Wood Romances

This is part 1. My response to part 2 is here . John Stossel is at it again. He has released a new video of shoddy journalism catering to the partisan rhetoric of the Heartland Institute. In this video, Stossel claims that scientists don't actually agree about the risks climate change poses to humanity, and he promises to correct claims made by "activists and the media" by identifying seven of their myths and showing why they are wrong. He promises that that this will come in two parts, correcting three of these "myths" in this video, and presumably four in the next. In this post, I'd like to see how he did. I'll begin with looking at his rhetorical strategy, and then look at each of the three myths he covers in this video. Rhetorical Strategy: Dishonest Soundbites + Partisan "Experts" Stossel's strategy here is to show soundbites from people sharing on news stories, documentaries, comedy routines, adds, and YouTube videos that he wants us...

CO2 Coalition's " Fact #32 " tries to make a point from Glacier Bay's glacial history. They feel like since glaciers have retreated in  Glacier Bay since the late 1700s, that this is some how an argument that humans aren't causing the planet to warm. Here's a map with annotations from the CO2 Coalition. The declarations of what is "natural melting" and "man-made melting" are simply the opinions of CO2 Coalition. The map as published by the USGS looks like this. The figure's description describes how the southern terminus positions have changed since 1794, but interestingly I can find nothing this description or associated text any reference to the attribution of when the retreat was "natural" and when it transitioned to "man-made." All that appears to be made up by the CO2 Coalition. Here's the description: Location map of Glacier Bay National Park showing terminus positions and dates of retreat of the Little Ic...

CO2 Coalition 's " Fact #11 " (together with " Fact #12 ") claim that a "tipping point" occurred in 1800 that caused mountain glaciers to melt (and sea levels to rise), and since this "tipping point" occurred before major increases in CO2, both the glacial melting and sea level rise "are directly the result of the natural warming that began in the late 17th-century." They assert that glacial retreat (and sea level rise) "continues at about the same rate today as it was 150 years ago." The graph they use to support this claim was taken from Oerlemans 2005[1] with their own annotations. The paper they reference is pretty interesting, though there is absolutely no claim in the paper of any "tipping point" in 1800, and the "190-year trend of glacier shortening" is an annotation of CO2 Coalition, not a claim of the paper. The actual graph from the paper shows no "tipping point" but a gradual accele...