Just since Jan. 1, 2013, ABC, CBS and NBC morning and evening news programs have aired 92 stories about "climate change" or "global warming." Not a single one of those stories mentioned the "warming plateau" reported even by The New York Times on June 10. The Times wrote, "The rise in the surface temperature of earth has been markedly slower over the last 15 years than in the 20 years before that. And that lull in warming has occurred even as greenhouse gases have accumulated in the atmosphere at a record pace."

The problems with climate forecasting models weren't mentioned either, even though a researcher at Sweden's University of Gothenburg found that many climate models couldn't correctly model known temperatures in China. Investor's Business Daily reported on March 28 that "Only half of the 21 analyzed climate models were able to reproduce the changes in some regions of China," he said. "Few models can well reproduce the nationwide change."

In an interview with Der Spiegel on June 20, German climate scientist Hans von Storch of the Meteorological Institute of the University of Hamburg pointed to the major problems of climate modeling. "So far, no one has been able to provide a compelling answer to why climate change seems to be taking a break. We're facing a puzzle. Recent CO2 emissions have actually risen even more steeply than we feared. As a result, according to most climate models, we should have seen temperatures rise by around 0.25 degrees Celsius (0.45 degrees Fahrenheit) over the past 10 years. That hasn't happened.In fact, the increase over the last 15 years was just 0.06 degrees Celsius (0.11 degrees Fahrenheit) -- a value very close to zero. This is a serious scientific problem that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will have to confront when it presents its next Assessment Report late next year," he explained.

The Media Research Center's Business and Media Institute looked at all the "climate change" or "global warming" stories from Jan. 1, 2013, through June 15, 2013, aired on ABC, CBS and NBC morning and evening news programs. BMI found that out there were more than 8 times as many stories that cited a study or included a scientist promoting global warming alarmism than cited a study or included a scientist challenging alarmism (25 stories to 3 stories). Nearly one-fourth of the stories this year (22 of 92) also connected (or at least asked if there was a connection) weather events like hurricanes, tornadoes, snow or flooding to climate change, in spite of the many scientific critics of those claims.

Of course in 2010, when the weather seemed to contradict the message of global warming alarmism Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said, "It is important that people recognize that weather is not the same thing as climate."

8 Times the Alarmism

New reports, studies or scientists that warned of the threat of climate change from concern over penguin populations, to predictions of sea level rise continued to be promoted by the networks in 2013. There were stories or news briefs warning that flying would become more turbulent because of climate change, connecting allergies to global warming, and others worrying about glacial melt and sea level rise.

There were 25 networks reports that mentioned a new report or analysis or that cited a scientist who promoted the climate alarmist viewpoint. That was 8 times as many as the other side; there were only three stories that cited a report or included such a scientist challenging alarmism.

The networks consulted scientists from NASA and NOAA as well as activists like Michael Oppenheimer from Princeton, who has gotten climate predictions wrong in the past. "Nightly News" interviewed Kenneth Kunkel from NOAA's National Climatic Data Center on May 25 who continued the hype, saying "If we continue to increase atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, we will warm the globe and that will bring certain risks into play or increase the risks of certain types of extremes."

The networks also included other people promoting alarmism who were not counted in this analysis because they weren't on to discuss a new study and they aren't scientists. Editors and reporters from Time magazine went on network broadcasts and hyped the threat of climate change. And NBC interviewed global warming activist and former Vice President Al Gore in three separate stories.

One of those times was Jan. 29, on "Today." Matt Lauer and Gore were discussing Gore's latest book and Lauer asked the former vice president about skepticism of the danger of global warming.

"I want to talk to you about some polling. If you talk to Americans, about four in five people in this country believe that climate change is happening, global warming is real and it's going to present a problem. But there's a group inside that large group, and it's not an insignificant group, and they don't believe that climate change is manmade or exacerbated by humans. Does that surprise you?" Lauer asked.