Fox News Errs On Global Warming
By Don | July 19, 2008
Fox News apparently is in need of a fact checker with regard to the following story that appeared Friday on its webiste.
Scientific Consensus About Global Warming Takes Another Big Hit
Change of Heart
An organization representing nearly 50,000 physicists has reversed its stance on climate change. The American Physical Society now says that many of its members no longer believe global warming is caused by humans.
The Society previously declared: "The evidence is incontrovertible. Global warming is occurring." But the Society now says there is no scientific consensus to support that statement: "There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the intergovernmental panel on climate change conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are likely to be primarily responsible for global warming."
As a global warming skeptic this story certainly caught my eye so when I went to the APS website to verify this I was surprised to see the following statement.
APS Position Remains Unchanged
The American Physical Society reaffirms the following position on climate change, adopted by its governing body, the APS Council, on November 18, 2007:
"Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth's climate."
An article at odds with this statement recently appeared in an online newsletter of the APS Forum on Physics and Society, one of 39 units of APS. The header of this newsletter carries the statement that "Opinions expressed are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the APS or of the Forum." This newsletter is not a journal of the APS and it is not peer reviewed.
Read: APS Climate Change Statement
Fox erred by not understanding trhat the newsletter was produced by one of the APS units and didn't necessarily reflect the views of the APS. The APS for it's part should have made this clearer to the reader. By carrying the newsletter on its website it gave the reader the impression that is was an official publcation of the society. While both parties are to blame for this error Fox as a news organization has the ultimate responsibility to thoroughly check the story before commenting on it. They should clarify this in a future update.
3 Comments | Post a Comment
The story is that the scientists agree that global warming is occurring, they just don’t think that man is the cause of it as the Goracle and his acolytes in the “Man Is Bad” religion preach.
Don,
There’s $500,000 waiting for you at http://www.junkscience.com
Now that you have the proof that global warming is man made the money is yours. I’m amazed that someone with infinite wisdom like Al Gore hasn’t claimed the 1/2 million. He could use the money to pay his home electric bill for a month and there might be enough change left over to gas up his suv.
July 20 at 4:17 pm | #1 | Link
Not so fast Don. Get the entire story before indicting FOX NEWS…
Start here: http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/editor.cfm
Your remarks are clearly not in the spirit of, “accuracy in news reporting.”
If APS considered MMGW to be an “incontrovertable” fact, then why are they now saying, “Since the correctness or fallacy of that conclusion has immense implications for public policy and for the future of the biosphere, we thought it appropriate to present a debate within the pages of P&S;concerning that conclusion.”
The story did not originate with FOX NEWS and they were not in error for reporting it the way they did.