PrintMay 7, 2007
Peddling doomsday on public radio
Public Radio's Marketplace is ostensibly a daily program on business and financial news, but its reporting on "climate change" is becoming increasingly exaggerated. As recorded in the transcript of Friday's "Panel Discussion" on the IPCC Report, the following statement from a former Clinton administration Energy Department official.
JOSEPH ROMM: I mean, what is the cost of, you know, 20- to 80-foot sea level rise? And what is the cost of increasing desertification, and making water scarcity a problem for a billion people?
The IPCC report's most dire predictions are nowhere near this drastic. This 80 foot wall of water is new to me. Allowing such a claim to be heard from a former official but offer no context or challenge is to let it stand as authoritative. But Marketplace offered no challenge or response to this claim.
In this way, people who consider themselves well-informed come to believe a doomsday scenario is confirmed by science, when it is highly speculative.
