CBS evening news finally, after over two weeks, gets around to covering Climategate. Most interestingly, they have a short clip of an interview with Kevin Trenberth. Dr. Trenberth, as many recall said this in one of the CRU emails:
The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.
Look at what Dr. Trenberth adds now:
h/t to WUWT reader LiamIam
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“…the fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.”
The travesty is that he dare not repeat his comment it in public, or did he? Perhaps CBS censored him….
I’m so sick of the claims of “cherry picking” and “out of context”… it is the biggest form of intellectual snub we could possibly get. With one sentence they are essentially saying that the years of building this case, the years of making the very context which these e-mails reveal was all bull****.
The skeptic community has done the world a favor, and still they give a mouthpiece to scientists who obfuscate reality and throw ego-trips against those who disagree.
Interesting the way they covered this. Did it take them this long NOT to do any investigation? Goodness, look at the too cute little picture Trenberth has on the screen behind him. Nice staging. Robert Gibbs’ statement was the expected political response – this administration has a remarkable ability to look a fact in the face and ignore it. I think the senator has the right tone and I’m glad they didn’t dis him for a change. They didn’t look very hard to get more AGW sceptics to quote, did they. This isn’t news. This is pathetic journalism.
Phillip Bratby (09:31:36) : Can somebody write down exactly what Trenberth said. The second part, after the cherry-picking, was indecipherable.
He said ‘…taking quite out of context and mis-interpreting what they are saying….’
After following this story and the details that have emerged over the course of two weeks, this late, lame reporting by CBS is pathetic. If there was any spirit of journalism surviving at CBS, they’d pull out all the stops and do up a special; it would take an hour to give a balanced presentation, going beyond the trite bits from the emails.
They’ve now switched to “conspiracy theory” i.e it was them pesky Russkies wot did it http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/copenhagen/article6946281.ece
It is so hilarious!
Trenberth’s “analysis” of Climategate is as about as trustworthy and accurate as is his analysis of the climate data. The only travesty is that scientists like him have been allowed to abuse the scientific process for so long.
Who really knows what year was the warmest?
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20070208/
http://weather.about.com/od/climatechange/a/HottestYears_2.htm
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/ushcn/hcntmptrends.php
Interesting, if the CBS “reporter” would do a little work they could ask the question – “Just what year was the warmest? Two government agencies, two answers.”
It isn’t about what year was warmest, it is about the fact that warming is occurring, has occurred in the past, and we don’t know why exactly! We can just theorize, and maybe guess a little, but in the end we just don’t know for sure. And with that admission, would the politicians be jumping all over multi-trillion dollar spending to “save the planet” from this catastrophe just waiting in the wings.
The journalism profession continues to decline…
The “trick” and “hide the decline” had nothing to do with a fall in temperatures after 1998. The decline there was in tree ring data…
Dr Trenberth’s quotes did not address at all the specifics of what he said–that it was a “travesty” that temperatures hadn’t been going up. However, his statement also had nothing to do with the “hide the decline” quote.
Let’s see, a bald assertion that 1998 was the hottest year ever. Is that satellite, covering the “ever” of the last 30 years or is that the NCDC, covering back to the 1800s but with temperature “corrections” making the 1940s colder and the 1990s warmer?
Why show a picture of a smog-shrouded city when talking about global warming? Smog over a city is a local affect, and you usually can’t even see it if looking at the globe (from space). Why not show a clear snow-capped mountain view? Oh yeah, it’s because we are trying to show that humans are destroying the earth.
I could go on, but CBS should hire someone who knows something about the subject to do their reports.
CBS interviewing Trenberth on Climategate…wouldn’t this be like interviewing G. Gordon Liddy after Watergate? Interview the guy who got caught red-handed to get his side of the story first.
Yeah, “cherry-picking” – – that’s rich coming from Dr. T.
Despite all the media attempts to spin this matter and make it go away, the central issue is NOT whether warming has occurred (depends on start time). And the issue certainly is NOT whether climate changes. That’s inherent in the word “climate”.
The e-mails and other files are important because they show how these folk have contrived to “adjust” the paleoclimate record to justify “hottest month/year/decade on record” and to claim that change is “accelerating” and “worse than we thought/projected”.
Not to mention evidence of suppressing contrary research, especially in the “vaunted” IPCC crap-o-matic documents. Look at McIntyre’s attempts to question the paleoclimate chapter 6, Briffa’s non-responses, and the IPCC stonewalling on release of all comments and replies.
Here’s what the science media ought to be reporting and these are the questions that should be posed, under oath, to Trenberth, Mann, Briffa, and the whole lot of paleo-charlatans.
Where do those old trees come from that record temp/precip/something from 1000 AD? Many come from fossil forests ABOVE MODERN TIMBERLINE or logs exposed in sediments BENEATH RECEDING GLACIERS. Hmmm, how do you suppose those forests grew at higher altitudes or in areas later covered by glaciers? Well DUH, it was warmer back then.
The other big questions are, even if warming has occurred, “Is that unprecedented?” and “What’s man got to do with it?”
We already know what Mann has done. (see “cherry-picking”, above)
I need to see the Source Watch Spreadsheet on who is funding these clowns in the video and who is paying for the makup and costumes.
It seems to me that reason why so many scientists have said they believe in AGW is because they have spent their lives working to a high set of professional standards, and simply couldn’t believe that their colleagues in Climate Science could be so dishonest. I think that the long term outcome of this affair will be an increasing scepticism of AGW in the general scientific community. This acorn will become an oak.
Here’s a link to a cleaner version of the video from CBS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UE6QxBaIEv8
I’m so sick of the talking points “cherry-picking” and “out of context.” OK, wise guys, why don’t you hurry up and GIVE us the proper context then?!? We have the entire email thread series, buddy, we HAVE the context! Why not provide us then with the NON-cherry-picked emails that were not released yet which will offset the meaning, and neutralize the whole controversy?
AND I’m sick of hearing about “stolen” “private” emails. The first thing I learned in MIS is that there is no such thing as private emails. “Write every email as if you expect it to be read by everybody.” The emails don’t belong to the senders, they belong to the University, and if they are publicly funded they belong to the public.
I was interested by Obama’s press secretary’s comment: “Climate change IS happening…” This is true. It is almost always true, more or less.
I see something positive in all of this, i.e., a greater focus on adaptation than mitigation. Much of our infrastructure is very badly designed to cope with any changes in climate, not to mention changes in the weather! Structures are poorly or badly designed to cope with extreme weather events. In my circle, the civil engineering world, much of what is being discussed would be a good idea even if AGW were totally discredited today.
Maybe, just maybe, if AGW is discredited, it will remain in vogue just enough to do something useful under the rubric of “climate is changing, climate always is changing – let’s build for resilience.”
It’s funny the warmer alarmists resort to clown makeup to promote their nonsense. Clowns, get it?
Love all three clouds on his screen saver. My experience with reporters /journalists after playing 8 yrs of pro football is they try to lead you to say what they want to here , they have their own agenda , they print what they want to print. I remember reading my first article in the local rag about me and saying [snip] , I didn’t say that.
About as good as you could get from CBS I suppose.
Slow connection today so I didn’t watch the youtube but it doesn’t sound like they asked him about this gem from a Jones email “KEVIN and I will keep those papers out (of some IPCC report) if we have to change the meaning of peer reviewed” That Kevin is most certainly Trenberth as he and Jones were chairing the IPCC group and it makes me dizzyingly angry. If the dissenting view papers were poor science it should have been easy enough to include and refute them — instead Phil and Kevin plot to keep them out altogether.
When a major media outlet asks Trenberth to clarify that THEN I’ll credit them with doing their job of investigating news bits and informing the public.
The reporter has a lisp so bad she spits all her words out. Sort of like Elmer Fudd. Why is it that CBS hires people with verbal handicaps to garble the news? And why do they show industrial smoke stacks emitting steam as if it was CO2 (a clear, odorless gas as well as the essential nutrient of life)?
Do you ever get the feeling that we live in Bizarro World now? Something happened (was it the ’60s?) that caused a goodly proportion of the human race to go stark, raving mad.
Trenbooth is distraught that Thermageddon hasn’t happened, and in fact temps are going the other way. Why does that upset him so? What demons possess him? Is he merely a con artist shill for the greatest global graft and fraud of all times? Or is he mad as a hatter?
Bernard Goldberg was the first CBS reporter to begin talking about media bias. He wrote a book about it called, “Bias”. He was Dan Rather’s right hand reporter. There was talk of firing Bernard Goldberg because of his bringing up media bias. He is not at CBS now but he was not fired.
Dan Rather worked at CBS until “RatherGate”, the faked George Bush military document.
Because of their clear bias CBS’s ratings have been declining. But a certain ilk of people will always want CBS type of news. Many of that ilk had probably never heard of ClimateGate—some of whom now wish they never did, IMO.
So for inasmuch as CBS in it’s bias made a report on ClimateGate this isn’t too bad a report.
I have to post this from Bishop Hill “Climate of Fear”, on trying to get someone to review his book “The Hockey Stick Illusion”:
Bishop Hill Climate of fear
December 6, 2009
I’ve had some correspondence over the last few days with a well-known writer. We’ve been discussing people who might want to review my book, but it has not been an easy task. I thought his comments on this problem were illuminating and I’m reproducing them here (with permission). As you will see, as well as not being able to name my correspondent, I have had to redact a name from the quote as well to protect the identity of the person named. Here’s what my contact said when asked for suggestions for reviewers:
Asked for names of potential writers, I feel like an early Lutheran asked to identify his fellow readers of English bibles and knowing that Sir Thomas Gore, sorry More, is reading my letters and tightening his thumbscrews in Chelsea. In other words, like you, I know lots of people who are on side privately but daren’t say so publicly. The other day I bumped into ************** at an event and said something about his global warming views (sceptical) and he froze and said ‘I don’t do that stuff now – people would not touch me if I did’.
What can one say to that? I now live in a country where people are afraid to state their opinions on a scientific question. They will have their livelihoods taken away from them if they do.
I sometimes have to pinch myself to ensure that this really is happening and I’m not just living in a bad dream.
Brent Matich (10:40:03) :
OT,
but, are you going to watch Brett Favre tonight?
Re: Ed Scott (09:54:34) :
Sceptics in Wonderland
by Christopher Essex
This is OT, but if you haven’t read the book “Taken by Storm” by Essex and McKitrick, you should. It’s an excellent read.
If you people who are still skeptical about global warming being real want a reliable source of the truth, then you should click on the National Geographic Google-ad link and go to the “Is Global Warming Real” section. You’ll learn all about how scientists use tree rings to know about temperatures.
….and WUWT will get money. 🙂