Lou Dobbs works to make CNN viewers less informed 8

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1. 

   edhumes Posted 10:32 am
   14 Jan 2009

   The Quackery Avalanche BeginsBe prepared for much more of this phony "science" once President Obama replaces our global-warming-denier-in-chief. This CNN report, which appears almost identical to the embarrassing 1970s news magazine cover stories about an approaching Ice Age, illustrates the three-point strategy that will be used to discredit real climate scientists and the politicians who support greenhouse gas emissions controls:Fringe science and quacks will be given equal (or, in this case, much more) time and credibility in an attempt to balance what the CNN reporter called "global warming believers." None of the experts quoted are actually climate scientists; my favorite quote was, "It's really arrogant for mankind to believe he controls the climate of the universe." Can't argue with that!Then we have the doomsday scenario: it's pointless to act against climate change because nothing will work - "all pain, no gain." That of course, has been the argument for the last eight years, but it is abundantly clear today that, had we acted when Bush first took office, we would be in a far better position today. But doing nothing for another eight years really could spell doomsday, and to offer that option to CNN viewers as if it is viable and sensible is the height or irresponsibility.Finally, we have the argument that greenhouse gas controls will hurt the economy, and we can't afford that now. This is the same argument offered up since the early days of the Reagan Administration, when the auto industry would be doomed by fuel efficiency requirements, the power industry would be doomed by pollution controls, and on and on. The argument was wrong then, and it's wrong  now. The opposite is true - green industry and renewable energy development are  the most viable stimuli for the economy imaginable, because they are sustainable, domestic, and good for national security.  Just ask Wal-Mart if cleaning up its carbon footprint is costing or saving money.
   The economic argument will resonate with many people, however, and it will soon become a drumbeat from the right, one of Obama's and the Democratic majority's first big tests.
   Edward Humes
   Eco Barons

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2. 

   frflyer Posted 11:13 am
   14 Jan 2009

   Lou go back to stock market coverageFor those without the stomach to listen to the soundbite, here's Lou Dobbs wisdom on climate change.
   "I don't know that it matters to me whether there is global warming or we are moving toward another ice age.  It seems really to me that we should be reasonable stewards of the planet. The debate over whether it's global warming or whether it is moving toward perhaps another ice age or it's simply business as usual, is almost moot here, in my mind. I know that will infuriate the advocates of global warming, as well as the folks that believe we are headed toward another ice age."  
   I liked it better when he was just a stock market commentator.
   And I liked it better when Rudy Guliano was just an SEC investigator.

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3. 

   biodiversivist Posted 2:36 pm
   14 Jan 2009

   Blathering HeadsPeople tune in to these shows hoping to learn something but if what you learn has a high probability of being completely wrong, why bother?
   
   In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

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4. 

   gzuckier Posted 2:47 pm
   14 Jan 2009

   huhsee, i would have thought that the "global warming advocates" were the folks who said that the globe is warming, and we should encourage it, because it will be good for us, and agriculture will benefit from higher temps and more CO2, and so on. now that is global warming advocacy. i would have thought that "we" are global warming opponents.

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5. 

   hapa Posted 5:19 pm
   14 Jan 2009

   other hot topics among his sources includenigerian banking opportunities
   
   the size of his pecker
   
   pharma-by-mail
   
   lonely russian supermodels
   and he's on top of it ALL.

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6. 

   JMG Posted 6:52 pm
   14 Jan 2009

   This is repulsiveNote the idiot with the George Hamilton tan from the Heartland Institute says how silly it is for us not to recognize that the sun controls the climate --- how nice that President Chimpy, in perhaps one of his fourth or fifth biggest fuckups -- though there are many contenders for the top 100 -- kept the DSCVR satellite in a crate in Greenbelt rather than in an L5 orbit so that it could resolve, once and for all, the question about how much energy the earth is receiving from the sun and how much it's radiating back -- because, you know what, it doesn't matter if the sun's irradiance declines a smidge if our emissions and the albedo decline keep trapping an ever greater fraction of the earth's insolation.  We'll blow by the tipping points and be on our way.
   
   
   
   The 5% Project
   
   
   
   Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay.

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7. 

   randino Posted 10:03 pm
   14 Jan 2009

   A Bloviator In short a bullshit artist. The word was first coined by President Warren G. Harding to spoof his own speaking style. And Lou Dobbs is one of the most able of all practioners of the art old Warren first named.
   Dobbs reminds me of what a Latin American commentator on the media once said. "The more news we watch, the more ignorant we become."
   Randy Cunningham
   
   Cleveland, OH
   
   Randy Cunningham

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8. 

   Curtis Moore Posted 4:06 am
   15 Jan 2009

   Don't be so dismissive-this has worked Denis Avery is one of thousands of what I call "the voices" and the Hudson Institute is one of hundreds of corporate front groups that people like Avery call home.  They first started in the early 1970s when  Paul Weyrich, who died a few days ago, started what is now the Heritage Foundation with $250,000 from Joe Coors (the old man, not the son who ran for the Senate).  They multiplied like crazy starting in the mid- to late-1970s when William Simon, who been Secretary of the Treasury and energy czar for Nixon and Ford, took over the Olin Foundation, using its money to start what he called the "counterintellegensia."
   There are now more than 300 front groups--the Cato Institute, Manhattan Institute, Reason Foundation, etc.-- and they have done yeoman's work for ExxonMobil on global warming, genetically modified crops for Monsanto and so on (Indeed, this is the first I've heard of Avery entering global warming.  His schtick in the past has been praising pesicides and condemning organic food, as author of Saving the Planet with Pesticides and Plastic: The Environmental Triumph of High-Yield Farming (Hudson Institute, 1995).  Avery's usual outlet has been John Stossel).
   They have found their way into mainstream press which uncritically accepts their self-characterization as "conservative think tanks" or "free market advocates."  Their work is sloppy and unprofessional, rarely published in peer reviewed journals.  They're as dishonest as frogs are ugly (except to other frogs, of course).  But for a press grown so lazy that its idea of enterprise reporting is to reach across the desk for a press release, they're perfect.
   I wrote a piece on them for Sierra magazine a while back, which you can probably find by  searching for my name and Sierra.
   If you are interested in learning even more about the voices, go to the site for my book, Saving Ourselves: How We Can and Why We're Not: The Roles of Corporate America and the Republican Party in Perpetuating Global Warming or to the following:
   
   http://curtismoore.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/the-echo-c ...
   But do not dismiss the guys.  They have been incredibly effective, and will continue to be unless somebody or something intervenes.  Personally, I would love to see Jerry Brown, California's attorney general, file criminal charges against Lee Raymond, ExxonMobil's former president, for the felony of knowing endangerment of humanity by funding the voices' lies and half-truths.  It will never happen, of course, but the Walter Mitty in me relishes the prospect of seeing Raymond in an orange jumpsite, behind the bars of a supermax and being careful not to pick up a bar of soap.

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