{"id":387227,"date":"2025-07-07T08:44:41","date_gmt":"2025-07-07T06:44:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=387227"},"modified":"2025-07-07T08:44:43","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T06:44:43","slug":"the-climate-crisis-vs-the-real-crisis-facing-americans-news-media-journalism-malfeasance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=387227","title":{"rendered":"The \u2018Climate Crisis\u2019 vs the REAL Crisis Facing Americans: News Media Journalism Malfeasance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Watts Up With That?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cornwall Alliance<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The following is a guest article by Russell Cook.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From all the news of \u2018raging wildfires\u2019 \/ \u2018melting glaciers \/ \u2018increasingly extreme weather\u2019 \/ \u2018hottest month ever recorded,\u2019 it\u2019s no surprise how that morphs into news of \u2018climate anxiety\u2019 affecting youths ranging from children to young college students. Supposedly well-intentioned journalists then add articles to their repertoire about \u2018coping with the climate crisis.\u2019 On top of that, the Christian community is implored to act on the \u2018religious moral imperative to save the planet\u2019 from an evil, profit-seeking. planet-destroying fossil fuel industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Legacy news media reporters never question any of this, including clarion calls from environmentalists that the public must be educated about fossil fuel usage perilously heating the planet. That call is in the demands of the latest \u201cExxonKnew\u201d lawsuit, where Big Oil is being sued for causing the heat wave which supposedly killed a woman. The woman\u2019s daughter not only demands a damages award, but also for \u201ca public education campaign to rectify Defendants\u2019 decades of misinformation<\/em><\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regarding the need for public education, I agree completely . . . but entirely in the opposite direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ll set up my point using an amusing scene from the 1997 science fiction film \u201cMen in Black,\u201d where the aggressive MIB agent fires explosive blasts at a fleeing space alien on the belief that this particular creature must be stopped at all costs. His supervisor admonishes him,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cThere\u2019s always<\/em> an Arquillian Battle Cruiser, or a Corillian Death Ray, or an intergalactic plague that is about to wipe out all life on this miserable little planet, and the only way these people can get on with their happy lives is that they do not know about it!!<\/em><\/strong>\u201c<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Ignorance is bliss there. Back in the real world, the public could get on with their happy lives after being fully informed of all facts of the climate issue. People suffer from \u2018climate anxiety\u2019 because they do not know about science-based assessments from skeptic climate scientists!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consider how the PBS NewsHour news outlet has completely excluded skeptic climate scientists from its program to<\/a> rebut any assessments from the United Nations\u2019 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The Cornwall Alliance\u2019s Director of Research and Education, PhD climate scientist Dr David Legates could authoritatively rebut and potentially embarrass IPCC \/ NASA \/ NOAA scientist guests on the NewsHour. It\u2019s why scientists like him are shunned there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An especially ridiculous news media assertion I\u2019ve heard for years is that the public isn\u2019t more alarmed about the \u2018climate crisis\u2019 because reporters have adhered to the \u2018equal balance\u2019 tenet of journalism \u2013 giving too much balance to skeptic scientists. But when was the last time anyone has seen that kind of treatment for skeptic scientists or other expert speakers on the topic? The PBS NewsHour has violated their own guideline<\/a> on balanced reporting for over 25 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therein lies the actual crisis in the climate issue. It\u2019s not the runaway climate itself. It\u2019s the legacy news media\u2019s malfeasance<\/strong> on the issue from not reporting all of the facts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

High school \/ college students could polled nationwide, asking how many have heard of the 1970s global cooling craze, and then asking how many have never heard anything in depth about it before hearing the first poll question. They could be asked for their reaction to a 2016 Fox News video clip of ClimateDepot.com\u2019s Marc Morano, who brought in an armadillo<\/a> to illustrate how that animal was reported in the \u201970s to be fleeing south from global cooling<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The critical question for anyone to ask is how how on Earth could \u201cExxon Know\u201d as far back as the \u201950s \/ \u201960s \/ \u201970s that their products caused catastrophic warming, in the face<\/a> of all the news headlines<\/a> speaking of impending cooling<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among all the news reports about \u201cExxonKnew\u201d lawsuits being filed, no reporter ever poses that hardball question. It\u2019s a sure bet that the PBS NewsHour would never allow Marc Morano onto their program to reveal how legions of pre-1980s reports about the global cooling crisis were so widespread that it even was featured in a 1977 episode of the \u201cBarney Miller\u201d sitcom<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s only one of the major faults with the \u201cExxonKnew\u201d lawsuits. These claim the industry not only \u2018knew\u2019 about the harm of global warming from the use of petroleum, the accusation continues by saying the industry then duped the public into believing there was no harm via deceptive public relations campaigns designed to undercut the \u2018scientific consensus\u2019 about the certainty of fossil fuels driving global warming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At my GelbspanFiles blog<\/a>, I detail at huge length how the central accusation elements seen in the lawsuits<\/a> are totally without merit; the two separate sets of \u2018leaked industry memos\u2019<\/a> concern plans that were never implemented anywhere; the scientist they say was paid a million dollar+ bribe by Exxon<\/a> never received any such payment nor was he directed to write science reports meeting the approval of any fossil fuel company leaders; specific copies of \u2018newspaper advertorials\u2019 offered as direct evidence of industry deception campaigns<\/a> were never published anywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Journalists have not done that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They would never ask self-proclaimed \u2018expert on industry disinformation campaigns\u2019 Naomi Oreskes<\/a> what information she conveyed to the late Pope Francis that enabled her to write the Introduction<\/a> to his 2015 Encyclical on Climate Change; the Encyclical\u2019s biography paragraph for her all but insinuates that skeptic climate scientists lied to the public about the issue<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s one of the more insidious angles of the climate issue \u2014 how enviro-activists try to exploit the goodness of Christians by portraying the climate issue as \u2018a moral imperative to save the planet from evil Big Oil Execs and their \u2018liars-for-hire\u2019 skeptic scientists.\u2019<\/a> The critical question right there is elemental:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Which is the bigger sin, failing to take action to stop global warming, an issue increasingly being exposed as being based on dicey science pronouncements . . . . . or breaking the commandment against bearing false witness concerning particular people who point out the problems with those dicey pronouncements?<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The\u00a0climate\u00a0issue is still alive today because\u00a0the\u00a0legacy\u00a0news\u00a0media\u00a0long ago abdicated from\u00a0their responsibility to tell\u00a0the\u00a0public all of\u00a0the\u00a0facts about it.\u00a0The\u00a0issue can die of a death of a thousand cuts when\u00a0the\u00a0public fully comprehends how\u00a0they have\u00a0the\u00a0opportunity to pose tough questions to\u00a0the\u00a0authorities\u00a0they encounter \u2014 teachers, journalists, policymakers. I\u2019m old enough to remember when\u00a0the\u00a0bad guys used to flee from reporters asking\u00a0them questions,\u00a0they could not answer.\u00a0The\u00a0public needs to flip that same image against\u00a0the\u00a0legacy\u00a0news\u00a0media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From all the news of \u2018raging wildfires\u2019 \/ \u2018melting glaciers \/ \u2018increasingly extreme weather\u2019 \/ \u2018hottest month ever recorded,\u2019 it\u2019s no surprise how that morphs into news of \u2018climate anxiety\u2019 affecting youths ranging from children to young college students. Supposedly well-intentioned journalists then add articles to their repertoire about \u2018coping with the climate crisis.\u2019 On top of that, the Christian community is implored to act on the \u2018religious moral imperative to save the planet\u2019 from an evil, profit-seeking. planet-destroying fossil fuel industry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":387230,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691827174,691830706,691818102,691819743,691820528],"class_list":{"0":"post-387227","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-bad-science-journalism","9":"tag-climate-change-lawsuits","10":"tag-climate-crisis","11":"tag-climate-propaganda","12":"tag-misinformation","14":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/ministery-of-truth-1984.jpg?fit=1366%2C768&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1CJB","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":270146,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=270146","url_meta":{"origin":387227,"position":0},"title":"Global Boiling Has\u00a0Arrived!","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"29\/07\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"We have seen it morph from global warming (that sounds nice!), to climate change. Then to extreme weather, to climate crisis and climate emergency. Then the Guardianistas thought it would be clever to call it global heating. And all to describe the climate we have had for most of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Climate change\"","block_context":{"text":"Climate change","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=climate-change"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/image-901.png?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/image-901.png?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/image-901.png?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/image-901.png?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":422125,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=422125","url_meta":{"origin":387227,"position":1},"title":"Where Are the Climate-Related Disasters?","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"19\/01\/2026","format":false,"excerpt":"For decades, the climate crisis narrative has rested on a single, emotionally powerful claim: As the planet warms, extreme weather will become more frequent and more intense.","rel":"","context":"In \"Climate Alarmists\"","block_context":{"text":"Climate Alarmists","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=climate-alarmists"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/image-354.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/image-354.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/image-354.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":270310,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=270310","url_meta":{"origin":387227,"position":2},"title":"WATCH: Morano on Watters \u2014 arsonists responsible for \u2018climate\u2019 wildfires","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"30\/07\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"This is a global problem of people starting fires. 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Devastating downpours dumped two months of rain on Vermont in two days. Smoke from Canadian wildfires choked East Coast skies, causing the worst air quality on record for some locations. 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These familiar headlines could just as well be happening today, excpet back then it was reported as weather, not climate. \u2013 Anthony","rel":"","context":"In \"climate alarmism\"","block_context":{"text":"climate alarmism","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=climate-alarmism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/00climate-and-weather-are-not-the-same.png?fit=1200%2C641&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/00climate-and-weather-are-not-the-same.png?fit=1200%2C641&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/00climate-and-weather-are-not-the-same.png?fit=1200%2C641&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/00climate-and-weather-are-not-the-same.png?fit=1200%2C641&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/00climate-and-weather-are-not-the-same.png?fit=1200%2C641&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":210741,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=210741","url_meta":{"origin":387227,"position":5},"title":"May 1922 \u2013 94F In Paris Glaciers Melting","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"28\/07\/2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Hottest May Day in 116 Years.90 Degrees in Alps~Glaciers Are Melting.Paris, May 24 (By the Associated Press)\u2014Paris today experienced the hottest May day in 116 years, the thermometer hitting 94 1-10 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade at 3:45 o\u2019clock this afternoon. This city was one of many European capitals to\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/0Image-2022-07-27-23-42-01-down-444x1024-1.png?fit=444%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/121246920"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=387227"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":387231,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387227\/revisions\/387231"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/387230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=387227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=387227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=387227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}