Unpacking The Climate Cherry Picking

Suddenly this weekend it was reproduced cookie-cutter-fashion across the internet as gospel. Fully the first four pages of google searches for the title of the piece were filled almost exclusively with conservative blog-chest-thumping touting the end of global warming: “scientists doubt climate change” declared the title.

I guess the first thing that got my antennae up was the fact that this oh-so-significant Al Gore and global warming consensus take-down (or portrayed at least as such) was published in the Washington Times. What a minute: isn’t that the Unification Church’s Sun Yung Moon’s creation and current holding?

And hold yer horses: I didn’t think even the anthropogenic CO2 deniers doubted climate change. Perhaps this was a wee bit of hyperbole. But no, that wouldn’t happen in our present honest debate over the very future of the planet.

I wondered: who were these “400 prominent scientists”, what were their backgrounds and credentials, where had they published their “doubts” and just exactly where did they diverge from the very large consensus reflected when climate scientists from across the globe are surveyed? Sniff. I thought perhaps I smelled a familiar odor.

I think you can rest assured there will be some debunking going on, particularly of Senator Inhofe’s truthiness and use of tax dollars to promulgate his spin in the Senate.

The piece, you’ll note, was posted to the Inhofe Press blog by Marc Morano. You may remember him as the Swift Boat stink-stirrer, more lately become the “Second Generation Climate Change Science Assassin”. Yeah, this is sounding more scientific all the time.

If you are among the choir that Inhofe preaches to, keep your robes on and don’t read any further. Just tune into your favorite talk radio show and hear this message beat to death without a hint of critical thought.

If, on the other hand, you fee like me that there is something not quite right here, I’d suggest this post at Climate Progress.org as a place to start your own debriefing of the cherry picking in the Senate.