President Trump and his campaign colluding with the Russians is the fake news story of the day, week, month and year. CNN is chasing phantom sources, turning journalism into confabulation, showing no sign of slowing down, despite having to fire reporters and explain undercover videos demonstrating CNN’s complicity in promoting total nonsense.

Global warming, now “climate change” or “extreme weather,” has taken a back seat to big media’s obsession with the “Trump Tall Tales.”  Feeling left out of the media spotlight, climate change warriors are pushing back. Especially after President Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris climate agreement.

The UK Guardian reported a letter to be published in the science journal Nature this week warning, “The world has three years left to stop dangerous climate change” according to the article headline. Written by a former UN climate chief and a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the letter authors argue that “the next three years will be crucial.” If the Paris climate accord measures are not enacted, even without the US, the world, “may be fatally wounded by negligence before 2020.”

Another day, another climate warning. Interestingly the timing of 2020 is curious. It’s when persona non-grata of the climate movement, Donald Trump, will be running for reelection. Coincidence?

The 2020 predictions all sound so serious and scary, but then again so have many other past predictions of climate doom and gloom. How did those pan out?

The high and mighty climate warrior Al Gore predicted in 2006 that that, “unless drastic measures to reduce greenhouse gases are taken within the next 10 years, the world will reach a point of no return.” Fast forward ten years to last year. Are we past the point of no return? Or has Al Gore’s prophesy of “a true planetary emergency” turned out to be a “nothing burger”, as Van Jones described the incessant blather about Trump and Russia?

Another bastion of fake news, The New York Times, breathlessly predicted, “The end of snow?” in 2014. Quite certain of the browning of normally snow covered mountains in winter, they asserted, “This is no longer a scientific debate. It is scientific fact.” How did that prediction turn out?

Aspen Mountain reopened Memorial Day weekend this year. “Mother Nature cooperated to make skiing an option” was the reason for reopening. 18 inches of new snow the previous week, closer in the year to summer than to winter. Not only in Colorado but also in California. Bikini skiing in June this year on “mountains still piled high with snow.” So much for the “end of snow”.

ABC News has its own history of prognosticating about climate change. In a 2008 news special called Earth 2100, they made bold predictions based on the “settled science” of global warming. By 2015, New York City would be under several feet of water due to rising seas. Gasoline would be $9 per gallon and milk $13 per gallon. The world population would shrink from 7 billion to under 3 billion due to climate catastrophes including shortages of food and water. Any of these come true?

Don’t forget climate guru and heir to the British throne, Prince Charles. In early July of 2009, he told, “an audience of industrialists and environmentalists” that, “he had calculated that we have just 96 months left to save the world.” It’s not clear how he made his calculation. Why not 95 or 97 months? If he was truly prescient he would have predicted 90 months to coincide with Donald Trump’s inauguration. Or 88 months to reflect his election.

Let me do my own calculation. 96 months is 8 years. If his speech was early July 2009, the 8-year mark is early July 2017, or next week. I’ll give the Prince the benefit of the doubt and hold judgement on his prediction for another week or two to see if the world does indeed end according to his schedule. Assuming mid-July rolls around without the planet burning up, his prognostication, will turn out to be fake news.

There are plenty more failed climate predictions, too many to mention. Here is a list of over a hundred if anyone wants further examples.

Instead of chasing and promoting bogus stories of Trump Russia collusion, why isn’t the media asking the climate change warriors who continue to predict imminent apocalypse to explain their past failed predictions? Chris Wallace, to his credit, challenged Al Gore on his failed doomsday prophesy, but let Gore wiggle out of a real answer, instead letting him promote his next movie. Mr. Wallace certainly goes after Republicans, asking them the same question repeatedly before moving on. Mr. Gore received a professional courtesy pass from a like-minded interviewer.

Gore could have been asked much else during the interview including why his utility bill is so high in his energy inefficient mansion. Or why former president George W Bush’s home is far more energy efficient than Mr. Gore’s home.

Instead the media promotes their agenda, whether man made global warming or Russia hacking the election. Accepting at face value a UN official asserting that the world is doomed unless the US throws trillions of dollars at a mythical problem. Or that Trump and his people are plotting and scheming with the Russians based on the word of some nameless faceless anonymous source.

The credibility of the mainstream media is already in the dumpster after incessant and unproven allegations about Trump. It seems climate change allegations are a convenient side show allowing the media to catch their breath over the latest supposed Trump scandal, pivoting to chase another phantom story for a few days.

Unless journalists don’t really care about honesty and good reporting. Instead pursuing ratings and social media followers with their latest outrage, attempting to advance the leftist agenda that the Democrat party can’t sell to voters.

Brian C Joondeph, MD, MPS, a Denver based physician and writer. Follow him on Facebook,  LinkedIn and Twitter.