. This may be another “reheated leftovers” of that broadcast. It may be something related to the writers strike. I’m not sure.
Here is their PR on it.
http://www.cbspressexpress.com/div.php/cbs_news/release?id=17692
It looks like James Hansen managed to escape “censorship” once again as they say: “He also speaks to NASA’s top scientist studying climate, who says the Bush administration has restricted what he can say about global warming. ”
Maybe they sent Andy Rooney out to grouse at some penguins too.
One of my contacts on an email list I belong to pointed to this as a possible reason they are airing this special a third time:
“All of this is carefully orchestrated to force a polar bear listing onto the US Fish and Wildlife Service, who knows the science is not there for a listing, but is trying to get sued into doing it anyway. The science is so bad, the final listing decision was postponed another month. Getting a listing is for the greens like capturing the Queen during end game.”
Once you watch the show, you can decide for yourself and contact CBS Media Relations to tell them what you thought about it:
Director, CBS News Communications (“60 Minutes”)
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Ah. So CBS is going to preempt its regular programming in order to caution us not to panic, that the Arctic Ice situation is due merely to a confluence of cyclical PDO and ADO, not anthropogenic atmospheric warmng. How very fairminded of them. [insert emoticon indicating mordant sarcasm]
Reply: Evan it may simply be related to the writers strike, I’m not sure. You can easily re-edit a show with previously unused content without needing the help of a writer. Maybe that it what is going on here, they are out of fresh content due to the strike, so they rejuvinate the old content, maybe it’s something else. I suggest watching the show and deciding then.
On what planet is Scott reporting from?
I’ll be all ears. I’ll even [gasp] listen. #B^1
I am well versed in deconstruction technique. They trained me well. And they are far more vulnerable to their own weaponry than they imagine.
Being one of “those people”, I know them fairly well. I can sling their slang with the best of them. (Their hatred for the heathen is–nothing–compared with what they reserve for the apostate! Nothing! Q.E.D.)
Polar bears in Antarctica? Who knew?
ROTFL! If only that were the case! The man just needs to STFU!
I think the Greenbay game will still be on at that time, should be interesting switching to and fro, -15 to hot air.
“It looks like James Hansen managed to escape “censorship” once again as they say: “He also speaks to NASA’s top scientist studying climate, who says the Bush administration has restricted what he can say about global warming. ”
And, naturally, he can tell us all (in great detail) exactly what has been censored.
Or in other words, is it censorship if you can say on national news what it is that you’re not allowed to say?
Make your own disclaimer, then. Print out a piece of paper to paste on your tv screen, saying “the following comments by James Hansen have been censored by the Bush administration.”
Ah, CBS. The home of ‘fake, but accurate.’
Are you bored out of your skull becuase there’s nothing good on TV? Writers strike got you down? Well watch CBS, where we are going to recycle the ramblings of a politically motivated hack who wants you to be worried, very worried, about global warming.”
Oh I’m worried, alright “of such shoddy journalism”.
I’m sure everyone is aware of this book that came out recently, Censoring Science: Inside the Political Attack on Dr. James Hansen and the Truth of Global Warming by Mark Bowen. More censorship, I guess.
I suspect what your email list contact said about the polar bear listing is true. There are several species that are far worse off than polar bears, and yet they haven’t made the Endangered or Threatened list. These are species whose populations are on the verge of crashing and whose habitats really are disappearing–now–not in some future scenario based on 40-year climate projections.
Two words: We’re meeeeelting!
(On accumulation or precipitation: No words.)
I thought polar bears were doing just fine. Nearly all popuations on the increase.
Isn’t it funny how Bush is apparently so incompetent he can’t even manage to successfully censor someone? Wait. Maybe it makes more sense if we assume there is no censoring? Depends on your perspective, I suppose.
C’mon Bush, what kind of crappy censor are you?
😉
Every time there is a story on global warming the question seems to be “How to cut green house gases?”. When the real question should be “How to cut the world population?” We have tried to “manage” the forest, the oceans, the earth’s resources, yet how can we manage these things when we have a population explosion happening? How can we stop raping the earth when we don’t manage ourselves?
Tracy, actually, in a way, overpopulation is the problem. It isn’t loggers that burn down the rainforest, most wood and paper comes from farmed trees. Its actually local farmers clearing the land to plant their crops. More people, more farmers, more land clearing. But its hard to tell people not to have kids. I mean, some cultures still like having kids. If we could get the technology to support an expanding population, like biotech etc. we would reduce the amount of land we need to support the population. But don’t worry, best estimate is that population tops out at 10 billion after 2050, then starts falling from there.
Actually, some have proposed cutting the population as a way to reduce our “footprint”:
http://www.climate-skeptic.com/2007/12/global-warmin-1.html
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22945744-5000117,00.html
I’ve also heard the idea that we should pollute MORE becuase particulates (banned by zee Clean Air Act, me thinks?) cause global cooling. Huh. So apparently anti-pollution regulation caused global warming. Go figure?
Well that special lived up to all my expectations of fairness and balance. (I hadn’t any.)
“How can we stop raping the earth when we don’t manage ourselves?”
Population is not a real problem. Take New York City. We house 8 million people with FAR, FAR less overcrowding and more elbow-room than when the city had a population of 1 million, a hundred years ago.
Besides, the population rate is plummeting all over the world, and not only in the developed countries. (Google birth rates to see how far they have dropped since 1990 all over the world.) The population curve is beginning to “S” out.
We have a massive amount of resources and more years reserves than we ever had before. What we have used up is literally spit in the ocean. For example, known petroleum reserves have increased from 3.4 trillion barrels to 6.5 trillion even with all the increase in use. And we may not even have scratched the surface on that.
There is hardly a commodity in the world that has not decreased in real price (inflation-adjusted) for decades. Copper is 1% of the earth’s crust, Iron c. 6%, Aluminium up to 8% (60% of the earth’s crust is feldspar).
Occasionally a newly discovered use will drive up a price (e.g., indium), or a political flap (e.g., corn/ethanol), or woefully bad policy (e.g., energy) but there are no inherent shortages of any basic resource. And I haven’t even touched on substitution. (We do that for stuff like lead and mercury, but not because it’s scarce or expensive, but because it’s dangerous.)
Not only have we not reached the beginning of the end of our resources, we have not even reached the end of the beginning. It is all very well to say “there are limits”. But those limits are so, well, limitless as to make a mockery of the very definition of the term.
Don’t worry. Be happy! (And I MEAN that.) If you must get depressed, don’t look to the future–study history! (The further back you go, the uglier it gets, with but a few exceptions.)
i The IPCC has been forced [sic] to halve its predictions for sea-level rise
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/10/nclimate10.xml
Waterboarding?
Tracy
You feel free to drop on out anytime. We don’t need ya.
Now Papertiger, no need to be rude.
I watched the show.
Is it censorship when a White House bureaucrat changes the text of a press release written by a scientist? All I know is that I’d rather be free to make up my own mind than be lied to.
I’m so surprised to read these comments. – do any of you who have written, live in a place where resources are compromised? Your sarcasm and irony is displaced and honestly, despicable. The issues here are very pertinent, recourses are dwindling, whether or not you agree with or like CBS, who may very well want to frighten us all to gain ratings, is simply irrelevant. The point is that change is necessary. Shame on you for making light of the situation. Criticize CBS, just don’t hide behind wit. You will only hinder the changes that need to occur. Anyone who has half of a mind will agree that we can’t go on expending our resources like this forever. Please, don’t continue your rhetoric. Instead, spend your words educating instead of decimating.
Please, what we need right now are bright people to change the landscape of the mainstream – instead of spending time commenting on mainstream news “stories” that people listen to and forget by next morning. You all sound like knowledgeable people, although I don’t agree with your views. Make a difference. Do you research – speak to people who have experienced this change in global warming first hand. Then make an educated decision. Then speak to people and educate them, then can you understand what we are up against. I am frightened and not because of CBS, because frankly, they scare me more than global warming. I am frightened because we live in a world in which our most educated , our most talented writers are sitting in front of a computer instead of experiencing the world. This means our view of the planet has come down to reporting from the likes of CBS. Do you want to change things? Then all of you writing your harsh critiques of this story, all of you are obligated to do some real research and get it out to the people. Make a difference.
REPLY: Madam, I think thou doth protest too much without offering up any substance of your own.
No text gets released by the whitehouse without some bureaucrat making a whole lot of Sx. They get paid by the X.
OTOH, it is a bit of a mystery to me why bad scientists are kept around in the first place and not simply bounced out. What does a scientist have to do to get the bum’s rush these days, anyway? Grope the staff?
Out of curiosity, I have been to Dr. Hansen’s home page. It is a scandal for the jackdaws. Why not just hire Oliver Stone to investigate the Warren Commission and be done with it?
To you who protest that I protest,
I do not pretend to know as much as you- I have no idea what you know – I only hope that you, whoever you are, will recognize your time and words are much better spent sending a message than wasting time on something so trivial. CBS has made some changes, they have made the mainstream aware of the horrors in the Congo, the terrible effects of Iraq on our soldiers coming home to almost no care or concern. Who else is telling this story? So I ask you who protest that I protest, what have you done? I will read your reply though I will not respond again as I think this whole forum a waste of time. I hope you agree, and find a more meaningful and more importantly a more effective way to express yourself. Thank you for replying to my comment and good luck to you and your conscience.
REPLY: Space is a vacuum, so is a Dyson. Neither has a consceince. One collects stars, the other collects dust. This blog collects thoughts. If that is a waste, then off you go.
“I’m so surprised to read these comments. – do any of you who have written, live in a place where resources are compromised?”
–The world is on the biggish side and there are rather a lot of places in it. But stick with me, here, I do not mean to be harsh. I think you have a good mind. I hope to influence you to open it further.
“The issues here are very pertinent, resources are dwindling”
–I really don’t know of any in the “materials” sense. Species are another question. They ebb and flow, and sometimes need protection. i encourage this. But we won’t be running out of ice any time soon. (The IPCC AR4 final report about to be released, in fact, has cut its sea level rise limit by half. Wait for it.) The penguins will still be with us.
“The point is that change is necessary. Shame on you for making light of the situation. ”
–But what “change”? the sort that sucks up all the wealth and leaves the UDCs to starve? I am a bleeding-heart liberal, and I cannot abide that thought. Or do you mean the sorts of change that occur naturally, quickly, and profitably in the free market? Including whatever will wind up replacing oil.
“Anyone who has half of a mind will agree that we can’t go on expending our resources like this forever.”
I encourage akk of us to make use of the other half. There simply don’t seem to be any practical limits. Either they are renewable or we have centuries’ worth–at current technological levels. It’s the history, it’s the trend. I’ve even perused some of the figures and drawn a number of the graphs.
By the time centuries roll around, we’ll have thousands of years’ worth, if we even bother to locate that much all at once. Heck, we’ll probably be doing straight mass-conversion by then.
“Please, don’t continue your rhetoric. ”
–I’m just looking at the history of natural resources. Historical trends are what I do.
“Please, what we need right now are bright people to change the landscape of the mainstream – instead of spending time commenting on mainstream news “stories” that people listen to and forget by next morning.”
–We have plenty to do both. Another resourse we are not short of.
“You all sound like knowledgeable people, although I don’t agree with your views. ”
–Debate is what it’s all about. It’s fun and healthy–and “not over”.
“Make a difference. Do you research”
–Check out this site in detail. Mr. Watts is doing the research and making the difference right before your eyes.
“speak to people who have experienced this change in global warming first hand. Then make an educated decision. ”
–We do. Some of the posters here are from the Great White North. So does NASA. The change is mostly in the Arctic, and that is a confluence of the PDO and ADO, both known ice-reducers and both cyclical in nature. (They even say it on their website.)
Measuring the temperatures accurately is worth thousands of words, however!
“Then make an educated decision. Then speak to people and educate them, then can you understand what we are up against.”
–That’s the general idea. And one must be willing to change one’s decisions in the light of developing data, I’m sure you would agree.
“I am frightened because we live in a world in which our most educated , our most talented writers are sitting in front of a computer instead of experiencing the world. ”
–That is no reason to be frightened. Consider the past. Walk in the historians’ shoes. We sit in front of a vast repository of power and knowledge that would stagger the soul of any educated man in the past. What we are sitting in front of it the most powerful tool of knowledge, power, influence, and communication that the world has ever seen. (And okay, a lot of “other stuff”, too, but that is the way of the wicked world.)
And how do you think we GOT to be such talented writers? The words flowing from our fingers as fast as we can type them? You sit before it!
And the individual travels far more than ever in all of history. A century ago 90% of mankind never made it 10 miles from his home.
Do not be frightened by this. Be overwhelmed with joy and energy and the potential. Odds on you are going to live a loooooong time! Mostly thanks to all this stuff you are frightened of. Do not fear the wave. Ride it!
It is a wonderful world. The old dangers, the ones I grew up with, are fading away. Man approaches Childhood’s End. What a time to be alive! Don’t let irrational fears spoil it for you!
(I do the military/foreign policy thing, too, but this is not the venue!)
Now here’s some more hypocrisy. Experiencing the world requires the expelling of a lot of CO2. So do you not believe there is a problem? Or are you one of those who would have everyone ELSE change their lifestyle because you said so? Again, if you believe CO2 is causing a catastrophe, why are you one of those “sitting in front of a computer” and not returning to a hunter/gatherer lifestyle, the only true way to make any meaningful reduction in human industrial activities?