James D. Agresti
Contrary to NBC Nightly News, there is no scientific basis for the claim that climate change is causing shark attacks.
SOURCES:
In a July 2022 episode of NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt, Kerry Sanders reported on “the concern” that “climate change means warmer waters, which brings sharks closer to shore.” https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/17-year-old-attacked-by-shark-after-sharks-were-spotted-near-the-shore-days-before/ar-AAZ5V9l
A 2019 paper in the journal PLoS One measured shark attacks per million people in the nations with the most shark attacks and found that “the majority of countries saw no perceptible trend or change” since 1960. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0211049
With regard to the few countries with more shark attacks, a 2011 paper in the journal Marine and Freshwater Research found that the rise in Australia is due to people spending more time in the ocean and “there is no evidence of increasing shark numbers that would influence the rise of attacks in Australian waters.” https://www.publish.csiro.au/mf/Fulltext/MF10181
Beyond shark attacks, journalists, activists, politicians, and educators have fabricated or exaggerated threats from climate change with matters like:
• animal extinctions: https://www.justfacts.com/globalwarming#assertions_extinctions
• deforestation: https://www.justfacts.com/globalwarming#assertions_forests
• flooding: https://www.justfactsdaily.com/the-nation-of-kiribati-is-growing-not-sinking
• agricultural decline: https://www.justfacts.com/globalwarming#assertions-famine
• insect-borne diseases: https://www.justfactsdaily.com/ddt-ban-not-global-warming-outbreak-disease-carrying-insects
• rainfall: https://www.justfactsdaily.com/has-global-warming-made-rainstorms-more-intense
• sea ice: https://www.justfactsdaily.com/has-global-warming-turned-the-north-pole-into-a-lake
Climatologist Stephen Schneider was a founding member of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Stephen-Henry-Schneider
In 1989, Schneider told Discover magazine that in order to “reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climate change,” “we have to get some broad-based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have.” He also said, “Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.” https://www.justfacts.com/document/global_warming_stephen_schneider_discover_magazine_october_1989.pdf
NBC News footage reproduced under the “fair use” provision of U.S. copyright law for “purposes such as criticism” and “comment” (17 U.S.C. §107). https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/107
This video can be found in our video library
Choose Speaker: James D. Agresti, Organization: Just Facts News
The dumb is highly contagious…
Shark attacks and now the recent nine inches of rain in St. Louis. From Bob Henson at Yale Climate Connections on this event. “Some weather events are more clearly related to climate change than others. This one certainly qualifies, as the latest example of a trend toward more intense short-term rain events. We don’t invoke climate change for some other types of weather events–say, an EF5 tornado–where there is no trend and no reason to expect one.
St Louis- 9″ rain- WHOOP-DE-DOO!
Holt, MO- WORLD RECORD 12″ in 42 min; MO state record- 18″ in 24 hrs.
Cilaos, Reunion Island holds the record of 75 inches in 24hrs.
It also has the worst shark attack record.
The statement about the cause being because of more people in the water falls flat there. False for sure.
There was virtually no one ever in the water during the 6 years, recently, where there were 21 attacks causing permanent mutilation or death, 11 of them fatal.
The cause was a ban put on the sale of shark meat, in 1999 and the introduction of a marine reserve in 2007, and the Green refusal to cull any of the infestation the reserve attracted to the island’s few swimming beaches and surf spots, which had been previously free from attack for decades while an average of 2-3 sharks were fished in the 20km area per day. The rest of the island’s 207km, lightly fished coast already had the world’s worst attack record of 33 attacks in 30 years. Once again, these occurred in an area where very few humans ever entered the water.
Once the marine reserve was installed in the previously safe area, nearly all the attacks occurred in the reserve.
Once they finally started a drumline program the horrifying deaths and mutilations ended.
The Greens were clearly responsible for all the deaths, mutilations, misery and the huge economic loss.
“There was virtually no one ever in the water during the 6 years, recently, where there were 21 attacks causing permanent mutilation or death, 11 of them fatal.”
I’ll bet there were at least 21 people in the water.
Briefly….
“Shark attacks and now the recent nine inches of rain in St. Louis. From Bob Henson at Yale Climate Connections on this event. “Some weather events are more clearly related to climate change than others.”
Says you.
Show how CO2 caused this downpour in St. Louis. You can’t do it, yet you claim the downpour is “clearly” related. You couldn’t prove it if your life depended on doing so.
With climate alarmists it is just one unsubstantiated dire prediction after another. Meanwhile, the global temperatures are cooling.
Climate Alarmists are a bunch of damn fools and/or liars.
I was just being the messenger here. Those guys at YCC are easily riled by any one having a different take on CAGW and won’t hesitate to tell you that the science is settled and the count down to disaster has begun. So naturally I post there occasionally to explode heads.
“I was just being the messenger here.”
I know. I wasn’t quoting you or criticizing you. 🙂
Bull sharks are not so rare in the lower Mississippi, farthest up is just north of St. Louis.
Thomerson, J. E., et al.,1977. The bull shark, Carcharhinus leucas, from the upper Mississippi River near Alton, Illinois. Copeia (1):166-168.
“Climate change means warmer waters which brings sharks closer to shore!” This speculative fantasy spoken with an exaggerated sense of doom on national television carries much more weight with the public than hundreds of solidly documented scientific studies consigned to dusty library shelves and the backwaters of the internet. Are we doomed? No. Does the public believe we are? Teenagers are committing suicide because they believe there will be no world for them to live in. A piece of advice that will go unheeded: BROADCAST RESPONSIBLY!
No Body Cares has jumped the shark again!
You forgot about shark attacks and heavy, heavy rainfall; this meteorological event is known as a “sharknado”
Sharknado – Wikipedia
Australia is now not allowing sharks to be killed. So shark numbers have substantially increased, and there are now more sharks competing for the same food in the oceans.
I’m not sure about more folks swimming in our oceans though. I would have expected less folks willing to become shark bait. I don’t see many folks swimming further out from our beaches these days.
The protection has made the most difference. The same thing is happening with Crocs since protection. Both Northern Territory and Queensland are reporting increased number of croc attacks.
No! Its more sharks, more weather more climate change.
Humans have nothing to do with this!
Most folks who learned how to swim can’t swim further than about 50 yards … they never practiced much beyond a pool length.
1979 I had an epiphany. I was living in the San Diego area and went swimming at Torrey Pines. I swam out so far that I could just see the tops of the pine trees on top of the cliffs.
I stopped for a minute, treading water deciding if I should swim back in or parallel the shore at the maximum distance I could keep it in sight.
Then I felt a bump on my lower leg. Concerned and looking around me down in the water I saw dolphins all around me.
One way or another I got the message from them that I needed to swim for shore. They escorted me all the way back in until I could stand. I wasted no time getting out of the water.
Dolphins are known for helping humans.
https:/www.dolphin-way.com/dolphins-the-facts/dolphins-helping-humans/
Great white shark attacks in Australia are increasing because of booming numbers of whales, a prime food source and probably connected to their mating.
Evidence at http://www.washarkattacks.net
Interesting info Chris. Thanks.
Once when I used to fish off Long Island some years ago a dead whale was washed up on one of the beaches which attracted numerous sharks to feed on it. As a safety precaution the carcass was towed off shore, for several weeks afterwards sport fishing boats used to fish for sharks around the floating carcass, the returning boats used to radio the last location to the boats leaving harbor. A major factor in the shark population around New England is the recent rapid growth in the seal population, a prime food source for sharks.
I think you’ll find it’s more surf board riders than swimmers being attacked by sharks now.
I don’t think that’s because surfboard riders are tastier than swimmers, but they are offering themselves up on what sharks might think as charcuterie boards.
Shark Fin soup is now illegal in many places in the world. Everyone knows that when humans stop hunting and eating other species that their numbers increase.
Is there anything that global warming cannot do?
Seems incapable of installing common sense in a greentard.
I never had ingrown toenails before CO2 passed the 400 ppm mark. QED
Apparently, it can’t stop Joe Biden’s Recession
Didn’t someone do an analysis of shark attacks and the sale of ice-cream. When ice-cream sales increased, shark attacks also increased.
It’s the same as linking CO2 to increasing temperatures.
Reminds of a tale told to me by an auditor for Hobart’s Metropolitan Transport Trust (local bus operator)
They did a review (in the 70’s) of bus ticket sales and found there were more trips taken on hot sunny days, than on cold rainy days – the exact opposite of what was expected.
Soda also appears to be dangerous. In 2011, an economics professor and a health policy researcher went public with this as their research result. Among adolescents, they found, “a strong association between soft drinks and violence…” And they also wrote, “… drinking more than five cans of non-diet soft drinks per week was associated with a 9–15 percentage point increase in the probability of engaging in violent actions… There may be a direct cause-and-effect relationship, perhaps due to the sugar or caffeine content of soft drinks.”
Or maybe it’s increased pissing that causes violent actions because there is definitely a direct cause and effect relationship between drinking more and pissing more too.
According to the data, ice cream consumption is linked to shark attacks. The more accepted sharksplanation is that it’s seasonal. It just so happens that, when it’s warmer, more people are eating ice cream and also more people are swimming in the ocean.
There is more shark attacks in Australia because the big sharks are now largely protected. During the 50′-70’s the large sharks were actively targeted by a very active recreational fishing community with personalities like Vic Hislop
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vic_Hislop
It was rare by late 1980’s to even see a large shark around Australia which lead to the protection.
” There is more shark attacks in Australia because the big sharks are now largely protected. ”
If we trust the news, they already have taken over the government…
Not all sharks live in the ocean.
I beg to differ – shark attacks have, quite obviously, increased exponentially since the release of the ‘Jaws’ franchise – these films have single-handedly caused the increase in shark attacks. sarc
I believe you peddle the wrong board! 🙂
If the film industry is causing shark attacks, and sharks are causing climate change, then the film industry is essentially the culprit of all their own sorrows.
That gives me a head ache!
10 or even 20 years ago the foxes in my area were a pretty sad and mangy bunch. Fast forward to today and I’ve never seen a healthier bunch with excellents coats and they ain’t skinny either.
Some might say they’ve done what animals always have done; gone for an opportunity.
But it has to be down to climate change simply because just about everything else is.
Schneider was an ice ageist first.
Its all the trendy urbanites keeping chickens 🙂
” scientific basis for the claim that climate change is causing shark attacks ”
Yes, true!
Just figure WHO the sharks are.
Numbers of shark attacks are tied to numbers of people swimming, surfing, paddle boarding.
It’s “Shark Week” on U.S. television this week.
I’ve been enjoying watching these giant Great White Sharks swimming around. About the biggest one I’ve seen so far is about 20 feet long. I saw a couple of what are claimed to be brother Great White Sharks that travel and hunt together.
I also saw some shark cages with serious design flaws, where they allow enough space in the grillwork for a shark to stick his head all the way inside the shark cage. One Great White got nearly his whole body inside a shark cage, while divers were in there, too. Not good.
I think they need to put a few more bars on those cages in strategic places. 🙂
i remember a number of years ago, the Comedy Channel advertised “Shart Week”. It would probably be a lot funnier than Shark Week.
Ugh. No thanks – the only way I’d ever get inside a shark cage is if they welded continuous steel plate over the bars. I am not, nor will I ever be, a shark fan.
NBC is part of the Administration and a key branch of the Party. That includes a steady flow of personnel between the orgs.
And yet great white sharks are provably extending their range northward in N hemisphere…
You’re going to need a bigger denial article
You need a new script, Griffy, this one is getting decidedly thin and decrepit. Great White Sharks have a wide range, which includes areas as far north as San Francisco bay and the Mediterranean – these have been identified and known about for a very long time and these have not changed recently. The so-called ‘unprecedented’ sightings in Monterey Bay are no such thing – Great Whites have been spotted in San Francisco bay and around Monterey before climate change was ever a thing. As for the bogus report of a supposed juvenile Great White in UK waters, there was very little of it seen and there was so much conjecture and conditional statements made that it could have been an albino squid as much as anything else, frankly! This ones another no hoper Griffy.
Not a problem; just introduce some orcas and the great whites will leave the area immediately.
And your evidence is…….?
Meanwhile they been NORTH of the Aleutian Islands of Alaska.
Animals Network
Habitat of the Great White Shark
Great white sharks live in oceans between 54º and 75º F, and can be found in most oceans with these conditions worldwide. Their habitat is dictated less by their preferences, and more by the preferences of their prey. Great whites are found in higher numbers in areas that have rich prey options.
LINK
Since we had studied this three decades ago when there was a cluster of attacks at Port Aransas, TX, near Corpus Christi, I posted some on the last polar bear link, suggesting that one problem might be that we are treating sharks ‘tenderly’ such as with catch (not so tender) and release. The 2019 paper did not cite the older studies including Copplesen, Baldridge, Springer, Schultz, etc., none of whom used statistics back in the days when such data was known to unreliable but they had lots of iterations for each model. There are several reasonable hypotheses, for years attacks were just considered “accidents.” They admitted “bias in the data, forced to use human population as a surrogate human unit effort” and considered surfing “provocative.” Eastern US and Australia increased, some of this had to do with better reporting along with increased water populations of both humans and sharks.
One of the old ideas is that it occurred when they were “petulant,” defined either as an attack or rude behavior, take your pick. There are lots of studies on foraging behavior in all sorts of other animals even a few on sharks. Still one of the best analyses is P. W. Gilbert. 1963 Sharks and Survival. D. C. Heath and Co. Boston. Safer to study numbers in a chair than in the water. I might have missed it but didn’t see climate change in the paper, but it probably should have as it is long known to influence populations.
In 1989, [Stephen] Schneider told Discover magazine that in order to “reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climate change,” “we have to get some broad-based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So, we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have.” He also said, “Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.”
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Is this the same Stephen Schneider who wrote a paper back in 1971 which said the following?
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.173.3992.138
” It is found that, although the addition of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does increase the surface temperature, the rate of temperature increase diminishes with increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. For aerosols, however, the net effect of increase in density is to reduce the surface temperature of Earth. Because of the exponential dependence of the backscattering, the rate of temperature decrease is augmented with increasing aerosol content. An increase by only a factor of 4 in global aerosol background concentration may be sufficient to reduce the surface temperature by as much as 3.5°K. If sustained over a period of several years, such a temperature decrease over the whole globe is believed to be sufficient to trigger an ice age.”
*********
Or was that a different Stephen Schneider?
No, that’s the same guy. He started out promoting human-caused global cooling when the temperatures were cooling during the 1970’s, and then when the temperatures started warming up in the 1980’s, he switched over to human-caused global warming (now climate change).
Yes, he did a 180. And never missed a beat.
I guess NBC also didn’t bother to note the fact that great whites prefer cooler waters. So, therefore, if the ocean really is warming, that would drive at least that one species AWAY from shore and further north! Also, with great whites being a protected species in many countries, their numbers have rebounded (not unlike polar bear numbers once most hunting was curtailed). More sharks – more people in the water = more attacks.
Climate change happens in the atmosphere. The sun heats the oceans. It’s easy to cool the oceans to prevent shark attacks, just release Sulfur Dioxide into the atmosphere.
Add it to the list if it’s not already a repeat- warmlist (numberwatch.co.uk)