Fox News repeatedly criticized a SpongeBob SquarePants book and video about manmade global warming because “they did not tell kids that that is actually a disputed fact.” In reality, it is not controversial among the mainstream scientific community that humans are changing the climate.
The cartoonish hominids who pretend to be journalists on Fox News have a new villain — SpongeBob SquarePants. Why are they incensed at the high-energy invertebrate? Because he understands climate science, that human emissions are warming the planet, and would like to explain that to the children whose climate will be destroyed by the professional deniers like Fox.
Fox News believes this is a “disputed fact” — we’ll set aside the oxymoronic phrase “disputed fact” and merely note that for the National Academy of Sciences, it is a “settled fact.”
Of course, we learned last year that Fox News boss Bill Sammon ordered staff to cast doubt on even the most established science: “We should refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question.” Hmm. Maybe he isn’t a Sammon, but an octopus, specifically Squidward Tentacles.
If you watch the video — which I don’t recommend without several head vises — it is interesting to note that SpongeBob is only concerned about warming. In fact, the far greater threat to ocean life is ocean acidification.
Last year, a Nature Geoscience study found our oceans are acidifying 10 times faster today than 55 million years ago when a mass extinction of marine species occurred. Also, last year the Geological Society reported that acidifying oceans spell marine biological meltdown “by end of century.” And some of the world’s top marine scientists reported in June that acidification, warming, and human activity have put the world’s oceans in ‘shocking’ decline with the ‘speeds of many negative changes … tracking the worst-case scenarios.’
But Murdoch’s Fox News doesn’t care about ocean life — fictitious or real. They care only about pushing their corporatist, pro-pollution, anti-science agenda.
Here’s more on their assault on the famous sponge who lives in a pineapple under the sea, from Media Matters:
Below are 0ld comments from the earlier Facebook commenting system:
Finally they are taking on someone their own size (intellectually speaking).
6 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 4 at 2:41pm
Richard Brenne · Top Commenter · UCLA
I’m not saying Gretchen Carlson pretends to be a spit-drooling idiot to bring herself to the level of her Fox viewers, but Jon Stewart and the Daily Show did make a compelling case for that. Carlson was her large high school’s valedictorian and graduated cum laude from Stanford after also studying at Oxford.
Yet she claims on Fox that she had to Google the words and terms “czar, double-dip recession” and “ignoramus,” finding the last was defined first as “Fox News viewer.”.
She claims above that she cannot follow the Dostoyevskian plot lines of SpongeBob SquarePants.…See More
3 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 4 at 6:33pm
Richard Brenne · Top Commenter · UCLA
Maybe the fact that Michelle Bachman was Carlson’s nanny (true story) explains a lot. As a Manchurian Candidate Carlson’s an upgrade from Bachman, who instead of Stanford and Oxford attended Winona Ryder State Collage and Oral and Occasionally Written Roberts “University” “Law” “School”.
2 · Like · Reply · August 4 at 6:50pm
Julia Kuglen · Top Commenter · University of Texas School of Law
I haven’t seen Jon Stewart’s clip, but perhaps he gives her too much credit. Her academic credentials are not especially impressive: A bachelor’s degree (in sociology). Besides, there are plenty of deniers with degrees from prestigious schools. Most have limited scientific background, some have enough scientific background to know better, and almost all are motivated by deeply held political and/or religious beliefs and/or images of success and money that have a stranglehold on their ability to reason.
Like · Reply · August 5 at 10:02am
Richard Brenne · Top Commenter · UCLA
Julia — I’m sure your list of reasons for lack of reason in Carlson and all those like her is probably accurate in some combination. The best sociologists would use the scientific method as applied to an admittedly soft science, but the hardest thing about such an undergraduate degree at Stanford is getting in, because after that your hand will be held throughout and grade inflation is rampant.
And speaking of such things, you should be proud that the UT Law School denied admittance to George W. Bush and so his safety school was Harvard Business, which knows a legacy when it sees one, even a Yalie. All in all you’re quite a bright cat.
Like · Reply · August 5 at 10:05pm
Rob Honeycutt · Top Commenter
Fox News engages in a activity called “paid stupidity.”
2 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 5 at 3:37pm
treasurecoastskywatch (signed in using Yahoo)
1 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 4 at 11:34pm
Dumb bunnies are dumb. Fox “News” is a misnomer. FoxViews should have a health warning along the lines of “watching this network will seriously reduce your mental agility and chances of getting laid”.
1 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 5 at 12:59pm
treasurecoastskywatch (signed in using Yahoo)
climate progress and soros http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCQMTdf7mEY.
1 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 4 at 11:34pm
treasurecoastskywatch (signed in using Yahoo)
Man made global warming is a fraud just like Al Gore.
1 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 4 at 11:32pm
Joan Savage · Top Commenter · SUNY-ESF
Let’s note (if not exactly applaud) when concessions creep into the rhetoric of skepticism.
Doocy: “And while there’s no disputing that the world is getting a little warmer”…Now that is a step.
Doocy: “…or is it one of those gigantic climactic phases..”At least he’s getting a notion of the scale.
Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 4 at 3:23pm
Dean Grodzins · Visiting Scholar at Massachusetts Historical Society
I wonder why they’re just now getting around to attacking this video, which has been around for years and millions of kids have already seen (including mine).
Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 4 at 4:16pm
Lydie Krenzke · Head Honcho at Mommy
I don’t allow my children to watch it. It’s honestly more of a grown up cartoon with all the undertones it has. The only thing they got out of it after watching a few episodes was to try and karate chop each other. Now TV time is very restricted and limited. I’m criticized all the time for it, but honestly, they have little brains and imaginations. I want them to use them not rot them.
Like · Reply · August 4 at 4:22pm
Dean Grodzins · Visiting Scholar at Massachusetts Historical Society
Lily got hooked for a while visiting her older cousins, but then lost interest. The show is a toned-down, kid version of “Ren and Stimpy,” and can be very funny, but at home we stick to PBS.
Like · Reply · August 4 at 4:32pm
Dean Grodzins · Visiting Scholar at Massachusetts Historical Society
The real crime here is Fox News’s lies about global warming, as my cousin Joseph Romm points out.
Like · Reply · August 4 at 4:33pm
Marcus Cato · Combat Medic at U.S Army
I hate fox more.
Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 4 at 4:31pm
- treasurecoastskywatch (signed in using Yahoo)
Why because they question propaganda from the fraudsters ? why the hate ? global warming is a hoax !
Like · Reply · August 4 at 11:37pm
Ruben Bernardino · Co-Founder at REELAB, LLC
When I realize that organizations like FOX news who dare to question and deny (subtly or not) global warming, evolution and other scientifically proven and otherwise universally accepted facts, the only comfort I receive is that I probably live in the most democratic country in the planet. Where else would people take seriously such backward fundamentalistic non-sense. The price of this freedom to believe and make believe whatever lunacy you find comfort in (and suits your political/financial agenda) does not come without a high price tag though: irreversably degrading the biosphere. What is truly pathetic, disturbing and quite dangerous is that the public in this great country of ours is so devoid of critical thinking, so naive and so ideologically biased that we cannot have any realistic debate on the subject. This is no di…See More
Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 5 at 6:56pm
laska1818 (signed in using Yahoo)
I wish I could have watched the audition for those Faux shows. It must have been a howl watching them out dumbing down one another. SpongeBob..seriously?
Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 7 at 12:56pm
Neil Gascon · UNEXPO Antonio Jose de Sucre
instead of unreasonably argue with Spongebob. Why don’t they show how screwed-up is our economy and critize our rulers of doing nothing about unemplyment? it’s the media! They own everything and keep all to themselves… sick!
Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 4 at 4:41pm
Stuart Levine · University of Maryland, College Park
Joe — The link in the third paragraph tied to the words “settled fact” appears to be broken.
Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 4 at 6:24pm
Carol L. Tieso · Associate Professor at The College of William and Mary
Seriously? SpongeBob?
Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 5 at 11:09am
Then that would make Patrick smarter than the left leaning Democrats and CNN ABC NBC MSNBC and CBS
Like · Reply · August 5 at 1:04pm
Paul Magnus · Top Commenter
Yep, that was written speciall for fox…
Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 5 at 1:37am