What do you do if you are an oil-industry sweetheart of a ‘news group’ and you need to challenge climate science? Be smug and use sarcasm of course. Newsbusters.org wrote a criticism within a criticism, taking to task the New York Times’ 2 reviews of a new film on global warming’s effects on polar bears, called ‘Arctic Tale’.
Apparently 2 glowing reviews of the movie in less than a week was enough to get columnist Noel Sheppard at NewsBusters a little hot under the collar.
Clearly studies such as the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment Study, chaired by Robert Corell, a senior fellow at the American Meteorological society or a 40 member panel of the World Conservation Union, comprised of scientists from 5 countries including the United States, who have extensively studied the negative impact of global warming on polar bear populations, should not be trusted.
But in typical denier rhetoric, he avoids any use of scientific evidence to frame the context of his diatribe and instead focuses on his distaste for Queen Latifah’s ‘dorky’ narrative (and that negates the science how?) and the fact that it’s co-written by Al Gore’s daughter Kristin Gore (because we all know how crazy Al Gore is). In a real blow to the science community he compared Al Gore to ‘a thick 2-4 inch layer of blubber and chides the film for its ‘eco-feminism’ tendencies. I’m still not seeing the science here – but perhaps my ‘liberal’ tendencies may be to blame.
Noel Sheppard is no stranger to blasting polar bears. In April he posted on the ‘Stranded Polar Bear Global Warming Hoax’ that Australia’s ABC channel ‘exposed’. Isn’t that the same network who is still reeling from their decision to air Martin Durkin’s ‘Great Global Warming Swindle’ – a ‘documentary’ riddled with inaccuracies and out of date science? (See our recent post on how mad the Queen is!) He quotes the National Post though – so at least he’s getting more than one source.
I know that I have stooped, somewhat, to my own level of tongue and cheek blogging here but seriously – when the best argument that you have against science is to criticize the structure of a movie, your argument stands on thinner ice than the polar bears.
