Upon embarking on the above article by Senator James N. Inhofe, one learns its main focus; The media's coverage of and possible bias towards Global Warming. Hollywood's support and role in also mentioned as a main focal point. For this week's assigned blog topic, our class is being asked to read, summarize, and provide opinions toward this article; or at the very least, the first 16 pages of it.Inhofe begins by pointing out the Media's frantic push for alarm since 1895. Four times since that year, the media has warned of climate changes. However, they alternate between global cooling and warming. He also bitterly says that as of late, advocacy for fear has been on the rise. Letters have been written, speeches have been presented, asking media outlets to stifle scientists with an anti-global warming view of the Earth's climate.At the next point in the article, the Senator points out the debunking of a widely accepted global warming "hockey stick" shaped graph, that showed a dramatic spike in temperature at the beginning of the 20th century. However, this graph's accuracy was disproved in 2006, though it was, at one time, highly promoted by the media. It was further proved that a miniature warming period between 900 AD and 1300 occurred, as well as a small ice age between 1500 and 1850.Inhofe begins to site the media as the main source of the widespread alarm towards climate change. The media, he says, is simply feeding off the fears of the public, scaring them with over exaggerated figures and impossible computer-generated models."It is long past the time for us to separate climate change fact from hysteria," he says, noting the media's as the main problem.
But how has the media's ridiculous support and hype effected anything?Well, as mentioned before, the media has been flipping between warming and cooling campaigns since the late 1800's recycling slogans that could indeed be used today. Campaigns that could now "advertise Senator Al Gore's recent film"Inhofe points out the double agendas, the ones that I've noticed so prominently, in news organizations, and the loss of art in the journalistic profession. Inhofe believes that their erasing of certain facts and sides of the story, portrays the situation to be much worse than it is in actuality.Lastly, Inhofe touches on the reality of "An Inconvenient Truth", the movie by Senator Al Gore. He points out that Gore refrenced the same, flawed, "hockey stick" theory, gave false figures, and wrongly implied dozens of things. Yet, the media supports it.
After reading this article, I found myself agreeing with the Senator. Yes, global warming may eventually be an issue, but as it stands now, the hype far outweighs the current problem. There has been a loss in journalistic integrity, a loss in how we are presented the news. Each group has their own agenda, a sick-seeming way to scare the public. Yet, as history shows, the media has led us wrongly before. Yet we come back to them, being yet again misinformed and mislead. And no one stops the cycle. Hopefully, the senator can...
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