Archives for September 19, 2007

Anne Thompson
NBC Nightly News

Dear Anne,

The NBC Nightly News segment tonight was a classic case of skewed reporting. Why did you not mention that Greenland temps were highest in 1941 or that the 30’s and 40’s were the warmest decades according to multiple peer reviewed studies? Why did you not mention that the rate of warming was twice as fast in the early part of 20th century (long before man-made CO2 could have been responsible?)

Why do you only interview one activist scientist who is an advisor to Gore? There are many ice and sea level experts you could have contacted (many listed in below Senate report)

Why did you do a Greenland ice story by relying on the last 15 years of temperature data?

Please read below and plan on a follow up segment that actually educates the viewers, not one that cherry picks the last 15 years and shows scary maps of flooding.

The segment shown tonight on NBC News is just the standard boiler plate alarmist nonsense. You will probably win many journalism awards with this, (such is the sad state of much of environmental reporting today) but the viewers are being woefully misinformed.

All I am asking is that you simply spend 8 minutes reading up on actual peer-reviewed literature about Greenland. If you had spent those 8 minutes you could have avoided this alarmist and myopic segment tonight.

Can you please address these issues on air and redeem your reporting on global warming? If not, at least try to read up more on global warming in general. You are the chief NBC reporter that covers this issue, the least viewers can expect is a Greenland report that relies on more that the last 15 years of temperature data and one advisor to Gore.

You still need to redeem your reporting from your segment in August about how “denialists” are somehow “well funded.”

NBC News should be doing actual reporting, not just parroting talking points of left-wing green groups like Union of Concerned Scientists.

Please make an effort to improve the level of this climate reporting.

Sincerely,

Marc Morano

More here.

Another one from Marc Morano:

Leonardo Di Caprio talks to USA Weekend Magazine.

Leonardo DiCaprio lives in a “green” house, eats organic food and drinks filtered water instead of bottled. Now he has made an eco-documentary, The 11th Hour, a 91-minute film that he produced and narrated. It opens in the next few weeks around the country. DiCaprio, 32, talks with us about how we affect the Earth and what we can do to change course.

Excerpt: Q: Can the members of this generation become activists, or are they too consumed with entertainment and purchasing power?

“It has to start with things like this documentary. We need to get kids young. That’s where it started with me. I can remember watching documentaries in which I learned about mass extinctions of species in rain forests. That emotionally engaged me as a young kid, and I said to myself, ‘When I grow up, I’d love to make a difference in this field.’

More brainwashing for children?