A segment on global warming on the January 17 edition of Fox News' Your World featured on-screen graphics that read: “Global Warming?” and “Nation in a Deep Freeze: What Global Warming?” Host Neil Cavuto began the segment by noting freezing temperatures in Texas, Arizona, and California and asking if these temperatures were "[p]roof that all this hype over global warming could be just that -- hype?"
As Media Matters for America has noted, weather in a portion of the United States is not indicative of whether the Earth is warming. As the National Climatic Data Center noted in its preliminary 2006 report, "[f]ollowing the warmest year on record for the globe in 2005, the annual global temperature for 2006 is expected to be sixth warmest since recordkeeping began in 1880." That report also noted that “the 2006 annual average temperature for the contiguous United States (based on preliminary data) will likely be 2 [degrees] F (1.1 [degrees] C) above the 20th Century mean, which would make 2006 the third warmest year on record.”
The Your World segment featured commentary by Forbes editor in chief and former Republican presidential hopeful Steve Forbes, Forbes on Fox commentator Michele Steele, and Forbes Silicon Valley bureau chief Quentin Hardy.
From the January 17 edition of Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto:
CAVUTO: Twenty-four degrees in Fresno, 29 degrees in Phoenix, down to 9 degrees in Amarillo, Texas, and on and on. It is some of the coldest air in this part of the country in 20 years. Proof that all of this hype over global warming could be just that -- hype?