Fox News Miscalculates Climate Change

Climate skeptics are milking the recent release of stolen emails from global-warming researchers in the U.K., calling it “Climategate” and using it as fuel to question the Copenhagen summit (see Sarah Palin’s Washington Post op-ed). But Fox News, in particular, is going as far as using extremely questionable data in attempts to sway the public.

Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show does a good job revealing how “fair and balanced” Rupert Murdoch’s rightist network really is. During last night’s show, Stewart played a clip from Fox showing an opinion poll about whether scientists falsified research to support "theories" of global warming. The only problem? The poll's numbers totaled 120 percent.

No one on the Fox show batted an eyelash at the mathematical miscue, which could be taken as somewhat shocking coming from a group of supposed journalists. While such absurdity might elicit a laugh when framed by Stewart's lightheartedness, it's scary to think that like these may be aired every night, continuing to feed a viewership that mostly believes that climate change is a hoax.

Those interested in real news on the topic can check out Time's well-written breakdown about the climate email controversy. Stay tuned, too, with the Sierra Club’s Climate Crossroads Copenhagen group during the 12-day climate-change summit.

--Michael Mullaley