From Media Matters:
Beck, CEI's Horner denounced Gore's work as "science fiction," spread global warming misinformation
On the April 5 edition of his CNN Headline News program, Glenn Beck joined Chris Horner, counsel for the energy industry-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), in denouncing former Vice President Al Gore's award-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth (Paramount Classics, 2006), with Horner saying the film is "pure science fiction." As evidence, Beck cited a New York Times article on global warming -- which, as Media Matters for America has repeatedly noted, includes misleading characterizations, a false comparison, and misrepresentations of Gore's statements. Horner also claimed that, "in about a year, it'll be almost 10 years since we've experienced any warming" -- an argument contradicted by NASA surface temperature analyses. He also asserted that Gore "has been saying, for nigh on five years, that we've got 10 years to live," a statement that Gore does not appear to have ever made.
In introducing the segment, Beck stated: "Even The New York Times has said that Al Gore is writing checks that his research couldn't cash. Usually, the only thing you find about Al Gore in The New York Times -- love letters." Horner later echoed Beck's claim, saying: "It took The New York Times about 15 months to pick up on the fact that his movie was pure science fiction before they found some scientists who were willing to say this." But as Media Matters noted, the March 13 Times article to which Horner and Beck were presumably referring included several misrepresentations of Gore's position, including making a false comparison to suggest that Gore exaggerated a potential rise in sea levels.
Additionally, the article's author, New York Times science writer William J. Broad, identified Donald J. Easterbrook as a "rank-and-file" scientist who opposes Gore's views, when, in fact Easterbrook, in a presentation at the Geological Society of America's 2006 annual meeting, suggested that "global warming since 1900 could well have happened without any effect of CO2" and predicted global cooling between 2065 and 2100. Moreover, Media Matters has documented that scientists who were identified as skeptics in the article -- Richard Lindzen, Bjørn Lomborg, Roy Spencer, and Benny J. Peiser -- all have made statements questioning global warming that have either been debunked or discredited by the scientific community, which Broad did not report. The Broad article echoes the anti-Gore myths perpetuated by the Times that -- as Media Matters senior fellow Eric Boehlert has noted -- affected the outcome of the 2000 election.
During the segment, Horner also claimed that "it'll be almost 10 years since we've experienced any warming," and that "it hasn't warmed since 1998." In fact, as Media Matters has noted, according to NASA, 1998 was a particularly warm year because "a strong El Nino, a warm water event in the eastern Pacific Ocean, added warmth to global temperatures." Despite the temperature spike that occurred in 1998, the Climatic Research Unit's Global Temperature Record and a surface temperature analysis of 2006 by the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) show a general warming trend since 1970. Moreover, a February 2007 NASA Earth Observatory news release states, "By the early 1980s, temperatures surpassed those of the 1940s and, despite ups and downs from year to year, they continued rising beyond the year 2000 .....(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200704100016
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