This kind of irresponsible reporting and backpedaling by media and government is, imho, a large part of why the public is so slow to react to climate change.

Imagine how someone who heard Al Gore say that, by 2014, the poles would have no ice, or that glaciers in Montana would be gone by 2020, feels now. Is that person more or less likely to think climate change is an issue that deserves their attention?

That's the problem with using fearmongering and clickbait to generate profits. Every article I found where a scientist spoke about the 2020 date he was careful to note that the numbers were preliminary and only what could happen while pointing to the long trend of warming and the decline in the number of glaciers from 150 to just 25.