By James Taylor
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (MJS) shamefully attempted to cash in on Hurricane Milton as the storm ravaged the Florida coast, spreading false assertions and misinformation to further its aggressive climate change agenda. Presenting a Master Class on deception and sensationalism, the MJS claimed, “the message sent by this year’s hurricane season” is “climate change is here, there are no havens, and it’s deadly and expensive.” If the MJS and author Caitlin Looby had bothered to do research, they’d learn there never was any “climate havens”.
“The science is straightforward and incontestable,” the MJS claimed. In this regard, the article is true. The science is straightforward and incontestable that hurricane events like Milton are becoming less frequent and severe, that warmer temperatures are saving lives, and that the MJS makes Pinocchio look like a legendary truth-teller.
Some facts regarding Hurricanes might help them,
- Tampa is undergoing its longest period in recorded history without a major hurricane strike. The last one occurred in 1921.
- Florida recently underwent a 10-year period without a hurricane strike of any size (ending in 2016), which is by far the longest such period in recorded history.
- From 2009 through 2017, the United States experienced fewer hurricane strikes than during any other time period in recorded history.
- The United States recently underwent a record 12 years without a major hurricane strike of Category 3 or higher (2005-2017).
- Globally, satellite measurements show hurricane frequency has been in decline for the past 35 years, continuing a trend that goes back more than 100 years.
“The message” of Hurricane Milton is that while global warming/climate change is causing a remarkable decrease in hurricane activity, climate change isn’t making all hurricanes disappear. Taking advantage of the fact that a relatively few hurricanes still occur, charlatans like the MJS will peddle misinformation that climate change causes all hurricanes and makes them worse.
Attempting to personalize its climate change alarmism to Wisconsinites, the MJS cited recent wildfires in Canada and the American West, claiming drifting smoke from the distant wildfires killed people in Wisconsin and that climate change caused those wildfires. There is no scientific evidence for this claim and it seems on its face, extremely unlikely that smoke from distant wildfires killed or even sickened anyone in Wisconsin. However, assuming for the sake of argument that people in Wisconsin die from wildfires that occur in far distant places, the science is straightforward and incontestable that wildfires are becoming less frequent and severe as the planet modestly warms. In 1998 NASA satellites began precisely measuring the amount of lands burned by wildfires. According to NASA, the amount of land burned by wildfires declined by 24 percent since 1998. Peer-reviewed studies show the trend has been declining for more than a century. If wildfires burning thousands of miles away – or anywhere else – are truly killing Wisconsinites, we have climate change to thank for saving countless lives as wildfires become less frequent and severe.
Hillary Clinton made news this week by calling on Big Tech to censor and suppress online misinformation. Perhaps Big Tech will be inspired by this call to action and respond by censoring and suppressing the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Don’t count on it. In the meantime, we can all learn the truth about climate change here at Climate at a Glance for Teachers and Students.
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“Attempting to personalize its climate change alarmism to Wisconsinites, the MJS cited recent wildfires in Canada and the American West, claiming drifting smoke from the distant wildfires killed people in Wisconsin and that climate change caused those wildfires.”
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The worst fire to actually hit Wisconsin was the Great Peshtigo Fire of 1871. It was believed to have killed somewhere between 1,500 and 2,500 people and burned more than 1.2 million acres. It was a human-caused fire from farmers using slash-and-burn techniques to clear land, and the fires got out of control because of dry conditions and high winds. It was in the NE part of the state around Green Bay and has largely been forgotten because it happened on the same day as the Great Chicago Fire.
Of course, MJS probably didn’t mention the Peshtigo Fire (I haven’t read piece) because doing so does not serve the climate alarmist narrative as it is supposed to relate to the wildfires.
I’ve always thought of the MJS as an unbiased middle-of-the-road publication, but now I’m not so sure anymore. Yet another media outlet gets caught up in the alarmism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peshtigo_fire
Activist/”Journalists” are spreading this on thick.
Covering Climate Now
Global warming is causing an increase in alarmist reporters. Their reports are becoming more frequent and of greater intensity. And it’s worse than we thought.
CCN….a managed repository of clickbait article themes, for journos who need a quick paycheck, funded by philanthropists who are sponsoring propaganda. Someday will be a case study in journalism classes about how easily the media can amplify a minor noise topic up to 11….
Truly using the media for activism rather than reporting….
No, MJS and its spawn are among the worst.
Global warming / climate change is physically incapable of CAUSING a fire. A fire requires a source of ignition at a temperature approximately 4x higher than any maximum daily ambient temperature.
Love that comment!
They’re called alarmists for a reason. It’s because calling them Chicken Littles demeans animals and would hurt their feelings.
How has this alleged cause been determined?
How is the frequency not a simple result of weather?
More CO2 works to stabilize the temperature/lapse rate. The effect is due to increased IR emission/absorption within the atmosphere from higher concentrations. The atmosphere is always being changed from convection, clouds and winds. This drives weather which sometimes gets severe. CO2 works against these effects and tries to create equilibrium based on temperature/density, aka the ideal gas law.
Admittedly, the changes are small, but it could be showing up in the data over a long enough period.
A quick google of the author Caitlin Looby come up with some interesting points.
She has a Phd in soil science/climate whatever that is and a SciCom enthusiast. Upon reading the
article it’s obvious she’s a radical climate change enviro radical and a product of
the public education system. I know and have worked with a number of soil science,
agronomy and range science Phd’s over the years. The fact she’s not in the field but
has focused on journalism say a lot to me. She need to get a link to this piece
and give us her reaction to the facts presented..
To paraphrase: “They don’t make PhD’s like they used to!”
Here is a report from someone in Asheville, North Carolina about the post-Helen situation (from a hobbyist Groups.io discussion). Note his comments about FEMA – so much for the propaganda:
Hurricane Helene situation in NC
It’s been 16 days since Helene slammed this area and dumped 14″ of rain after we received 9″ from a low pressure cell just 2 days before. Between the 2 storms, the Asheville area received in 1.5 days the amount of rain we’d normally get over 113 days straight! We are still without power, water, and wifi in most of the eastern and NE sides of Buncombe county. About 52,000 customers, which could be 4-6x that number for actual people, are still without power according to Duke yesterday. Some of those may not get power until December due to remote locations.
We are OK physically … no house damage or injury. God has blessed us with protection and a fantastic coming-together of neighbors we previously didn’t know or just waved to when we passed in cars. We have plenty of drinking water and food, but are still taking toilet flushing water from a nearby creek. We visit our son in law’s house in west Asheville 2-3x a week just to access wifi and see a little TV but they also have no water. We are visiting friends every 7-10 days just to get a shower and wash clothes. A curfew remains in effect but has shortened from dusk-to-dawn to just 11-6am. There are MANY places where driving around cut trees, broken power poles, and powers lines on the roads is expected. Several roads we once used are closed indefinitely due to pavement being gone and rerouted rivers cutting a new channel that isolated a 5-lane bridge. I-40 to Tennessee is closed until next year. I-26 west/north was closed at the TN/NC line due to severe damage in Erwin and Unicoi but I’ve not heard how those repairs are progressing.
The power lines are gradually being rebuilt but even with an estimated 24,000 lineman in the area, coming from all over the US and Canada, it just takes time to rebuild. No one can fathom what this is like if you’re not living here. Don’t believe the garbage you read on various media outlets. FEMA has been on the ground since Day 3 and done a phenominal job getting folks registered and relief funds coming in. Entire towns have washed away with at least 82 dead, mostly from drowning, reported by the Sherriff about 5 days ago and that number will surely increase. The emergency manager for Chimney Rock/Bat Cave area (near Lake Lure) requested 300 body bags a few days after the storm. About 90% of the work now is recovery following about 10 days of search and rescue.
Restoration of the city/county water system, which feeds 80% of the area, is FEMA’s #1 nationwide project. It was completely destroyed; boulders are being found in the 36″ diameter pipes! The Swannanoa River, located at the base of the dam that feeds the water system, rose 10 feet in 1 hour. It’s normal flow height is 1.5 ft … at crest it was 24.5 ft … and inundated towns in an unprecedented way, compounded by it happening at night along with at least 7 tornadoes reported in our area, including 1 that swept thru our next door neighbor’s yard and toppled an 80 ft tall pine tree about 40′ off the ground plus 3 other trees across the street … all at the “classic” height indicating a twister and not straight line winds. 16 houses at the bottom of our subdivision next to the river were swept away. 1 person was last seen riding his roof down the river but, unfortunately, didn’t survive.
My industrial customers are back on line and, with the aid of a battery backup, I can run the compressor on a limited basis to produce castings but on a much-drawn-out schedule and only during daylight hours. … I can get back to CAD work and printing parts then.
Since I don’t have power or wifi and must go elsewhere to access both, please don’t email or text me as I have other issues to deal with while the recovery process is underway. Phone battery life is a prime concern and recharging is not always available when desired so only family and messages re: storm recovery are being read and replied to regularly. Rest assured that none of the projects or my company will cease to exist because of the storm. Do understand that this is now a “mental exercise” since our physical needs have been met. [My company] will resume full operations as soon as the infrastructure in our area is restored.
I didn’t like camping before all this … I absolutely hate it now!
FEMA propaganda indeed. I swear they said they ran out of money.
FEMA got a chunk of money originally approved for Home Land Security to spend on Illegal Aliens. Made FEMA’s budget look big.
But was the cash for an actual “Emergency” increased?
To say “Yes” would require that the border is the actual “Emergency” that it is, even after they claimed Branon/Harris border is secure.
To leave the cash with HLS admits that the open border is a security issue.
Seems to me like they’ve painted themselves into one-to-many corners, excuse wise.
They should have just left Trump’s polices in place and built “The Wall”.
If a hurricane knocked part of it down, let FEMA funds rebuild it.
“there never was any “climate havens”.”
Or grammar havens.
Just another reminder that the mainstream media will pounce on any weather event and claim it’s proof of climate change brought on of course by excessive fossil fuel use. Then they’ll offer some simplistic solution that the only way to reverse the trend is to adopt more renewable energy sources. The fact that these have consistently proved unable to make up the shortfall is conveniently ignored.
The mainstream media must stop lying. We need to hold these liars accountable. It is NOT okay to lie.
A “Looby Booby” no less!
Story Tip… Bill Gates own any ?