Here’s a CBS News photo slideshow of the definitive (and diverse!) faces of climate change:
http://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/stunning-photos-of-climate-change/3/
Unfortunately, no byline was given for this groundbreaking expose. Now that I think about it, (but this is just my skepticism talking here), maybe CBS News is hoping that most of us rubes won’t even bother to question the author about his stunning climate change photos. Why bother to question it? It’s on a NEWS website and this is “settled science”, right? Furthermore, our Commander in Chief has repeatedly said that climate change is the single largest threat facing our nation. That pronouncement alone should be enough for all Americans to dutifully jump on that solar-powered, responsibly-sourced, 90%- post-consumer-waste, zero-emission, global-climate-change bus.
The timing of the slideshow couldn’t have been more apropos, especially given the news surrounding the global climate change conference coming up in December, the Pope’s pronouncement about global warming, and Obama’s sudden renaming of Mount McKinley ahead of his visit to Alaska to push for more “awareness” of global climate change.
Here’s Obama’s statement on Monday about how we, as a nation, contribute to global climate change:
“I’ve come here today, as the leader of the world’s largest economy and its second largest emitter, to say that the United States recognizes our role in creating this problem, and we embrace our responsibility to help solve it. And I believe we can solve it. That’s the good news. Even if we cannot reverse the damage that we’ve already caused, we have the means — the scientific imagination and technological innovation — to avoid irreparable harm.
We know this because last year, for the first time in our history, the global economy grew and global carbon emissions stayed flat. So we’re making progress; we’re just not making it fast enough.”
Not making progress fast enough, indeed. For the skeptics out there, here are just three arguments for your consideration.
First: It is not fully agreed upon by experts in the carbon emissions field that China is as big a producer as originally thought. Oddly, this might be damaging to the president’s claim that we’re “making progress”, certainly if you take into account that maybe we don’t have the correct data to which we can make comparisons later on.
Second: The “global economy GREW”? Where?
Third: Most environmentalists agree that China is the largest carbon “emitter”. For argument’s sake, let’s say this is true. The environmentalists will also lament that China has virtually no safeguards in place to reduce their emissions, while at the same time the Chinese are building even more coal-fired power plants every month.
http://www.climatecentral.org/blogs/chinas-growing-coal-use-is-worlds-growing-problem-16999
Let’s stipulate those as well. If these statements are all true, then how are the emission numbers staying flat? Could it possibly be that man-made processes simply do not have as an influential and detrimental effect on the environment as has been purported over the last twenty years? Could it possibly be that we need better scientific research that doesn’t begin with a conclusion and work towards a method?
Given the main stream media’s almost lock-step support of liberal progressive ideals, I don’t believe that CBS News or any other news organization will be delving into either possibility anytime soon. After all, they’ve already put up a slideshow of the evidence, didn’t they? It’s settled!