NBC Uses Shaky Intelligence to Fan Flames of Global Warming Alarmism

Jeff Poor
Business & Media Institute
Friday, June 27, 2008

The June 25 “NBC Nightly News” took a new approach to spreading the message of the global warming alarmist agenda. It led off the broadcast with a new government report to connect carbon dioxide with national security.

“The world’s thirst for energy is creating an environmental crisis that could soon become a security crisis for the United States,” NBC chief environmental affairs correspondent Anne Thompson said. “Two government reports out today paint a bleak picture of the road ahead.”

Thompson contended the increased demand for resources predicted in the Department of Energy report – which estimates world power demand will increase 50 percent by 2030 – will increase global reliance on fossil fuels and make global warming worse.

“Using more oil, coal and natural gas means more carbon dioxide emissions, 51 percent more, making climate change worse – an environmental issue that now threatens global political security,” Thompson said. “Today, the National Intelligence Council (NIC) says global climate change will have wide-ranging implications for U.S. national security interests over the next 20 years.”

But Thompson failed to point out that the report doesn’t have the full confidence of the NIC.
“In response to a question by Global Warming Committee member Greg Walden (R-OR), the Intelligence Community admitted they had ‘low to medium confidence’ in the accuracy of this estimate because intelligence officers lack the expertise to write such an estimate (it was mostly contracted out to other organizations) and climate change science is so uncertain,” Rich Lowry wrote for National Review Online June 25.

But that didn’t keep Thompson from highlighting the potential consequences outlined in the report.

“It predicts increased immigration pressures as rising sea levels, famine and drought create environmental refugees,” Thompson said. “U.S. military readiness could be harmed if America must respond to humanitarian crises in Africa and Asia created by a lack of adequate food and water.”

According to Lowry, it was also revealed the report was based on conclusions from the questionable and often controversial United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Peter Hoekstra [R-Mich.] asked what intelligence was used for this estimate and whether intelligence collection requirements were prepared,” Lowry wrote. “National Intelligence Council Chairman Thomas Fingar said no clandestine intelligence was used and that intelligence officers extrapolated what would happen if the ‘mid-level estimates’ by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were correct.”
SOURCE: Business & Media Institute