JustGetThere

Network's second meteorologist to challenge notion man can alter climate.

By Jeff Poor

Business & Media Institute | Unprecedented snow in Las Vegas has some scratching their heads – how can there be global warming with this unusual cold and snowy weather?

CNN Meteorologist Chad Myers had never bought into the notion that man can alter the climate and the Vegas snowstorm didn’t impact his opinion. Myers, an American Meteorological Society certified meteorologist, explained on CNN’s Dec. 18 “Lou Dobbs Tonight” that the whole idea is arrogant and mankind was in danger of dying from other natural events more so than global warming.

“You know, to think that we could affect weather all that much is pretty arrogant,” Myers said. “Mother Nature is so big, the world is so big, the oceans are so big – I think we’re going to die from a lack of fresh water or we’re going to die from ocean acidification before we die from global warming, for sure.”

Myers is the second CNN meteorologist to challenge the global warming conventions common in the media. He also said trying to determine patterns occurring in the climate would be difficult based on such a short span.

“But this is like, you know you said – in your career – my career has been 22 years long,” Myers said. “That’s a good career in TV, but talking about climate – it’s like having a car for three days and saying, ‘This is a great car.’ Well, yeah – it was for three days, but maybe in days five, six and seven it won’t be so good. And that’s what we’re doing here.”

“We have 100 years worth of data, not millions of years that the world’s been around,” Myers continued.

Dr. Jay Lehr, an expert on environmental policy, told “Lou Dobbs Tonight” viewers you can detect subtle patterns over recorded history, but that dates back to the 13th Century.

“If we go back really, in recorded human history, in the 13th Century, we were probably 7 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than we are now and it was a very prosperous time for mankind,” Lehr said. “If go back to the Revolutionary War 300 years ago, it was very, very cold. We’ve been warming out of that cold spell from the Revolutionary War period and now we’re back into a cooling cycle.”

Lehr suggested the earth is presently entering a cooling cycle – a result of nature, not man.

“The last 10 years have been quite cool,” Lehr continued. “And right now, I think we’re going into cooling rather than warming and that should be a much greater concern for humankind. But, all we can do is adapt. It is the sun that does it, not man.”

Lehr is a senior fellow and science director of The Heartland Institute, an organization that will be holding the 2009 International Conference on Climate Change in New York March 8-10.

Another CNN meteorologist attacked the concept that man is somehow responsible for changes in climate last year. Rob Marciano charged Al Gore’s 2006 movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” had some inaccuracies.

“There are definitely some inaccuracies,” Marciano said during the Oct. 4, 2007 broadcast of CNN’s “American Morning.” “The biggest thing I have a problem with is this implication that Katrina was caused by global warming.”

Marciano also said that, “global warming does not conclusively cause stronger hurricanes like we’ve seen,” pointing out that “by the end of this century we might get about a 5 percent increase.”

His comments drew a strong response and he recanted the next day saying “the globe is getting warmer and humans are the likely the main cause of it.”

By Paul Joseph Watson

Prison Planet | Technical difficulties or deliberate censorship? CNN does not usually afford a soapbox to Peter Schiff because he’s one of a rare breed of financial analysts, he can actually identify the root of the problem - the Federal Reserve.

So when Schiff was cut off during the height of his rant against the Fed, many of our readers questioned whether it was a deliberate act of sabotage.

Used to doling out a steady diet of bailout propaganda on a daily basis, CNN bosses were probably not amused when Schiff started to blame the government’s obsession with rescuing failed companies for the deepening severity of the economic crisis.

“Capitalism is not about propping up failed companies, we need to let them fail,” said Schiff, before adding, “Now of course behind it all is the Federal Reserve, if the Federal Reserve had not intervened….had they not poured all this alcohol then Wall Street wouldn’t have got drunk, but they did.”

“I am convinced that everything the government is doing to fight this off is gonna make….” said Schiff before the feed was cut.

Conspiracy or technical gremlins? Either way, it’s unlikely that CNN will invite Schiff back on should he continue to dare tell the truth about the real culprits behind the grand larceny undertaken by the government and the Federal Reserve, the cost of which now stands at $8.5 trillion dollars.

By Don Reisinger

CNET | Can someone please explain to me why so many people are making a big deal about this CNN "hologram" that the channel unveiled during election coverage Tuesday night?

According to CNN, it was real "hologram" technology that beamed Jessica Yellin, a CNN correspondent from Chicago, to the CNN press center in New York, where Wolf Blitzer could grill her about what was going on in Chicago.

First off, let me say that it wasn't even real "hologram" technology, which annoys me from the start. Don't say it's a "hologram" technology unless it really is. If CNN was truly using a "hologram," it would not have employed a green screen and overlay images. Instead, it would have captured scattered light and then reconstructed it back in the studio.

Oh, and it probably would have bankrupted CNN too.

But I digress. Everywhere I turn, someone is saying how "cool" CNN's so-called "hologram" was. Uh, no.

Allow me to explain something to those who probably also get excited about buying a new hammer or watching a new Starbucks open up in their neighborhood: the "hologram" technique made the show look shoddy and stupid, and made Ms. Yellin look like a well-designed video game character.

Now, I know what you're saying: "But Don, you see, by using its 'hologram,' CNN is embracing technology and taking news reporting one step further."

Sorry, but I think that if you believe that, it's time for you to stop drinking Wolf Blitzer's Kool-Aid.

Nothing about the CNN "hologram" made sense. Part of the value of sending reporters to different areas to cover what's going on is to allow viewers to look beyond the onscreen reporter, and see the raucous environment. And it also affords the reporter the opportunity to walk around and show viewers some of the visual highlights at the event.

But with the help of its "hologram," CNN destroyed the value in sending a reporter, and instead made it, in the paraphrased words of Wolf Blitzer, "a more intimate setting" for the interview that eliminated all the noisy people that would have been standing behind her.

Spoken like a true apologist.

Just because the idea of a "hologram" is interesting, it doesn't mean that every time that someone pretends to use one, we have to think that it's the greatest thing in the world. The "hologram" looked ugly, made Ms. Yellin look awkward, and it didn't provide any real value to the viewer.

I applaud CNN for at least trying something new. But if show producers are smart, they'll shelve their "hologram" idea, and move on to something bigger and better, like transporting Ms. Yellin back and forth between Chicago and New York next time. I think that'll keep them busy for a while, and help us enjoy some quality programming, while they're trying to figure out how to reconstruct atoms.

I know the idea of a "hologram" is alluring to some. But let's not allow our hopes for the future cloud our judgment.

CNN's "hologram" was dumb.