Want climate truth? Believe the opposite when the media says something false

This article was originally published at The Empowerment Alliance and is re-published here with permission. 

According to Gallup, Americans’ trust in media has reached a new all-time low. Polling shows that just 28% of respondents express a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in newspapers, television and radio to report news “fully, accurately and fairly.”

As the renowned polling firm noted, “When Gallup began measuring trust in the news media in the 1970s, between 68% and 72% of Americans expressed confidence in reporting. However, by the next reading in 1997, public confidence had fallen to 53%. Media trust remained just above 50% until it dropped to 44% in 2004, and it has not risen to the majority level since.”

In other words, fewer than half of all Americans expressed trust in media as far back as 2004 – long before Donald Trump came along as a serious presidential contender complaining about “fake news.” The effort to point fingers at Trump for Americans’ low opinion of journalists is misguided. The obvious reason for widespread skepticism about media accuracy and fairness is provided by news agencies and their reporters on a daily basis.

Nowhere is the media more prone to veering from truth and accuracy than on climate reporting. Mainstream media outlets are for the most part firmly entrenched as true believers in the Church of Climatology.

Case in point: A few days ago, Lee Zeldin, the head of the Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency, was a featured speaker at a conference organized by the Heartland Institute. According to the New York Times, this offered proof that “climate change deniers are experiencing a triumphant resurgence in Mr. Trump’s Washington after years of feeling sidelined by the scientific and political establishments.”

There is nothing to indicate that the Times reporter who wrote the story has a science-related degree, although she has a history of climate reporting. And yet, at least three times in her story she took it upon herself to label as “false” various statements with which she apparently disagreed. In order:

1. “Climate change is a hoax perpetrated by ‘leftist politicians.’ Fossil fuels are the greenest energy sources. More carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will be harmless. These were some of the false claims made at a conference on Wednesday held by groups that reject the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change.”

2. “Other sponsors included the CO2 Coalition, a nonprofit group that claims falsely that planet-warming carbon dioxide is beneficial to humans.”

3. “The conference was set to continue on Thursday with a speech by John Clauser, a Nobel physics laureate who has claimed, falsely, that clouds have a net cooling effect on the planet.”

The story included this standard mainstream media climate claim: “A vast majority of scientists agree that climate change is real and that it is caused by burning fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal.” A comprehensive list of those scientists was not provided.

The Times, of course, pioneered the policy of mainstream media news stories calling things said by Donald Trump or anyone associated with Trump as “lies” or “false” without feeling the need to cite an outside authority. In other words, reporters are fully empowered to play God, to unequivocally determine truth, and to share their divine knowledge with their readers. The sheer arrogance of it is astounding.

The assertion that Clauser “has claimed, falsely, that clouds have a net cooling effect on the planet” is particularly audacious. It is widely agreed that clouds do indeed have a net cooling effect on the planet. In fact, no less an authority than this same New York Times published a piece just last year making clear that clouds help cool the Earth.

The essay, headlined “We Take Clouds for Granted,” noted that while some clouds help cool and others help warm the planet, the conclusion was unambiguous: “The mix of cloud types over our planet ensures they have an overall cooling effect because the shade from the low clouds outweighs the warming effect of the high ones.”

In other words, Dr. Clauser was right as rain – the kind of moisture most likely to come from a Nimbostratus or Cumulonimbus cloud, although others can also produce rain (in case the New York Times is fact checking).

Other items identified by the Times reporter as “false” are, in fact, merely debatable opinions; many DO believe that climate change a hoax perpetrated by leftist politicians. And there is no question that carbon dioxide is beneficial to humans in numerous ways, as well as being essential for plant life. Those are not false claims by any stretch.

In conclusion: The New York Times reported, falsely, that the Heartland Institute conference included numerous falsehoods. But that’s not really news, right?

Gary Abernathy is a longtime newspaper editor, reporter and columnist. He was a contributing columnist for the Washington Post from 2017-2023 and a frequent guest analyst across numerous media platforms. He is a contributing opinion columnist for The Empowerment Alliance, which advocates for realistic approaches to energy consumption and environmental conservation.