Fox News, Spongebob Squarepants and Climate Change

U.S. Department of Education gave away “Spongebob” and “Dora the Explorer” books to elementary school kids at a Washington, D.C. event on July 20, but no cartoons were shown. Both books carry themes of conservation and environmental protection.

“Clearly Nickelodeon is pushing a global warming agenda,” Fox News host Steve Doocy said. “While there is no disputing the fact that the earth is getting a little warmer, the big question is, ‘is it man-made?’ Or, ‘is it just one of those gigantic, climactic, you know, phases we’re — why, we’re cold, then we get warmer, then we’re cold again — you know, which one is it? The science on both sides, there are scientists who say it’s this, there are others who say it’s that.”

Recent studies have shown that almost all scientists who study climate change believe that it is changing due to human industrial activity affecting the environment.

But rather than putting actual scientists on the air, Fox News, tends to give more time and appearance of credibility to industry advocates and so-called “experts” on energy sector payrolls.

According to David Zuzuki,  ”If our leaders reject science, we really are in trouble.”

That won’t surprise to anyone who’s followed Fox News’s history of spinning climate science. Fox News Washington Managing Editor Bill Sammon directed subordinates to cast doubt on a climate report, even though its results were not in question at all. The email was sent just moments after one of the network’s anchors accurately reported that 2000-2009 was on track to be the “warmest” decade on record.

Disagreeing with Fox news and other climate change denial lobby groups would be the world’s acidifying oceans, warming climate, changing atmospheric composition, melting Arctic and the vast majority of its working climate scientists.

All this while:

The suffocating heat wave sweeping the southern U.S. that has led to at least four deaths and left farmers’ fields bone dry shows no signs of abating as temperatures continue to reach record highs and electricity demand threatens to cripple the power grid.

The National Weather Service issued yet more excessive heat warnings Thursday for most of the southern plains, where the temperature in parts of Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas reached as high as 43C, without the humidex. Dallas marked its 34th straight day of temperatures over 38C, while on Wednesday, Fort Smith, Ark., saw the temperature reach 46C without the humidex, breaking a record of 42C set back in 1896. 

FOX News ~ What a Disgraceful excuse for a news station!