Insane in the Maine Brain!

[Velokid1]

October 30, 2006
At 2 TV Stations in Maine, What Al Gore’s Movie Says Isn’t News
By JOSEPH B. TREASTER

How important is global warming in Maine? Not important enough for local television.

Michael Palmer, the general manager of television stations WVII and WFVX, ABC and Fox affiliates in Bangor, has told his joint staff of nine men and women that when “Bar Harbor is underwater, then we can do global warming stories.”

“Until then,” he added. “No more.”

Mr. Palmer laid out his policy in an e-mail message sent out during the summer. A copy was sent to The New York Times. Mr. Palmer did not respond to a phone message left with an employee of the stations nor to an e-mail message. But a former staff member confirmed the e-mail message that went out during the summer after the stations broadcast a live report from a movie theater in Maine where Al Gore’s movie on global warming, “An Inconvenient Truth,” was opening.

Mr. Palmer began his e-mail message: “I was wondering where we should send the bill for the live shot Friday at the theater for the Al Gore commercial we aired.”

Mr. Palmer said he wanted no more stories broadcast on global warming because: “a) we do local news, b) the issue evolved from hard science into hard politics and c) despite what you may have heard from the mainstream media, this science is far from conclusive.” Mr. Palmer said in his e-mail message to his operations manager and two women who served as a news anchor and a reporter that he placed “global warming stories in the same category as ‘the killer African bee scare’ from the 1970s or, more recently, the Y2K scare when everyone’s computer was going to self-destruct.”

Dr. James Hansen, the director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies at Columbia University, said in an interview yesterday that the station’s policy on coverage was irresponsible.

“If you wait until Bar Harbor is underwater, it’s too late,” Dr. Hansen said. “It won’t be just Bar Harbor that is underwater, but many places around the globe including parts of Florida, Bangladesh and the Nile Delta.”

Dr. Hansen said the nonpartisan National Academy of Sciences made it “very clear that this is a real issue and we need to address it very promptly.”

Dr. Hansen added that “fortunately, there is more than one” source for information on global warming around the country and that he assumed “that the people of Maine will have at their disposal other sources of information.”

JOSEPH B. TREASTER

[Randy in Maine]

Probably a member of the Flat Earth Society also.

Keep in mind that both John Revolta and Martha "Imabitch" Stewart live up there.

[vdubyah73]

35 years ago the scare they were teaching the kids was that the earth was getting colder and we were possibly heading for another ice age. I even remember it on the news. Now don't think that I'm a complete flat earth type. we should clean up our act and reduce pollution and increase recycling but come on you really think the sky is falling?

Bill

[Velokid1]

I don't believe the sky is falling and haven't heard anyone argue that, yet but I'm absolutely certain that global warming is happening, is caused by human activities and is occurring at a much, much faster rate than the Earth has ever seen in her past. Absolutely.

I have a good friend who is the Chief Scientist at the Pacific Disaster Center named Stanley Goosby who will say the same and so far I haven't seen a single scientist argue against the global warming phenomenon/crisis as a product of man's activities who I found to be completely credible and without ulterior motives.

The degree to which that is the case is the only debatable thing, IMO.

But yeah, if the guy owns the paper and is more concerned with the readers' perceptions of his newspaper than with delivering the news itself, that's his right as a private business owner. More solar power to him, I say!

And he's spineless. ;) =D>

[dingo]

I was reading about these guys up in Greenland who are stoked..because they can now grow healthy batch of crops...whereas previously nothin grew at all on the frozen waste

[Amskeptic]

35 years ago the scare they were teaching the kids was that the earth was getting colder and we were possibly heading for another ice age. I even remember it on the news.

??????????????????????????
Who was "they" and where were "they" and what kids? I was in 6th grade 35 years ago.

you really think the sky is falling?

Read up, Bill. Hard sources. The evidence is in. Now we have carbon dioxide flooding the oceans which is dissolving the calcium in crustacean shells and coral reefs. Be aware that when you throw the bottom of the food chain out of balance, the repercussions multiply up the food chain.
Migratory patterns, floral health, extinctions all are showing evidence of rapid change and stress.
Colin

[vdubyah73]

I was a kid in highschool "they" were the teachers teaching current events and science. Read my post again I do believe that we need to clean up our act and we are, maybe not as fast as some would like. Maybe Al Gore invented global warming, right after he invented the internet.

Bill

[Amskeptic]

Maybe Al Gore invented global warming, right after he invented the internet.

He was instrumental in setting up the protocols of the internet as it related to legislation that has, thus far, allowed it to grow unmolested by those who would charge you usuriously for the privilege. Show some damn respect. The guy has a good mind and values that we all could benefit from. President Gore would not have made us feared and hated in the world, and he would not have sold our kids futures to the fat cats. That said, I am deeply disappointed that he did not persevere during the Coup of 2000.
Colin

[Velokid1]

What Al Gore invented was the film-based vehicle that finally delivered the message to an audience wider than the few hundred expert scientists who have been trying in vain to get the world to face the facts for more than twenty years now. Al Gore took the message to the masses, the way most people need it to be delivered before they'll pay any attention: on a 20' tall screen with all kinds of amusing noises and visuals and pretty, pretty colors.

He has made it an actual talking point. Finally.

Imagine that, making the biggest threat we face an actual talking point. [<--- Myopic Smiley]

[vdubyah73]

Maybe we should do our part in this battle against global warming. Lets put our money where our mouth is. Lets retire all of our 30 some year old ACVW's that only get about 20mpg on a good day, and have ancient pollution control engine management systems that spew al lot more pollutants into the air than say a 10 year old car with an OBDII system. Thats if the FI hasn't been removed and replaced with some abortion called the weber progressive that runs even dirtier 'cause thats the only way it'll run.




































Not a good idea huh?


Bill

[Velokid1]

Not necessary. If everyone just drove less- a lot less- regardless of what they drove, we'd be better off. I drive my bus 3-4 days (50 miles or so) per week. The rest of the time I'm on either my little motorcycle or my bike. It can be a pain, but I do it as a way of putting my money where my mouth is.



Besides, I think that commuter vehicles actually contribute something like 16% of the United States total emissions. The folks who need to be cracked down on first are corporations.

And no, I don't have anything against corporations... some of my best friends are corporations!

[Randy in Maine]

How about this?

Encourage your electrical generating utility to use some portion of thier standard mix to be somesort of thing that is renewable (bio-mass, wind, solar, tidal, waste to energy) something that is not all fossil fuel.

Perhaps find a different way to work one day a week. Bus, carpool, bike, commute from home, something).

Move closer to the office or whereever you have to go. Or work closer to home if given a choice.

Switch to make some of your house lights flouresent bulbs. Turn off lights that you are not using.

Keep you car in tune and correct air pressure in your tires. Plan your errands and run them all at once.

Buy less crap. Buy things that have less packaging.

Recycle your cans, bottle, paper, etc.

Spend some quality time with your kids. Consider talking with them. Time well spent and enjoyed. Laugh much. Have more fun.

That guy up in Bangor is a lunar module and doesn't have a clue. That is not a news flash.

[spiffy]

Actually an Initiative on the ballot this year in WA state to require public energy to provide at least 15% of its power through renewable means. I think if enough of us citizens pushed, we could drasticly accelerate the movement to cleaner energy, transportation, and the use of resources. I met a guy a few weekends ago that put a VW TDI into his vanagon and brews his own bio diesel, his camper gets 35 MPG....pretty good, eh?

[vdubyah73]

All our rubbish is burned for electricity here on the Cape. I used to work off Cape and could see 2 electric plant stacks on the way to and from work. 1 burned oil the other burned rubbish. The rubbish plant always had cleaner smoke the oil plant always looked a little brown.
How are we gonna control all the methane from nature? Cattle farts ? Deer farts? Decomposing leaves and the death by natural selection of wildlife? Believe it or not natural methane comes rite out of the ground in active volcanic areas. I'm not trying top be funny because these methane producers are huge in the scheme of things. How many have wood or coal stoves. Maybe we should convert to pellet stoves. Leave the trees up so they can clean the co out of the air and recycle the lumber and paper industries byproducts.

Like I've said we need to clean up but the sky is not falling. Al Gore has turned into a froot loop, an intelligent one, but a froot loop none the less.

Bill

[RussellK]

How about this?
Encourage your electrical generating utility to use some portion of thier standard mix to be somesort of thing that is renewable (bio-mass, wind, solar, tidal, waste to energy) something that is not all fossil fuel.
Perhaps find a different way to work one day a week. Bus, carpool, bike, commute from home, something).
Move closer to the office or whereever you have to go. Or work closer to home if given a choice.
Switch to make some of your house lights flouresent bulbs. Turn off lights that you are not using.
Keep you car in tune and correct air pressure in your tires. Plan your errands and run them all at once.
Buy less crap. Buy things that have less packaging.
Recycle your cans, bottle, paper, etc.
Spend some quality time with your kids. Consider talking with them. Time well spent and enjoyed. Laugh much. Have more fun.
That guy up in Bangor is a lunar module and doesn't have a clue. That is not a news flash.

Excellent! And not only will you be helping your earth you will feel better too.