Fox Takes Obama Out Of Context To Make Him A Climate Skeptic

Fox News' The Five aired an out-of-context clip from President Obama's press conference yesterday to claim that he was “giving up on climate change.” In fact, the president affirmed his acceptance of the science on climate change moments later and said we have “an obligation to future generations to do something about it.”

During President Obama's first White House press conference after winning reelection, the New York Times' Mark Landler invoked the effects of Hurricane Sandy in asking the president what he planned to do in a second term to tackle climate change. Obama responded that while “we can't attribute any particular weather event to climate change,” we do know “the temperature around the globe is increasing” and “there have been an extraordinarily large number of severe weather events here in North America, but also around the globe.”

The Five seized on Obama's statement that no individual weather event can be blamed on climate change to suggest that he is “giving up on climate change” in a “big change from four years ago”:

But if Fox had rolled the tape for an additional 30 seconds, they would have heard the president say “I am a firm believer that climate change is real, that it is impacted by human behavior and carbon emissions. And as a consequence, I think we've got an obligation to future generations to do something about it.”

President Obama went on to describe how his administration has worked to combat climate change by strengthening fuel economy standards and investing in clean energy. He concluded by saying “you can expect that you'll hear more from me in the coming months and years about how we can shape an agenda that garners bipartisan support and helps move this -- moves this agenda forward.”

This is not the first time this year that Fox misrepresented the president's comments on climate change.