We’ve all heard the liberal cliché, “Never let a crisis go to waste.” The recent devastation of Hurricane Ian in southwest Florida certainly qualifies as a crisis and some journalists can’t help themselves when it comes to pushing their climate change agenda.
James Freeman, writing in The Wall Street Journal, calls out Washington Post writer Matthew Cappucci for his recent article headlined, “Study finds climate change is bringing more intense rains to U.S.” Cappucci reports:
When it rains, it pours.
A paper published Tuesday in the journal Geophysical Research Letters finds that it’s raining harder in most of the United States. The study, written by researchers at Northwestern University, tied the results to climate change and to warmer air’s ability to hold more water.
Record rain is hitting drought-stricken areas. That’s not good news.
The findings echo the fundamental laws of physics and thermodynamics, as well as the evidence from decades of research, and highlight the real-time effect that humans are having on the weather and climate.
There’s only one problem with this story – it’s not true! Roger Pielke, Jr., an environmental studies professor at the University of Colorado, helpfully points out “what the new paper actually says.”
Although we examine precipitation trends during a time of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations, and find similarities with greenhouse gas-forced model projections, our analysis is insufficient to directly attribute observed changes to ongoing anthropogenic climate change.
Professor Pielke then describes the Capucci article:
You won’t find a clearer case of misinformation in the major media. Well, hold on. Maybe you can.
Pielke then goes on to note a comical CNN attempt to dismiss narrative-busting data on hurricanes. I’m sure there are many other examples that could also be named.
Steven E. Koonin is a physicist and former undersecretary for science, U.S. Department of Energy in the Obama Administration. Currently he is a professor at New York University, formerly professor of theoretical physics at California Technical University. With these credentials, we should listen to what he has to say. In his recent book, Unsettled – What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters, Koonin says, “Since climate is a statistical concept over decades, no individual weather event can ever be firmly attributed to human influences. . . “
In other words, just because this may be a bad year for hurricanes, floods, drought, heat, cold, or any other weather extreme, it doesn’t mean the climate is changing. Only if these extreme conditions have been observed for over ten years or more, can we consider this climate change. But some journalists don’t want to wait that long.
My brother lives in California and this year has been one of extreme drought. The same has been true in the Northeast where we often vacation in New Hampshire. Yet Mr. Capucci wants us to believe that it’s been a year of too much rain. It’s terrible when the facts just don’t fit your narrative.
Mr. Freeman says the media wants to blame something or someone. I guess if they can’t blame climate change, they’ll just have to blame Donald Trump.
