Wanted: Global Warming Deniers

Fox News hit the “want ads” the other day seeking someone that would take up the debate on global warming with Al Gore. Fox News science columnist Gene Koprowski recently posted the want ad on ProfNet requesting help and commentary from sources who would be able to "point out the ridiculousness" in a statements made by Al Gore made to Bill O'Reilly regarding global warming.

The statements targeted by Koprowski focus on Gore’s explanation of how the recent “Snowmageddon” was actually providing more evidence on global warming. Gore told Bill O'Reilly that: "A rise in global temperature can create all sorts of havoc, ranging from hotter dry spells to colder winters, along with increasingly violent storms, flooding, forest fires and loss of endangered species."

Gore was actually quoting from an article written by Clarence Page wrote for the Chicago Tribune but that part was apparently left out of the dialog because Mr. Page isn’t nearly the lightening rod that Mr. Gore is. Koprowski’s post goes on to say that Fox News needs comments "even if you accept the somewhat-implausible argument."

The episode with Koprowski is another in a long line of instances where Fox News sees conspiracy in scientific findings and disputes them by soliciting and then using dissenting opinions from a small minority of deniers. This, despite a vast majority of scientists that are convinced that global warming exists and that humans are the reason for it.

In this one, Koprowski toed the Fox News Company line and blamed the media for not putting global warming in the proper context for their audience. He went on to say that the world is actually cooling, despite the fact that we’re just had the hottest year ever as well as the hottest decade on record.

The Fox News Company line was summed up in a December memo which was sent out by Fox News editor Bill Sammon. The memo stated that staffers and journalists "should refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question."

Using that logic, Fox News can probably find critics and deniers for any scientific fact on record. Don’t laugh, it could happen. Unless, of course, the scientific findings agree with the political agenda at Fox News.