News Brief by Kip Hansen — 19 June 2024
Covering Climate Now [CCNow], the Columbia University-based climate propaganda outfit, which claims the ability to reach over 2 billion people worldwide with its ready-to-use, ready-to-share and content-directed climate alarm stories, is ramping up and issuing directives to climate journalists around the world.
Here are the main points that they insist that journalist around the world make in each and every story about Summer.
“Reporting Guidance: 2024’s Extreme Heat
Climate change is making extreme heat more frequent and more severe. Here are resources, sample copy, and tips to help you meet the moment.”
Now, I am a climate journalist myself and I admit that I am not entirely sure exactly what they mean by “tips to help you meet the moment”, nonetheless, I will share those tips with readers here. Why? So that when you see them repeated in your local newspapers, hear them on the radio, or watch some TV weatherman rattle them off, you’ll know the true source of the exaggerated statements and general misinformation.
Tip 1, quoting: “It’s already been a record hot year, and dangerous heat is forecast to continue in many countries around the world. Deadly heatwaves across Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and Mexico so far this year have been linked to climate change. And climate change has made the extreme heat expected across much of the US this week four times more likely.”
The cute “four times more likely” comes from another “independent” climate propaganda outfit, Climate Central: “Intense, persistent heat wave across Midwestern and Eastern U.S. influenced by climate change”.
“The Climate Blame Game: Are We Really Causing Extreme Weather?” by William M Briggs [Note 25, The Global Warming Policy Foundation, .pdf] exposes the statistical shenanigans used to produce such non-scientific pronouncements.
The go-along-to-get-along climate journalists must use the above because: “Now more than ever, journalists have to help audiences understand its climate connection: Climate change is making the planet hotter; climate change is caused mainly by burning oil, gas, and coal; therefore, temperatures will keep going up until oil, gas, and coal are phased out.”
That’s right, journalists, don’t let your readers think that it is hot because it is summer. That’s just so old-fashioned ….
Tip 2: Use the following:
“Connect extreme heat to climate change and fossil fuels. Adding a few words to your coverage is all it takes to make these connections. Here’s some sample language you can use:
Scientists agree that climate change drives extreme weather like today’s record-breaking high temperatures.
Heatwaves like this one are now more common and more intense as a result of human-caused climate change.
Climate change is mostly caused by burning fossil fuels such as oil, gas, and coal, which releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, warming Earth.”
Tip 3:
“Share safety information. People with disabilities, older adults, children, pregnant people, unhoused people, incarcerated people, and outdoor workers are some of the groups most vulnerable to extreme heat. When reporting on extreme heat, help audiences by sharing safety tips.”
And sharing safety tips for hot summer days is important but using them as part of a propaganda message with the intention of scaring people instead of informing people is a nasty business.
Tip 4:
Choose visuals carefully. While it may be tempting to make light of heat by using “fun in the sun” photos, such as people eating ice cream or crowded pools, it’s more accurate to use images that reflect the seriousness of the situation. Opt for photos that show people struggling with heat (like crowded cooling centers or workers struggling under heat conditions) or signage warning of high temperatures. You can see some examples here.
The helpful ‘examples’ link leads to this Getty Images collaboration page a collaboration collection helpfully provided by “Covering Climate Now, last edited 16 hours ago” [note: diligently kept up to date by some Junior Climate Warrior – kh] “Extreme heat is the most obvious consequence of climate change. Journalists have to help audiences understand its climate connection.“
Tip 5: Oh, and don’t forget to use the free data and images from the independent “climate scientists” at Climate Central:
“Use Climate Central’s reporting tools. The scientists at Climate Central have an attribution tool called Climate Shift Index that journalists around the world can use to help audiences understand how much more likely climate change is making extreme heat episodes. Enter your city to find out how much climate change is influencing temperature there on a particular day. For US reporters, see Climate Central’s 2024 Summer Package with customizable graphics (available in English and Spanish).”
I just know you are dying for that link, aren’t you? Here it is
Climate Central’s 2024 Summer Package
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Author’s Comment:
Don’t say I didn’t warn you. They will be pumping this junk out all summer – telling us that summers are hot.
We already know that. If you can tell the difference between a 90°F day and a 91°F day without a thermometer, or without a “climate journalist” to tell you that that “one more degree” is caused by driving your classic ’55 Chevy to the summer car show, you are a better person than I.
They are collaborating, they are conspiring — both in the open and behind closed doors — and they are will say anything they think the public will swallow.
Thanks for reading.
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The positive take is that Climate Alarmism has been overtaken by bad economic prospects and fears of war/ conflict.
I can hear people think: ‘just a wee bit busy to think about the climate atm’. I think CA has peaked. Not by judging feckless politicians and the msm but by for instance Europe where the Greens continue to get a hammering no matter how many green ‘laws’ are past by the EU. They seem to be tainted.
A bit harder to spot in binary US and UK ( even though the latter has seen some changes lately in the ‘form’ of the Reform Party gaining momentum).
“the Greens continue to get a hammering
no matterbecause of how many green ‘laws’ are passed by the EU”Hope you don’t mind the correction 🙂
Story tip:
Low-sulfur ship fuel-induced warm air temperatures:
https://apple.news/AWfaVGJqhRSSlCiGN-ntbvA
From 2020 to start of 2023, the atmosphere was cooling, especially in the NH where most of ocean traffic is.
Do they have any evidence that atmospheric SO2 levels fell over that period.
Yes “they” do. You can look it up on the web.
Then post it.!
https://www.epa.gov/air-trends/sulfur-dioxide-trends
So there was basically none over the USA in 2020 so why should there be any change of temperature from SO2 releases over the oceans since then?
Sorry, but you were talking about the change s in sulphur in ship bunker oil in 2020.. your data link is not helpful.
According to your graph, SO2 dropped from 79ppb in 2005 to 24ppb in 2015..
so to less than 1/3.
According to USCRN, what was the change in US temperature over that period ?
And from 1980.. 174ppb to 1998… 89ppb (essentially halving the SO2 concentration)
UAH USA48 shows no change in temperature.
You could have clicked on the link to the Nature paper in the article.:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01442-3
GISS and models…. Great !! /sarc
Fig 5.. where they say they get their “estimate” from… there are several periods with the same or steeper slope.
This is all very contrived.. !!
And I repeat. Atmospheric temperature decreased over the 2020-2023 period (until the El Nino)
Sorry Milo, not having a go at you…
… I’m just trying to find the scientific evidence behind the SO2 conjecture.
That paper is not it !
milo ==> i think that has been covered here at WUWT already … will check. Thanks.
What is missing is the shift to low sulfur diesel car fuels. That probably has a measureable effect on the total.
Also SO2 and NOx in aviation fuels.
Here is my list of relevant stories from a few months ago:
http://www.debunkingclimate.com/paidpress.html
AND:
AP Puts reporters for stories in local papers
https://joannenova.com.au/2023/05/media-giant-ap-news-sells-out-journalism-for-just-
8m-from-billionaires/
https://www.ap.org/press-releases/2022/ap-announces-sweeping-climate-journalism-
initiative
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/06/1619-project-new-york-times-
mistake-122248
https://freebeacon.com/media/associated-press-coverage-of-courts-climate-
bankrolled-by-dozens-of-left-wing-foundations/
https://freebeacon.com/media/inclusive-americas-history/
https://www.ap.org/press-releases/2022/ap-announces-sweeping-democracy-
journalism-initiative
https://apnews.com/article/voting-rights-act-supreme-court-black-voters-
6f840911e360c44fd2e4947cc743baa2
https://apnews.com/article/politics-us-republican-party-donald-trump-milwaukee-
wisconsin-d0e0c0e90c307ed6a5074ad2771b1835
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/global-health-security-site/
https://freebeacon.com/media/ap-quietly-reveals-donation-from-foreign-group-that-trains-journalists-as-climate-change-activists/
Here’s a good link for the above where AP officially makes “climate change” a cheap fake.
https://www.ap.org/media-center/press-releases/2022/ap-announces-sweeping-climate-journalism-initiative/
Wow, great list Jim.
Yes, they must squawk louder, and make even more crazy claims to try and retrieve the attention of all the people that may have believed it but just don’t care anymore.
The coordination of scare stories using predefined propaganda language is now de rigueur for all those communicating and informing the public of ‘events’.
It has even entered into normal political discourse.
I was at a husting last night in the run up to the UK election on July 4th. There a LibDem (had to be a Libdem) candidate stated the ongoing wet weather is expected due to Climate Change. Sadly it was not an interactive hustings so no barracking was allowed and straight lies were left unchallenged even by the other panel would be MPs.
My question submitted as requested prior to the event was not in the list of question.
My question was simply. ” Is Net Zero pointless, or is it simply the most expensive suicide note in history” didn’t get asked.
We were treated to endless questions about Gaza and arms to Israel, then justice for oppressed peoples across the globe? These being far more relevant questions to a rural constituency with energy affordability issues and one that lost its power station which was blown up by government order five years back.
So far we have had the hottest May on record which required the ongoing use of our central heating to cope with the unusual cold heat. That is followed by what will be declared the hottest June ever which so far has not seen any heat, with people still wearing winter clothing including me wearing gloves walking back from the hustings last night as it was so cold.
The weather reporter in my local newspaper has already started spewing (or is it “belching”) out this garbage. And if he does not have an article, the weather page often includes something from a clueless alarmist like Seth Borenstein.
Don’t sell Borenstein short. I think he is quite aware of what he is doing. Many, if not most, on the left seem to subscribe to the position that the end justifies any means.
Surely it’s winter in the southern hemisphere? These racists don’t think there is one
“Surely it’s winter in the southern hemisphere?”
Yes, and its darn COLD..
Coldest morning on record for parts of southeast Australia (weatherzone.com.au)
This article has been blocked by Facebook
aelfrith ==> SUCCESS!
The BBC news headlines today, China – floods and drought/heatwave at the same time, US age setting heatwave, California/New Mexico wild fires out of control earlier than usual, World Weather Attribution Group quotes that heatwaves are ‘n’ times more likely and ‘x’ degrees hotter because….
Meanwhile the BBC is, for once, forced to report the truth about the weather concerning conditions at Queen’s Club tennis Tournament in Barons Court, W14. Queen’s officials said the “exceptionally cooler and wetter weather” in the UK over recent months has been a key factor.
It’s funny how random weather is in spite of alleged CAGW. Perhaps the IPCC need to consult that guy in Baker Street who knows murder when he sees it. How many times has the BBC murdered the truth on the last couple of decades or so?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/articles/c844n749qp2o
Thanks, Kip. Good article.
“They are collaborating, they are conspiring — both in the open and behind closed doors — and they are will say anything they think the public will swallow.”
There you have it.
It’s interesting to compare the coverage of our local TV news (NBC affiliate) with last year.
last year they talked about how hot it was almost every night. Just a qualitative “it’s going to be a hot one.” sort of thing.
this year every night they are putting up a graphic comparing the temperature with the historic average. Through May and early June we were significantly below the average and now we’re right about average.
Last year was about the same, so the difference in coverage is noteworthy.
And a difference in humidity makes more difference to how it feels than a 1F difference in temperature.
Chillin in Colorado at 9C this morning.
Woke up to a hard frost up in the N Rockies this AM,
with ice in the rain bucket.
Yesterday it was fresh snow, I see a La Nina shift soon
I thought it was Summer over there. ? !
It’s summer east of the Rocky Mountains and cold west of them.
Kip: is there some way to easily get this ‘journalism in advance’ sent off to climate realists so they can write about it. I think it would be fun to have a contest having people spot the phrasing and imagery when it appears. Perhaps a trivial prize of some kind (mep of “Hide the Decline”) with accompanying publicity. “Spot the Climate change propaganda”
Gary ==> I think that all of “us” writing Climate realism are aware of the propaganda, where and who it comes from, and in many cases, who is funding it.
Lomborg should read here more but fails to do so, or he would quit using CRED/EmDAT data in inappropriate ways (even then, he manages to make his points).
I have covered CCNow and Inside Climate News many times, and no one with a brain is fooled by Climate Central.
This has been a rather ordinary spring in much of Texas, even a bit on the wet and cool side. Yet my “local” (part of a large media conglomerate, so not really local) newspaper yesterday reported feverishly that average temperature in our city has risen 4F (2.2C) since (drum roll please) 1970 (near the trough of the global cooling scare). The trusty reporter must have used the Climate Cabal talking points and clicked on the Climate Central site for local “data.”
I have lived all my 70 years in Texas and have seen far hotter and wetter weather. Heat and drought in the late 1950s in Texas were ones for the record books.
The current and visually misleading U.S. Drought Monitor map shows most of Texas and the U.S. not in drought (uncolored). The drought monitor makes no effort to show gradations on the wet side of average conditions.
By the way, EXTREME is the new climate propaganda term, and you now see it everywhere. In my meteorology degree program of the 1970s, the term was practically nonexistent. I choose not to use the word with regard to weather. It is tossed around without definition and without noting the cherry-picked baseline to which it is compared.
As a side note, I have a long time colleague and friend, a liberal attorney at my work, who recently said in a staff meeting the propaganda line, “You can see climate change by just looking out the window.”
Since the world has failed to warm up the way the models said it should have, the alarmists now have to convince people that perfectly normal weather is now “extreme”. Normal doesn’t cause the type of panic that they need.
I heard that same thought about climate and looking out the window from a 92 year old neighbor (who still logs and cuts his own wood). I told him the quote “The climate is what you expect and the weather is what you get” . He thought about it, repeated the phrase and then said “OK, that’s right.”
“Nation wide, when people hear the word drought it usually brings to mind visions of the Great Plains ‘dustbowl’ of the 1930s. However, as far as Texas is concerned the extended period of drought from 1950 through early 1957 was more severe than in the 1930s.”
From “One hundred years of Texas Weather” by J. F. Griffiths and G. A. Ainsworth. 1981. Monograph Series No.1. Office of the State Climatologist. There have been droughts since, but nothing like this and the normally dry southwest part which was not in drought just got a lot of rain.
crowded cooling centers
That wouldn’t be needed if it weren’t for the green insanity that’s limiting available electricity.
TonyG ==> Cooling centers are needed because of the failings of family structures — old folks left to fend for themselves with nobody checking in on them or inviting them to cooler air conditioned homes on hot summer days.
Single mothers struggling to make ends meet can’ afford to air condition even a single room in their tenement apartment.
This is nothing new. Hot Town,Summer in the City!
Kip,
Fair ’nuff on the first point (I can’t help but wonder WHY those structures are failing – but that’s another topic and will get rather political), but I think your second point goes to what I was saying. Pushing expensive “green” solutions raising costs for everyone instead of building known, efficient generation to reduce costs so that the single struggling mother CAN afford to.
Tony_G ==> Yes, the crazy attacks on our previously reliable, stable, abundant and affordable energy systems driving electricity prices ever skyward is one of the crimes being committed but the Climate Alarmists.
Someone needs to document the “green rot” at Columbia – who and when did it start? I noticed this when Jeffrey D. Sachs of Columbia wrote numerous articles for Scientific American magazine and others. That was about 15 years ago, plus or minus a few. After subscribing to SciAm for many years, I dropped out when the magazine went “green.” In 1986 the magazine was sold to a German firm. The joke became that SciAm is neither scientific nor American.
Hultquist ==> Yes, SciAm is a double-oxymoron.
That’s the secret behind climate propaganda.
Convincing the population that anything that is even slightly higher or lower than average, is “extreme”.
It often works with the innumerate, unfortunately.
I firmly believe that it doesn’t even matter if it’s true, because they have fully subscribed to:
Classic signs of climate cults in action, to be a member of these groups are to be mentally ill since their climate doom case doesn’t exist.
Let’s not forget who exactly it is running the CCN propaganda website. I detailed that in a WUWT guest post in Nov 2019:
“Mark Hertsgaard is Back. Again. ‘Covering Climate Now.’”
Just this year, I caught that guy in a bit of total disinformation about the obituary notice for the namesake of my GelbspanFiles blog, a false claim of his that dates back to 1997. Hertsgaard repeated that the late Ross Gelbspan was a “Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter.” The man never won a Pulitzer.
Russel ==> Yes, Hertsgaard and Kyle Pope.
Just about any concerned person can do this:
Seek out the official unadjusted daily temperatures for where you live.
Select T max, the highest recorded each day, and keep their daily dates alongside.
Select the length of heatwaves you want. Let’s do 3-DAY here.
No spreadsheet programming skill needed. For 3-DAY, repeat the Tmax twice more, side by side. Then move column 2 up one day, column 3 up two days. Gives 3 consecutive days on each column. Average each for a daily 3-DAY index.
Select the whole page including daily dates. Sort the index from highest to lowest, with dates following.
Remove all lines with duplicate dates, giving the highest 3-DAY happening in each year.
Graph the 3-DAY index against the year. Year can be selected chronologic, by choice, or from hottest to coldest over all dates.
Optional, fit line of best fit. Most people fit linear least squares and report goodness of fit and trend as degrees per decade.
Publicise your results. If the local Met Office says a certain trend is official and it is not the same as yours, show them the difference and ask them “Why is it so?”.
If you are wanting change to the official story, you have to do it with measurements and numbers. It is ever so easy to calculate on plain old Excel. Geoff S
Kip, I suspect that I (along with others) am being ‘shadow banned’ by MSN and Yahoo. Immediate censorship of comments seems less strict and arbitrary than a few months ago; however, when I go looking for comments responding to my comments, I frequently encounter a “page not available,” for comments that were initially accepted, and then subsequently deleted without notifying me. To add insult to injury, I recently had a comment with 35 follow up comments, mostly supportive, that had been deleted. I’m reminded of the famous line by Jack Nicholson, “You can’t handle the truth!” I suspect that the way that they are handling criticism of their propaganda is to accept most things so that the commenter goes away, and then, without notice, delete the comments that are most devastating to their propaganda. Additionally, many comments that I would have expected to receive comments have gone unchallenged by commenters recently. Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of the ‘man behind the curtain’ whom the MSM wants us to ignore. One thing is clear to me: The MSM doesn’t believe in supporting freedom of speech for those who disagree with them.
Clyde ==> One can only try — I suspect you are stating simple and true facts, which some idiot AI deems to be “misinformation” because it doesn’t match the falsehoods it has been trained on….
Indeed. I came to expect that the more factual my comments were, the more likely that they would be rejected.
I’m puzzled. I thought a statement was either true or false, that is, either it’s a fact, or it is not… So how…?
Red94ViperRT10 ==> Yes, that is a VERY cool car!
There are facts, there are counter-facts, there are opinions, there are alternative facts, and there are conclusions (made from the facts available to me at this moment).
Most statements are far to short and constrained to be “either true or false” — most statements are based on hundreds or more unstated assumptions of previous “facts”, understandings, etc etc etc.
If it were a binary world, we could believe in AI….which (the royal) we don’t.
I could have worded that better. What I meant was that of the verbiage I provided, including logic, opinion, and facts, a larger proportion of simple facts (assumed to be true) seemed to result in more refusals to publish the entire comment.
In mathematics, it is a convenience to assume a statement is either true or false. However, in the real world, sometimes a statement is nonsensical. Sometimes there is a probability of it being true. Indeed, one can often develop a matrix of false-positives and false-negatives to determine an error rate for each class. Sometimes, the veracity of a statement is indeterminable. Can you tell me whether the statement, “There is no God,” is true or false? Is it provable?
What evidence can these alarmists present that rising temperatures are causing global populations to decline when the UN itself has conceded that extreme cold is far more of a threat than heat? It’s worth noting that none of these rising temperature scenario stories ever mention the above fact.
Katz ==> “rising temperatures are causing global populations to decline” I have never seen that claim, where did you encounter it?
This is what the alarmists often imply, and they hardly stop at extreme temperatures. They use any weather/climate anomaly to claim they are the new normal that will have adverse effects on agriculture, food production, global health, personal safety—you name it, and in the end human populations as well as populations in general will decrease.
Katz ==> OK, I hear heard the wild delusional claims that “if Climate Change, humans populations will decline in the future sometime, maybe, etc”
But, so far, no one has claimed that current Climate Change has decreased human population….
Thanks for clarifying.
Now that summer is upon us, the alarmists can hardly wait to equate any above-normal temperatures, caused by excessive fossil fuel use, naturally, as a virtual guarantee of a rising number of fatalities due to extreme heat. Except it might pay these propagandists to consult a few studies on the matter of temperature extremes. Then they’d learn that a 2021 Lancet Planetary Health report found that extreme cold caused nine times as many deaths as extreme heat, and this conclusion was largely supported by similar research by the US Center for Disease Control. In addition, a Monash University study covering the period 2000-19 found 4.6 million perished from cold globally vs. 489,000 from heat. Naturally the CCC (Climate Catastrophe Crowd) carefully ignores or suppresses such information because it would undermine their panic-mongering.