By
Dan Gainor
September 24, 2008 - 1:34pm
Don’t laugh. It must have gone somewhere because it’s not doing as the left and the media had warned. Just a few months ago, supposedly responsible journalists were telling us that the Arctic could be ice free this summer because of the dreaded realties of warming.
There are 1.74 million reasons why that didn’t happen. That’s how many square miles of ice are still standing after Arctic ice hit its low point for the season.
On July 28, NBC’s Anne Thompson was the one on ice patrol. “But this summer, some scientists say that ice could retreat so dramatically that open water covers the North Pole, so much so that you could sail across it.”
She’s probably right. You could sail across it – in a sleigh.
A Sept. 16 National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) report said ice loss was less than in 2007. “On Sept. 12, 2008, sea ice extent dropped to 4.52 million square kilometers (1.74 million square miles). This appears to have been the lowest point of the year, as sea has now begun its annual cycle of growth in response to autumn cooling,” according to the organization.
It’s a far cry from how “Today” host Lester Holt described the story. He called it “surprising and, frankly, alarming news from the scientific community, a new report that says the North Pole could soon be ice-free.”
To put what actually happened in perspective, there are only a handful of nations larger than the ice at its low point. It’s more than twice as large as Mexico and about 10 times larger than Iraq.
That’s a pretty big error. One journalists are almost guaranteed to repeat until they get the facts they want.
Shortly after Thompson’s report, on July 30, ABC weatherman Sam Champion repeated the warning about Arctic ice. He scared the “Good Morning America” audience that Arctic ice loss was at an all-time rate. “Every summer we're on a record pace for losing it last summer and this summer we're at the exact same pace.”
Except that isn’t accurate either. The final total for 2008 was 9.4% more than the record-setting 2007 minimum. The left will claim it’s still part of a trend, but they don’t know either. We’ve only been tracking satellite imagery of the Arctic since 1979 – not a huge amount of time given the age of the planet.
Is it any wonder that Americans are tuning out the entire global warming agenda? According to Gallup, the environment/global warming ranked dead last on a 22-category list of “most important reasons why you would vote for a preferred candidate.”
Last. Behind international affairs, behind healthcare reform or even education. None of those issues matter to voters this election. And every one of them scored higher with voters than global warming.
Remember Al Gore’s much ballyhooed We Campaign to bully Americans into backing climate change legislation? Politico dubbed it a “$300 million, bipartisan campaign to try to push climate change higher on the nation’s political agenda.”
It debuted with fancy ads featuring Pat Robertson and Al Sharpton or Newt Gingrich and Nancy Pelosi together declaring their abiding love for the global warming agenda.
And it’s been a miserable flop. The We Campaign ran smack dab into harsh fiscal realities of a declining stock market. It’s had a wee impact.
Maybe that’s because people have begun to tune out the green propaganda as journalists link everything from allergies to bigger storms to climate change. Even global warming hype machine Time magazine doesn’t embrace all of the silly claims any more.
A recent Time issue explained that increased storm impact is manmade, just not the way Al Gore and his disciples would claim. “But there is another inconvenient truth out there: We are getting more vulnerable to weather mostly because of where we live, not just how we live,” wrote Time.
Last year’s cold winter has raised even more concerns that global warming advocates might be way off in their predictions. Investor's Business Daily reported that August was “extraordinary.” “For the first time in nearly 100 years, the sun created no visible spots. The last time that happened: June 1913.” Based on sunspot history, the sun may be “entering a down cycle.”
Even the Old Farmer’s Almanac is raising questions about a new “big chill” or little ice. “The next 20 years, it's going to be colder,” Sarah Perreault, of the Old Farmer's Almanac, told Reuters.
Maybe we’d be better off paying attention to old farmers instead of old media.