Reposted from Awesome Weather Facts Blog
Thursday, May 30, 2019
Disclaimer: Both of us appreciate the fact that the media exists to spread useful information around to people on a daily basis. However, when there is bias and poorly conducted journalism, it needs to be addressed seriously.
Introduction
Time and time again, media outlets and our elected officials misrepresent various social, economic, and/or environmental issues in order to boost their ratings, gain political power, and/or create mayhem and hysteria among their viewers and constituents, respectively. The climate change debate is no exception, as the issue is constantly conveyed to the public eye as a ‘crisis,’¹ (Figure 1) when in fact, good scientific analysis and data say otherwise. H.L. Mencken said it best; “The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.”² If one can exercise power, then that person has the ability to control you through your actions.
Agree to Disagree
While many people have the perception that there isn’t any common ground on climate change, this simply isn’t true. Dr. Judith Curry, a climatologist noted that there are a few key things most ‘skeptics’ and ‘alarmists’ agree on.³
- Global average temperatures are warmer than they were 100 years ago.
- Man-made fossil fuel combustion has contributed more or less to the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.
- Greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide and water vapor should cause some warming.
However, there is widespread disagreement and differing opinions on these two things…
- How much warming we have seen is or isn’t a result from man-made processes (including urbanization and land use) and what exactly causes the climate to change.
- How much more warming, if any we will see observe century (considering lower tropospheric temperatures have plateaued since the very strong El Niño of 1998) (Figure 2).⁴
Disagreement is actually good for science because it opens the door to new ideas, debate, and research. Without debate, advances in science would simply not occur.
Name-Calling Tactics
One of our biggest pet peeves in the entire climate change debate is the constant use of name-calling, and this name-calling primarily comes from those on who preach AGW. If you’re skeptical of the ‘climate crisis,’ you’re shunned and labeled as a ‘climate [change] denier.’ This use of name calling is not only unreasonable, but it also couldn’t be further from the truth. Nobody I have ever met or talked to denies the fact climate change itself exists in natural form. Climate has been in a state of constant change for 4.5 billion years, and it will continue to do so in the future. Even those who have openly stated that global warming is the biggest scam and hoax ever, such as Donald Trump (Figure 3),⁵ don’t really deny climate change – they’re usually just referring to anthropogenic climate change.
Misleading Information From the MSM and Politicians
Mother Jones, a generally left-leaning news website apparently had nothing better to do with their website’s bandwidth, than compile a list of every single one of President Trump’s Tweets mentioning “global warming” or “climate change,” calling them “insane” (Figure 4).⁵
In all fairness, Mother Jones should have also done an op-ed on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s ‘tornado rant’ on Instagram last Thursday, May 23. What she said on her story made her “end of the world”⁶ claim believable… (just a joke, don’t take me seriously).
https://youtu.be/oHk8nn0nw18
1. AOC Has A Tornado Rant About Tornadoes
Last week, Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took to her Instagram story (Figure 5) stating that tornadoes are getting worse due to climate change; “The climate crisis is real y’all… guess we’re at casual tornadoes in growing regions of the country?”⁷ ⁸
First and foremost, tornadoes are not casual. Most tornadoes are spawned from highly organized thunderstorms known as supercells, and as a matter of fact, most thunderstorms don’t even produce them (see the tropics for instance).⁹ ¹⁰ As Dr. Roy Spencer of UAH and Joe Bastardi of Weather Bell Analytics have been saying for years,¹⁰ ¹¹ one of the key components of tornado outbreaks are the ‘clashing’ of warm and cool air masses. When there is a lack of ‘clashing’ – as such has been the case in recent decades¹² (Figure 6) due to predominately warmer springs – tornado outbreaks and thus violent tornadoes (EF4-EF5) become more infrequent.
Because of the lack of clashing, wind shear is inhibited, which would otherwise be vital for tornadogenesis.¹⁰ The end result of this setup is a decrease in violent tornadoes, which has indeed been observed over the past 69 years.¹³ In fact, last year was the first year on record with no violent tornadoes (Figure 7). This totally destroys AOC’s theory.
2. The New York Times Ignores Weather History
Two summers ago, The New York Times stated¹⁴ (Figure 8) that extremely hot summers are becoming increasingly common, and that it’s not our “imaginations.” They say, “Extraordinary hot summers – the kind that were virtually unheard-of in the 1950s – have become commonplace. Had the authors of that piece done any actual research, then they would have known that summertime temperatures used to be much hotter in the U.S. prior to the 1980s. Raw NOAA data¹⁵ shows that the percent of days above 90, 95, and 100°F have been plummeting for over 100 years, and the 1920s, 1930s, and 1950s, without a doubt, had the worst summers on record in the U.S.
3. The Des Moines Register and Elizabeth Warren Fail to Address Iowa Flooding Seriously
Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a Democrat running for President in 2020, visited Iowa this past spring to address the flooding that was widespread across the state.¹⁶ She stated, “I’m very worried about seeing the floods again. Climate change is real, the problem is urgent and we are running out of time.”¹⁶
The entire problem with her statement is that recent flooding in Iowa had nothing to do with climate change. In fact, it was ‘just the weather.’
February, March, and April of this year were among the coldest on record across the western 2/3 of the U.S., especially the Northern Plains.¹⁷ Temperature departures from normal were a good three to six degrees below average in Iowa, which meant that the ground was frozen from both the winter and first half of spring.¹⁸ With the two large storm systems that rolled through the region in March and April dropping a nice, solid snowfall and rain, the combination of a frozen ground and melting snow meant that the water had nowhere to run off to, thus creating the flooding.¹⁸
In Summary…
In each scenario shown above, it is clearly evident that both journalists at media outlets and politicians alike have no clue what they are talking about when it comes to climate science, simply because they are too ignorant to look back at the past and look at statistical data that derails their train. And perhaps they purposefully don’t look at the data in order to gain power and control over the American people.
These politicians are trying to implement policies that would put intense regulations on fossil fuel companies and the American people. If they can implement these policies, then that’s one more thing they can control. While I’m all for renewable energy (if it were to be sustainable and effective), fossil fuels are our ‘way of life.’ Without them, we’d suffer consequences far greater than has ever been known to man.
It’s important we educate the youth about the non-mainstream view of climate change, because our weather history and actual statistics are important for not only setting the record straight, but for our country’s well being.
REFERENCES
[1] Sullivan, Kate. “Bernie Sanders says climate change is an ‘existential crisis.'” CNN. February 25, 2019. Accessed May 30, 2019. https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/25/politics/bernie-sanders-climate-change-existential-crisis/index.html.
[2] Mencken, H.L. “The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.” BrainyQuote. Accessed May 30, 2019. https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/h_l_mencken_143263.
[3] Steele, Jim. “Dr. Judith Curry and Dr. Patrick Moore demolish Michael Mann in climate debate!” A Walk on the Natural Side. June 12, 2019. Accessed May 30, 2019. http://perhapsallnatural.blogspot.com/2018/06/dr-judith-currys-debates-climate-change.html.
[4] “UAH Version 6.0 with Trendline.” Wood for Trees. Accessed May 30, 2019. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah6/plot/uah6/trend.
[5] Schulman, Jeremy. “Every Insane Thing Donald Trump Has Said About Global Warming.” Mother Jones. December 12, 2018. Accessed May 30, 2019. https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/12/trump-climate-timeline/.
[6] Shorts, TheDC. YouTube. January 22, 2019. Accessed May 30, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHk8nn0nw18.
[7] Fredericks, Bob. “Meteorologist takes Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to task about climate change message.” The New York Post. May 24, 2019. Accessed May 30, 2019. https://nypost.com/2019/05/24/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-chided-by-dc-meteorologist-about-climate-change-message/.
[8] Bastasch, Michael. “‘It’s Just the Weather’: Meteorologist Fact-Checks Ocasio-Cortez on Climate Change.” The Daily Caller. May 23, 2019. Accessed May 30, 2019. https://dailycaller.com/2019/05/23/ocasio-cortez-weather-fact-check/.
[9] “Thunderstorm Hazards – Tornadoes.” National Weather Service – JetStream. Accessed May 30, 2019. https://www.weather.gov/jetstream/tornado.
[10] Bastardi, Joe. “Some cold hard facts on tornado activity.” CFACT. May 23, 2019. Accessed May 30, 2019. https://www.cfact.org/2019/05/23/some-cold-hard-facts-on-tornado-activity/.
[11] Spencer, Roy. “Roy Spencer: Why so many tornadoes this year? It’s not what AOC, Bernie Sanders (or maybe even you) think.” FOX News. May 29, 2019. Accessed May 30, 2019. https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/roy-spencer-tornadoes-ohio-ocasio-cortez-sanders.
[12] ERSL : PSD : US Climate Division Maps. March to May 2008-2018. Accessed May 30, 2019. https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/cgi-bin/data/usclimdivs/climdiv.pl?variab=Temperature&type=1&base=8&mon1=3&mon2=5&iy%5B1%5D=&iy%5B2%5D=&iy%5B3%5D=&iy%5B4%5D=&iy%5B5%5D=&iy%5B6%5D=&iy%5B7%5D=&iy%5B8%5D=&iy%5B9%5D=&iy%5B10%5D=&iy%5B11%5D=&iy%5B12%5D=&iy%5B13%5D=&iy%5B14%5D=&iy%5B15%5D=&iy%5B16%5D=&iy%5B17%5D=&iy%5B18%5D=&iy%5B19%5D=&iy%5B20%5D=&irange1=2008&irange2=2018&xlow=&xhi=&xint=&iunits=1&scale=100&iwhite=1&iswitch=0&Submit=Create+Plot.
[13] Livingston, Ian. “2018 will be the first year with no violent tornadoes in the United States.” The Washington Post. December 26, 2018. May 30, 2019. https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2018/12/26/will-be-first-year-with-no-violent-tornadoes-united-states/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.8eb032ca52a1.
[14] Popovich, Nadja and Pearce, Adam. “It’s Not Your Imagination. Summers Are Getting Hotter.” The New York Times. July 28, 2017. Accessed May 30, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/07/28/climate/more-frequent-extreme-summer-heat.html.
[15] Heller, Tony. “UNHIDING THE DECLINE FOR WINDOWS.” The Deplorable Climate Science Blog. Accessed May 30, 2019. https://realclimatescience.com/unhiding-the-decline-for-windows/.
[16] Norvell, Kim. “Farmers should be part of the solution to climate change, Elizabeth Warren says in Iowa.” Des Moines Register. May 3, 2019. Accessed May 30, 2019. https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2019/05/03/iowa-caucus-election-2020-elizabeth-warren-climate-change-farmers-flooding-missouri-river/1094532001/.
[17] ACIS Climate Maps. High Plains Regional Climate Center. Accessed May 30, 2019. https://hprcc.unl.edu/maps.php?map=ACISClimateMaps.
[18] Hassan, Adeel. “Why Is There Flooding in Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa and Wisconsin?” The New York Times. May 18, 2019. Accessed May 30, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/18/us/nebraska-flooding-facts.html.
Posted by Chris Martz Weather at
4:41 AM
Very good and very true
In the UK proper journalism died out decades ago and the current bunch of politicians are the most ignorant and incompetent we have ever suffered. The two go hand in hand since they feed off each other in a bubble and has resulted in a case of a politician lying being taken to court. In the past the journalists would have exposed the lie and humiliated the liar, so acting as a mechanism to deter the lies. Not so today.
“One of our biggest pet peeves in the entire climate change debate is the constant use of name-calling, and this name-calling primarily comes from those on who preach AGW. If you’re skeptical of the ‘climate crisis,’ you’re shunned and labeled as a ‘climate [change] denier.’ This use of name calling is not only unreasonable, but it also couldn’t be further from the truth. Nobody I have ever met or talked to denies the fact climate change itself exists in natural form. Climate has been in a state of constant change for 4.5 billion years, and it will continue to do so in the future. Even those who have openly stated that global warming is the biggest scam and hoax ever, such as Donald Trump (Figure 3),⁵ don’t really deny climate change – they’re usually just referring to anthropogenic climate change.”
1. You gave a charitible interpretation to Trumps meaning. When he says “climate change’ is a hoax
he means, AGW is a hoax.
2. You refused to give the same option to folks who call you a climate change denier.
Here is a clue
A) When trump says “climate change” he means AGW
B) When X calls you a climate change denier he means AGW denier. or anthropogenic climate change
denier
Stop playing the silly game.
No believer in AGW means merely “climate change” when they call you a clmate change denier
they mean ACC denier. After all they dont call it the IPACC and it was set up to investigate
ACC not natural climate change.
And perhaps they purposefully don’t look at the data in order to gain power and control over the American people.
If you apply the Duck Test, that’s what it looks like.
Pressure changes causing the vortex to head south, was followed by sudden intense tornado increase in the 70s, around 1975, was a year of an intense increase.
Recent history, we have the vortex heading south, and again an anomalous sudden intense Tornado year.
Cold air.. when conditions are right, and it’s rare they are (for such intensity of the T season), there is a sudden intense increase.
Blaming any of it on AGW is just plain silly.
A tornado drove the English out of Washington; Tornadoes are more American than AOC.
Re. Steven, 2 June. So how do the “Warmers come CC crowd”
manage to separate “Normal “” climate change” from the Man made
variety ?
Second point, while I accept the sensational reporting by the Media as a
means of filing in the blank pages, or the unfilled TV time, why do the
Demotractic politicians go along with it.
Is it just a case of “”Whatever it takes”” to get into office, in which case one
would think that upon attaining office it shoaled be in their interest to have
a strong economy running. Including the use of fossil fuel rather than the unrealisable windmills an solar.
Or are they simply a part of the movement to first destroy the economy,
then in the guise of saviours will promise to “”Save us” if only we will
accept the new form of government, i.e. Communism mark two.
MJE VK5ELL
Seriously, you expect the worst con artists on the planet – politicians – to give a flying whistle about reality?
That bimbo Fauxcahontas Warren went campaigning in Iowa to spout her nonsense when she has no understanding of anything related to the subject of “climate” or farming. She’s on the same level of stupidity and cupidity as AOC, who can’t tell a radish from a rutabaga (and is dumber than both of them combined) and is fake afraid of her garbage disposal. They never miss a beat, any of them.
The climate emergency is far more about imposing socialism than anything else.
apart from birth death marriages crash reports and a rare item theres little in msm newspapers worth reading, and way many opinion pieces that people seem to take as utterly true and how they should also think
scary really.
giving up tv some 20yrs ago was the best thing I ever did;-)
Excerpt from article:
SO, ……. which is it, ……. fossil fuel combustion has contributed more, …. or has contributed less ……. to the increase in atmospheric CO2 levels?
Iffen they didn’t know fer shur, ……. then they shouldn’t of made mention of it.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/06/02/hegerl2018/
AOC is what? 29 years old? and like many human beings she thinks that what is happening now is happening for the first time ever. People also think that having about 8 billion people on the planet can’t possibly mean more damage when nature does what nature always has done. Millions, maybe billions of words are written and spoken about climate and weather and the study of both will in no way mitigate the actuality of what happens. Adapt or die should be the way to think about the planet. We will be gone, our short lives never allowing us the ability to live with the consequences of our stupidity. We need to get over ourselves.
“….the Media and Politicians Have No Clue What They Are Doing in Climate Science …”
Oh, they have a clue all right. They know very well what they are doing. They are supporting Climate Change as a way to increase taxes and milk and control the population.
And the reason they seem so dumb is that that will be a good excuse when the whole rotten edifice falls over, and people start looking for scapegoats. They you will hear a lot of ‘Don’t blame me, I was just told things by an expert and didn’t understand any of the science…”
Problem is the MWP was probably warmer with lower CO2 levels- whole thing is a nonsense.
Not just power, but money of course is driving the CAGW lunacy from Democrats. Restructuring the energy infrastructure via government diktat and crony capitalism (subsidies, tax breaks) is a huge opportunity to make money if you (the investor) are on the “winning” side. The government needs power to force this creation of winners and losers in the economy. Obama was keen on this with his “pen and phone” unconstitutional power grab from the legislative branch.
One particular thorny “problem” (a problem for the authoritarians) here in the US is our federal constitution, which sets strong limits on what the Federal government can do, and reserving substantial power to the States and the People. Progressives of course hate that, at least when its their side controlling Washington DC. The hypocrisy was so rich and thick coming from the Democrat-socialists suddenly becoming States Rights adherents with Trump and a Republican Congress for 2017-2018 after they were decrying such things for 8 years of the Obama Maladministration.
Which of course animates the Left’s hysterics everytime they are reminded about Justice Ginsburg’s health. In that regard, there was a huge amount of “climate” money interests behind the dirty tricks the US Senate Democrats were trying to pull on Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation last September and October. The 3 way mashup of the renewable investment interests (Tom Steyer being the face of that but there are so many more), the politics the Democrats use to do their paymasters’ biddings, and a complicit media was quite the sight to behold last Fall if one was paying attention.
The Democrats are going to be desparate to undo Donald Trump’s Conservative swing of the Supreme Court. Hence their plans to Pack the Supreme Court with 4 more Liberal justices when the day comes they control Congress and the WH again. They won’t tlak much about Court Packing now, as polling shows its unpopular. But everything they want to do depends on a Supreme Court that will allow them to gut key tenets of separation of powers and States Rights. And havig a complicit media in that regard will be essential when that day comes.
What we must do between now and when that day comes when they attempt to Pack the Court is educate the American public to what is happening. We must keep throwing wrenches into the Left’s propaganda campaign of gas lighting the American public on Climate Change and dishonesty on severe weather events. And the Democrat’s at all levels must be forced to answer the question of where they stand on Supreme Court Packing, to put them on record now so voters can see how power hungry they are.
So that must be the reason you climate alarmists changed your terminology from “global warming” to “global climate change”, because you were losing the PR battle since most people, even non-scientifically educated persons understand that the climate has always changed, that it gets warmer, then gets cooler, then gets warmer, etc. etc. etc.
The fact is that climate skeptics do NOT accept the premise that all climate change experienced today is caused by human sources. If you want to call that denial, then you are indeed practicing propaganda, since to “deny” something is to pretend that it is not true or does not exist as fact, presupposing you alarmists are correct and we skeptics are acting solely in bad faith to deny the undeniable.
You cannot bring yourselves to admit that you are practicing propaganda, and conducting a political argument, rather than simply debating matters of scientific probity.
Therefore you alarmists are all liars, by definition. We skeptics are truthful, because we admit that we, and nobody else, do not know how earth’s climate system functions, and the relative contributions of all the factors that cause climate to change both naturally and due to human actions.
We are truth-tellers, and you are all liars.
Well, I think the following counts as “science.”
If my anti-GHE theory is incorrect ‘splain w/ science why so and how.
If my anti-GHE theory is correct contemplate the consequences.
“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert.”
– J Robert Oppenheimer.
By reflecting away 30% of the incoming solar energy the atmosphere/albedo make the earth cooler than it would be without the atmosphere much like that reflective panel behind a car’s windshield.
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6503085690262216704
Greenhouse theory has it wrong.
The non-radiative processes of a contiguous participating media, i.e. atmospheric molecules, render ideal black body LWIR from the surface impossible. The 396 W/m^2 upwelling from the surface is a “what if” theoretical calculation without physical reality. (And, no, it is not measured!) (TFK_bams09)
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6507990128915464192
https://principia-scientific.org/debunking-the-greenhouse-gas-theory-with-a-boiling-water-pot/
Greenhouse theory has it wrong.
Without the 396 W/m^2 upwelling there is no 333 W/m^2 GHG energy up/down/”back” loop to “warm” the earth. (TFK_bams09)
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6457980707988922368
Greenhouse theory has it wrong.
These three points are what matter, all the rest is irrelevant noise.
No greenhouse effect, no CO2 global warming and climate changes are neither caused nor cured by man.
Nick Schroeder, BSME CU ’78, CO PE 22774
Here we have another article that clearly demonstrates the illegitimacy of the climate crisis narrative. The article is rational, well documented, clear, mature and completely persuasive to a sane mind. Yet, there have been countless articles just like this over the years, and they have been largely ignored and ineffective. It reminds me of the following, classic movie scene. (Hint: Chris Martz and Daniel Lai are wearing the Roman Collar.)
Every critic of CAGW should understand the definition of a promotion. This one is from the old and highly speculative Vancouver Stock Exchange. It is valid in many circumstances, particularly now:
“In the beginning, the promoter has the vision and the public has the money.
At the end of the promotion, the public has the vision and the promoter has the money.”
And on climate hysteria, the money is up to the trillions of dollars.
“media outlets and our electedv officials misrepresent various social, economic, and/or environmental issues in order to boost their ratings” Media ratings have tanked like never before, so that’s clearly not a motive.
There are a lot more disturbing things going on here than just simple, random bias.
The underlying causes of bias are disturbing:
1) bias for hire at media outlets
2) systematic and serial lying for monetary or power gain
3) group think without thinking of fact checking
and
4) assuming science and science education won’t be harmed in the process
And the postscript of AOC saying it was just a joke shows the callousness of the group think.
CAGW and attributing climate entirely to CO2 levels reminds me of another H.L. Mencken quote “For every complex human problem, there is a solution that is simple, attractive, and wrong”.
Make that “Three MORE Examples”.
If it’s bad, it’s caused by CO2.
If it’s good, it happened despite CO2.
If nothing changed, that’s also caused by CO2.