Moments after Investor's Business Daily presaged that "2008 just might be the year the so-called scientific consensus that man is causing the Earth to warm begins to crack," the New York Times of all entities published a rather shocking piece pointing fingers at folks like Nobel Laureate Al Gore for being part of a group of "activists, journalists and publicity-savvy scientists who selectively monitor the globe looking for newsworthy evidence of a new form of sinfulness, burning fossil fuels."

This from the New York Times? Hold on tightly to your seats, folks, for the shocks in this piece came early and often:

Today's interpreters of the weather are what social scientists call availability entrepreneurs: the activists, journalists and publicity-savvy scientists who selectively monitor the globe looking for newsworthy evidence of a new form of sinfulness, burning fossil fuels.

A year ago, British meteorologists made headlines predicting that the buildup of greenhouse gases would help make 2007 the hottest year on record. At year's end, even though the British scientists reported the global temperature average was not a new record - it was actually lower than any year since 2001 - the BBC confidently proclaimed, "2007 Data Confirms Warming Trend."

When the Arctic sea ice last year hit the lowest level ever recorded by satellites, it was big news and heralded as a sign that the whole planet was warming. When the Antarctic sea ice last year reached the highest level ever recorded by satellites, it was pretty much ignored. A large part of Antarctica has been cooling recently, but most coverage of that continent has focused on one small part that has warmed.

When Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans in 2005, it was supposed to be a harbinger of the stormier world predicted by some climate modelers. When the next two hurricane seasons were fairly calm - by some measures, last season in the Northern Hemisphere was the calmest in three decades - the availability entrepreneurs changed the subject. Droughts in California and Australia became the new harbingers of climate change (never mind that a warmer planet is projected to have more, not less, precipitation over all).

Checking that link to make sure it really goes to a Times piece? I understand - and there's {much} more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/01/science/01tier.html?_r=1&ref=science&oref=slogin

[unfortunately, 2007 was initial heralded as the year scientists stood up - but the lengths to which the alarmists would ratchet up what was essentially a counter offensive was frankly underestimated. 'If you tell a lie big enough...'. Personally, I consider the jury still out as to if they'll get away with this; the truth can't 'float to the top' if it's literally withheld from TV, where too many Americans still get their news.]