Who’s the Idiot Now?

The ClimateGate scandal demonstrates that some of the key figures behind the man-made global warming theory manipulated the “science” and hid data. Dr. E. Calvin Beisner, national spokesman for the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, says such conduct may be criminal.

Bill O’Reilly should lead the effort to put these criminals in jail. Why? He was misled by them.  In a 2007 interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” O’Reilly said not only that “global warming is here” but that those opposed to the theory were “idiots.”

Who’s the idiot now?

Accuracy in Media never bought into the media-hyped theory. Over the years, under the leadership of AIM founder Reed Irvine, we held numerous panels at our conferences on the subject of how the “science” behind the man-made global warming theory was being manipulated. Dr. S. Fred Singer was a regular speaker. In fact, our recent 40^th anniversary conference had a panel discussion, “Global Warming: Fact or Media Myth?,” featuring Lord Christopher Monckton, Marc Morano of Climate Depot, and Ann McElhinney, director of the powerful film, Not Evil Just Wrong.

AIM published Jerry Carlson’s, Will Media Expose Global Warming Con Job?, in February 2008. Some of our other articles include, “Media promote Global Warming Fraud” and Roger Aronoff’s “Media Frenzy Over Global Warming.” and “More Hot Air on Global Warming.”

May I be permitted to say, “We told you so.”

One of our best AIM Reports on the subject was Roger Aronoff’s “Flip-Flop: From Global Cooling to Warming,” on how some “scientists” and journalists once promoted the theory that the earth was cooling.

But the liberals weren’t the only frauds and/or dupes.

“Government’s gotta be proactive on environment,” O’Reilly told Mike Wallace during that “60 Minutes” interview. “Global warming is here. All these idiots that run around and say it isn’t here. That’s ridiculous.”

We don’t expect the liberals in the media and elsewhere to apologize. Their standards are low, if not non-existent. But O’Reilly claims to hold himself to higher standards. He should prove it.

It is important to note that O’Reilly flip-flopped, saying in 2008 that it was “all guesswork” as to whether global warming is “natural” or “man-made.”

We don’t need a body language expert to conclude that O’Reilly didn’t know what he’s talking about. He was not alone but he did have a popular cable program.

Obviously confused and then unwilling to do the hard work, O’Reilly said back in 2002 that “I have never understood the resistance to the concept of global warming.” He faulted Rush Limbaugh for rejecting evidence from “reputable scientists” but didn’t name any.

His evidence? O’Reilly declared, “When I was a kid, we used to be able to skate on frozen ponds for two months. Now if you get a week of natural ice, that’s a cold winter.”

O’Reilly’s pathetic treatment of this matter received our attention back in 2004 in a column we headlined, “Flip-flopper Bill O’Reilly.” We noted that O’Reilly had claimed that unnamed scientists at MIT, whom he described as “the best in the world,” believe that “all this fossil fuel is hurting the earth” and that global warming is occurring and must be urgently addressed. However, the most prominent expert on global warming at MIT, meteorologist Dr. Richard Lindzen, had not been invited on “The Factor.” Lindzen is a leading critic of the theory.

On July 13, 2009, as noted by Gateway Pundit, O’Reilly told his viewers that since 2001 we have witnessed “seven of the hottest years” on record. This was nonsense. On December 1, John Stossel entered the “No Spin Zone” and declared, “There hasn’t been warming for the past eleven years and we have real problems in the world–millions are dying from malaria, malnutrition, bad hygiene. The idea that we should keep people poor by spending all this money on global warming is an awful idea.”

But rather than apologize for misleading his viewers, O’Reilly adopted a new tack. He became an advocate of “global warming agnosticism” and said, “Only the Deity knows whether the planet is warming and who is at fault. But along with that, anything that we can do to make the planet cleaner, we should try to do.”

O’Reilly is spinning so fast a body language expert would be of no practical use in determining what exactly he means.

Now that ClimateGate has so clearly exposed the fraudulent nature of some of those behind the theory, O’Reilly should himself “come clean” and set the standard for what the rest of the media should be and do.

We suggest a Bill O’Reilly “Talking Points Memo” that includes:

“Factor Viewers: I was wrong about global warming. I didn’t do my homework. I jumped to conclusions and flip-flopped. What’s worse, I accused those of telling the truth of being idiots. I was the idiot. For that I apologize.”

It is incumbent on O’Reilly not only to apologize to his viewers but to work actively to expose the evidence of what Beisner calls “serious scientific malfeasance–the fabrication, corruption, destruction, hiding, and cherry-picking of data,” as well as “intimidation of dissenting scientists and journal editors–and efforts to evade disclosure under Freedom of Information Laws in the United Kingdom and the United States…”

Naming names, Beisner told this columnist, “Rational inquiry, reasoned discussion, and open debate are the victims of such men as Phil Jones, Keith Briffa, Ben Santer, James Hansen, Michael Mann, and other scientific high priests of the religion of manmade global warming exposed in ClimateGate, along with their non-scientist acolytes like Al Gore and Maurice Strong.”

He adds, however, that “There’s a silver lining to this cloud: All of their victims may be resurrected by the misconduct’s exposure. Thousands and thousands of scientists the world over, not to mention federal and state attorneys general and university academic fraud investigators, now need to restore scientific integrity and the open, transparent quest for truth by holding these scientists accountable and demanding absolute public openness in all future scientific research.”

Beisner says that “the scientists, and with them the institutions that employ them, who violate the canons of complete openness with all the process and products of publicly funded research, should be held liable and required to repay every penny of the millions of dollars in research grants they’ve received.”

Equally important is that their motives be exposed. In this case, the obvious intention is to destroy the American way of life through higher taxes, even on a global level.

As I told Foxnews.com for their article, “Critics Decry ‘One-Sided’ Media Coverage of Climate Change Debate,” our media have not only embraced the bogus “science” and the fraudulent theory, they have failed to tell the American people what is in the draft treaty being debated at the 15th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) taking place at Bella Center in Copenhagen from December 7-15.

According to the conference website, President Barack Obama is shifting the timing of his visit to the international climate summit in Copenhagen “as prospects for a political agreement at the event seem more likely.”

I took my cue from Lord Monckton and read the document. Page 83 raises the possibility of “cap-and-trade schemes and carbon taxes.” Page 134 suggests a “global levy” on carbon dioxide emissions, including from international aviation and maritime transport. Page 135 suggests an “international adaption levy on airfares” and a global tax on international financial markets.

We are talking about hundreds of billions of dollars.

As Monckton suggests, if you read the entire document you come away convinced that these people want to put in place a world government. Yet, the United States was born in a tax revolt when King George tried to tax us.

Freedom of the press does not mean the right to lie. It is time to tell the truth about those who have been lying to us.

Cliff Kincaid is the Editor of Accuracy in Media, and can be contacted at cliff.kincaid@aim.org. This is an excerpt of one of his columns, which can be read in its entirety here.