They Only Think They Know

Via Memorandum the luminaries of the leftwing blogosphere: Ezra Klein, Matthew Yglesias, The Atlantic’s in house gynecologist, Andrew Sullivan, and TPM all think they’ve “owned” George Will and “debunked” his “Dark Green Doomsayers” column.

The thrust of their argument is that last year, USA Today debunked as myth the so called skeptic talking point that in the 1970s there was a consensus of global cooling. That it was the media who hyped up global cooling in the 1970s and no real consensus existed.

Klein Yglesias, et al need to step back from exulting in their own petulance.

Yglesias specifically states:

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The fact of the matter is that there was a bunch of media hype in the 1970s about a cooling trend. Now as probably know, the media sometimes hypes up bogus trend stories with no real basis in evidence. Neither Will nor Boaz are small children or lobotomy victims, so presumably they understand this, too. And that’s exactly what was happening in the 70s…

However, its not as cut and dry as Yeglesias thinks it is.

As Chris Horner writes on page 33 his book Red Hot Lies, which details the tricks of the alarmist trade:

It is also true that the media did run with a minority shrieking about cooling when it appears a majority among the very-divided scientific community were gunning the warming bandwagon’s engine. But this claim proves too much: back then as in recent years, what was in the literature was not what was driving the debate, which was instead driven by a filtered view of it; but the gatekeepers then are the same as today.

To now claim that the cooling assertions came from fringe elements is to deny the record, including debates by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In short, the media listen to whom they wish to listen, and write what they wish to write, but the gatekeepers then are the same as today.

Emphasis mine

To wit: the same folks listed above who claim that the media (and let’s not forget their environmentalist allies) hyped global cooling in the 1970s are part and parcel of a similar machine hyping anthropogenic warming catastrophe.

So we shouldn’t believe a media hyped cooling hoax in the 1970s, but take their descendants word as gospel when it comes to “climate change” in 2009? Nice try, but no sale.

Ta-Nehisi Coates throws the zinger that on the issue of global warming skeptics take pride in being ignorant. Given that he and his brethren on the left just engaged in the same stunt they decried I ask who, is pridefully ignorant now.

Obviously these are clever people; they wouldn’t be where they are if they were not. However, it appears they are too clever by half.



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