BrianGarst.com

Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem.

Monday

23

June 2008

We're All Gonna Die! Pt. 6

Written by , Posted in Energy and the Environment, Media Bias

This is just too good. The headline proclaims: “Today’s Quakes Deadlier Than In Past.” The subheading: “Study: Seismic Activity 5 Times More Energetic Than 20 Years Ago Because Of Global Warming.”

New research compiled by Australian scientist Dr. Tom Chalko shows that global seismic activity on Earth is now five times more energetic than it was just 20 years ago.

The research proves that destructive ability of earthquakes on Earth increases alarmingly fast and that this trend is set to continue, unless the problem of “global warming” is comprehensively and urgently addressed.

The analysis of more than 386,000 earthquakes between 1973 and 2007 recorded on the US Geological Survey database proved that the global annual energy of earthquakes on Earth began increasing very fast since 1990.

Dr. Chalko said that global seismic activity was increasing faster than any other global warming indicator on Earth and that this increase is extremely alarming.

“The most serious environmental danger we face on Earth may not be climate change, but rapidly and systematically increasing seismic, tectonic and volcanic activity,” said Dr. Chalko.

“Increase in the annual energy of earthquakes is the strongest symptom yet of planetary overheating.

The link to the article is here. Yes, that is the real link, and yes, it leads to a 404 error page. That’s because CBS pulled the story. A screenshot of the story on CBS can be found here.

It turns out CBS was duped or, more likely, tried to pull a fast one. The article, which CBS claimed was an AP story (of which there is no evidence and AP denies), was an exact copy of a press release by Dr. Tom Chalko, the “scientist” whose alarming research was the feature of the story.

Dr. Tom Chalko turns out to be Dr. Nutjob. A simple google background check reveals a man who claims to practice telepathy and astral travel. His previous global warming claims included the hilarious declaration that the planet would explode. Of course, CBS is too busy to do this kind of fact checking, especially when something pops up to support their predispositions. They’d rather just copy/paste and falsely attribute the story to someone else. Do they take responsibility when they get caught with their hand in the cookie jar? Nope. They just deleted the article as if it never existed, issuing no apology or retraction.

Oh I almost forgot, and this should probably go without saying, but the claims about increasing earthquake intensity are bogus.

One thing is for certain: whether global warming gets us all or not, the concept of responsible journalism is long since dead and buried.