When The Media Manufactures A Story

There have been a number of incidents of data being altered by scientists claiming that global warming will kill us all yesterday. It is good to remember that these are many of the same scientists who in 1985 warned us of the coming Ice Age. Well, we are still here, and the weather warms and cools as it always has. Well, now some of the media people who support the theory of global warming have really gone over the edge.

On Thursday the Daily Caller posted a story about a blog called ThinkProgress that posted a picture of melting street lights in Oklahoma and claimed that the melting was due to global warming. It turns out that the melting was caused by a nearby dumpster fire–global warming had nothing to do with it, but the story didn’t end there. ThinkProgress corrected the story when they were informed of the truth. However, according to WattsUpWithThat Yahoo, which also ran the story, did not bother to correct it.

This is the related press release from Senator Inhofe of Oklahoma. The source is the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works. The heading of the Press Release (dated August 2) is “Inhofe Exposes Another Epic Fail by Global Warming Alarmists.”

Washington, D.C. – Today the far-left blog Think Progress posted a photo (originally posted on KFOR‘s facebook page) of street lights in Oklahoma that had melted, they claimed, because of extreme heat. Global warming alarmist Bill McKibben took to Twitter immediately to publicize what he believed to be proof of global warming, tweeting to Senator James Inhofe (Okla.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, “Senator Inhofe, God may be trying to get your attention. Check out this picture.”

Not long after the picture surfaced, Oklahomans posted comments on Think Progress’ blog saying that these lights had melted due to a fire – which makes sense considering that the two front lights were melted while the two back lights remained unscathed. Once this news came to light, Think Progress immediately removed the post and provided an update that reads: “After we published this piece, we saw reports from people on the ground in Stillwater that the melting streetlights were due to a nearby fire. The person who took the photo, Patrick Hunter, described the scene: ‘Being the person that actually took this photo, I’d say that this was due to a fire semi-close by coupled with the unbelievable heat we are experiencing.’ Still an amazing photo and not fake as many are saying on here. Enjoy!”

This afternoon, KFOR confirmed that the melted lights in the photo were not caused by hot temperatures but a nearby dumpster fire.

“Poor Bill McKibben – he’s been trying to get something to melt for ages but it keeps backfiring,” Senator Inhofe said. “These alarmists never learn their lesson. Remember Bill McKibben was the one who was going to melt a giant ice sculpture in the shape of the word ‘hoax’ on the national mall, but his group had to cancel because there wasn’t enough interest. Now, after proclaiming that street lights in Oklahoma are melting because of global warming, we have confirmation that a fire caused this scene.

“Amid the resurgence of hysteria from my friends on the left, I appreciated climatologist Dr. John Christy who testified this week before the Environment and Public Works committee saying that instead of proclaiming this summer is ‘what global warming looks like’ it is ‘scientifically more accurate to say that this is what Mother Nature looks like, since events even worse than these have happened in the past before greenhouse gases were increasing like they are today.’

“This isn’t the first time alarmists have tried these stunts and it certainly won’t be the last – when will they finally realize they’ve lost this debate?”

After a while, you being to wonder why those who support global warming are willing to go to such lengths to prove their case even after much of their research has been proven wrong.

 

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