'Braindead Media'

I missed this story yesterday: WaPo again inserting false 'balance' into a story on global warming. As Time Magazine said last month, "[T]he serious debate has quietly ended. Global warming [] is the real deal". But WaPo can't seem to get away from its 'on the one hand, on the other hand' formula for reporting.

From ThinkProgress:

Washington Post Perpetuates Myth of Scientific Debate About Basic Facts of Global Warming

Today’s Washington Post has a story about Canada’s conservative government cutting funds for programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This passage stuck out:

Canada, which has long clung to its “green” image, hosted early work that led to the Kyoto Protocol, in which 163 countries and regional organizations pledged to meet quotas to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions that many scientists believe are warming Earth, melting glaciers and brewing more-intense storms.

Many scientists believe carbon dioxide emissions are warming the earth?

Science Magazine analyzed 928 peer-reviewed scientific papers on global warming published between 1993 and 2003. Not a single one challenged the scientific consensus the earth’s temperature is rising due to human activity. This scientific debate only exists in newspaper articles.

Whether or not global warming is already causing “more-intense storms” is nominally more controversial. But a definitive study by M.I.T. scientist Kerry Emanuel found “major storms spinning in both the Atlantic and the Pacific since the 1970s have increased in duration and intensity by about 50 percent.” Emanuel concluded that trend of more intense storms was “linked to increases in the average temperatures of the ocean surface and also correspond to increases in global average atmospheric temperatures during the same period.”

Go to ThinkProgress for original links. I love that they file this story under the tab "BRAINDEAD MEDIA". Right on.