On the December 22 broadcast of Westwood One's The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly, guest host Douglas Urbanski cited a December 18 segment from CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight to support the assertion, which has been widely discredited, that “man-made climate change” is “one of the biggest lies of our time” and in doing so echoed several of the debunked claims and suggestions about global warming included in that CNN segment.

As Media Matters for America noted, despite overwhelming evidence of human-caused global warming and warnings by experts that short-term weather conditions are not evidence for or against its existence, Lou Dobbs said during the introduction of his December 18 program: “And tonight, unusual winter storms are dumping snow in unusual places across Western states, and a huge snowstorm is headed toward the Northeast. This is global warming?” Echoing Dobbs during The Radio Factor, Urbanski asserted that “you look at the news today, we're certainly in a cooling trend,” and specifically cited “snow in Las Vegas.” As The New York Times reported on March 2, climate scientists -- including at least one who has disputed aspects of the scientific consensus on global warming -- completely reject the notion that short-term changes in weather, let alone individual storms, bear any relevance to the global warming debate.

Then, in support of his earlier assertion that “every single day I do a broadcast, there are about six more scientists who add their name to the thousands that say climate change is not man-made and what is happening is not man-made and global warming may not even be happening -- we may even be going into global cooling,” Urbanski touted a guest who appeared on the Lou Dobbs Tonight segment: Heartland Institute senior fellow and science director Jay Lehr. Urbanski's assertion that “we may even be going into global cooling” echoed Lehr's December 18 assertion on CNN that "[t]he last 10 years have been quite cool." Yet, as Media Matters noted, according to NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the 2008 meteorological year (December 2007 through November 2008) “was the ninth warmest year in the period of instrumental measurements, which extends back to 1880. The nine warmest years all occur within the eleven-year period 1998-2008.” (GISS further states that “given our estimated error ... we can only say that 2008 probably ranks as somewhere between the 7th and 12th warmest year.) Moreover, the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) 2007 ”Synthesis Report" concluded that "[w]arming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice and rising global average sea level."

Urbanski later stated, “the fact is that there is no evidence that there is man-made climate change occurring.” In fact, the IPCC report noted that "[t]he observed widespread warming of the atmosphere and ocean, together with ice mass loss, support the conclusion that it is extremely unlikely [less than a 5 percent chance] that global climate change of the past 50 years can be explained without external forcing and very likely that it is not due to known natural causes alone." The IPCC report further determined that "[m]ost of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely [defined in the report as a greater than 90 percent chance] due to the observed increase in anthropogenic [human-caused] GHG [greenhouse gas] concentrations." The IPCC's February 2007 Working Group I Report "The Physical Science Basis" similarly concluded that since 1750, “it is extremely likely [greater than a 95 percent chance] that humans have exerted a substantial warming influence on climate.”

From the December 22 broadcast of Westwood One's The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly:

URBANSKI: We also have Obama's -- well, over the weekend, he's appointed some environmentalists. He's got more global warming lunacy that he wants to shove down your throat and my throat, all the while cloaking it in the idea that he wants diverse opinion, no matter how inconvenient. If -- meaning, in fact, that he doesn't want diverse opinion, and he doesn't want any inconvenient facts thrown in his face, because if he did, he would not be embracing this notion of global warming.

And you notice, as others have pointed out, that they've changed the words on this. The words on it are now “climate change.” It is “climate change.” And of course, it's man-made climate change. And it is a myth. It is a lie. It's one of the biggest lies of our time. We'll get to that as today's show goes on also.

[...]

URBANSKI: Obama said, quote, he will “once again put science at the top of his agenda.” Let me tell you what he means by that. He will not put science at the top of his agenda; he will put convenient science at the top of his agenda. He will put science at the top of his agenda that goes along with a certain ideology. Ideology first with these people. Always remember that.

He said, Obama did, “Promoting science isn't just about providing resources. It's about protecting free and open inquiry.” He means, in fact, just the opposite, that it is not about protecting free and open inquiry. He said it's about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology when in fact, my friends, precisely what he is doing is twisting the facts and obscuring them by politics, by ideology. He said, Obama did in his weekly radio address, he said, “It's about listening to what our scientists have to say, even when it's inconvenient.” In fact, he said, “Especially when it's inconvenient.”

Well, President-elect Obama, there's a lot of inconvenient facts out there for you, folks, especially when it comes to climate change. They only want a type of view that is an opinion -- not science -- about climate change. And they have their political reasons for it. So he names this guy, his name is John Holdren, who's a physicist from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, to be his science adviser. And Holdren, by the way, has talked about things that are way outside of science. He's one of these guys who weighs in on all sorts of issues because he's got the name “professor” -- he's got the title “professor” in front of him, so they're an expert on everything.

He -- for example, one of the things he's big on is calling for the U.S. to have a no-first-use policy when it comes to nuclear weapons. And to take nuclear retaliation off the table as a response to chemical or biological attacks, which of course, would be a disastrous thing for the United States government to do. But that's what this guy is a -- is a proponent of. So, as I'm looking at this story -- and I kid you not, and I've said this before -- every single day I do a broadcast, there are about six more scientists who add their name to the thousands that say climate change is not man-made and what is happening is not man-made and global warming may not even be happening -- we may even be going into global cooling.

Well, of course, you look at the news today, we're certainly in a cooling trend. And of course, they'll blame that on global warning, as The Associated Press did in their idiotic article by Seth Borenstein last week. It wasn't even an article; it was an editorial piece. So we've got, let's see -- from CNN there are three meteorologists -- OK, we've got CNN meteorologist Chad Myers. He, last week, said -- he's also an American Meteorological Society certified meteorologist, he's on CNN. He explains on the 18th of December that the whole idea of man-made climate change is arrogant and that mankind is in danger of dying from other natural events much more dangerous than global warming.

You've got snow in Las Vegas. You've got weather every place. You've got cold records being set. And you've got this guy, Chad Myers -- he is the second CNN meteorologist, by the way, to challenge global warming conventions. And, you know, then you get also on Lou Dobbs on CNN, Dr. Jay Lehr, and he is an expert on environmental policy. And he says that if you go back to the 13th century, we were probably seven degrees warmer than we are now. And he points out that was a very prosperous time for mankind. Big surprise. And he talks about how much cooler the Revolutionary War was than we are now. But that it's always a changing -- a changing issue. So you've got more scientists -- and I could spend hours boring you with how many scientists absolutely discredit and debunk this lie about global warming.

[...]

URBANSKI: So let me just get this straight. In a sort of 24-hour period -- maybe even hours -- Barack Obama embraces the mythology of climate change -- man-made climate change. He embraces the radicalism and appoints these radicals who support this theory and basically deny the completeness of the science, deny the overwhelming evidence that is fact -- the fact is that there is no evidence that there is man-made climate change occurring. And within hours of him appointing these radicals and saying to the American people that he wants to follow the science wherever it leads so that it's not twisted or obscured by politics or ideology when, in fact, he means precisely the opposite, that he wants to find the truth no matter how inconvenient it is including when it's inconvenient -- when in fact he doesn't want to find the truth on this at all.