USA Today Offers More Hot Air On ‘Global Warming’
Paul F. Stifflemire, Jr.

     USA Today’s Traci Watson joins the media chorus who have made up their minds: “global warming” is real, mankind is to blame, carbon dioxide is the major culprit, and President George W. Bush doesn’t care. She writes in her October 28 story entitled: “Frustrated by EPA, states try to halt pollution” that “States from Maine to California are trying to slow global warming, in many instances because they are frustrated by the Bush administration’s inaction on the issue.” Watson betrays the hopeful naiveté so common in the media: Despite the fact that no one expects anything to come from the efforts and their costs will be significant, doing something—anything—is “at least a start” in Watson’s words.

     Her story is fraught with statements that would be dismissed by the left as “faith based” if applied by advocates of positions they opposed. For example, “Most climate scientists tie global warming to the use of coal, gasoline and oil” is a classic chant of the environmental cognoscenti. However, good news coverage requires a bit more circumspection and some backup for the “most scientists” claim. Watson describes the so-called “fossil fuels” used to meet more than 90 percent of US energy needs as: “essentials that Americans won’t easily give up;” leaving the impression she finds ending their use both possible and desirable and precluded only by unenlightened stubbornness. The media have for some time favored the “do something” proponents and have ignored or disparaged those who, like the Bush administration, advocate more study. Alarmists often claim the National Aeronautic and Space Administration’s (NASA) scientists have “settled” the argument in favor of the proposition that unless human activities that produce so-called “greenhouse” gases are curtailed we face a global warming catastrophe.

     NASA actually says that “many scientists fear” that is the case, not that all scientists agree. Global warming alarmists fail to mention that NASA also states: “There are those, some of whom are scientists, who believe that global warming will result in little more than warmer winters and increased plant growth. They point to the flaws in scientists’ measurements, the complexity of the climate, and the uncertainty in the climate models used to predict climate change. They claim that attempting to lower greenhouse emissions may do more damage to the world economy and human society than any amount of global warming.” In other words, there are at least some scientists who argue that what is proposed by the states mentioned in Watson’s article would be useless at best, harmful at worst, and extremely costly without offsetting benefit. But no such counterpoint is to be found in Watson’s article. Instead, she quotes only the position that carbon dioxide emissions can be reduced “without sacrifice” and, unless it is: “Scientists forecast the earth will warm by two to 10 degrees by 2100….” Without providing any source whatever, Watson continues: “Researchers estimate the planet warmed about one degree from 1900 to 2000. Higher temperatures will cause the oceans to rise and flood coastal areas and will lead to drought.”

     NASA is not so sure: “How all of this warming will alter the weather is more uncertain.” As for flood and drought, NASA says “…if somehow the entire Greenland Ice Sheet melted and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet fell into the sea, the sea level would rise roughly 10 meters (30 feet). This is probably impossible over the next century….” And, believe it or not, NASA says: “some of this change may be for the better. Higher levels of carbon dioxide and warmer temperatures may cause forests to become more lush and vigorous. Warmer ocean waters on the open ocean could be beneficial to fish and algae on the high seas,” though NASA, in the interest of objectivity and balance, does admit to the possibility that “…most changes will likely be for the worst.”

     We’d like to say that Watson’s biased, alarmist article was unusually bad reporting. Instead we’d have to say that it is typical, even as we insist that Watson and USA Today can and should do a more honest job of informing their readers on an issue that is hardly as one-sided as they would have us believe. Their readers deserve the truth.

Paul F. Stifflemire, Jr. is Director of the Media Research Center’s Business & Media Institute

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