The New COVID-19

The majority of citizens get their science and political news (the two topics used to be entirely distinct, but now, unfortunately, they cannot be separated) from headlines. Most people do not have the background to grind through scientific papers, they do not have the inclination to examine models or statistics to determine their import or veracity, and they do not have the mindset to think critically. Instead they gobble up a biased and inaccurate media narrative that is designed to misinform, frighten, and mislead—all in a successful effort to allow authoritarian leaders to pass regulations and laws that increase their political power and do NOTHING to make the public safer or more secure. 

More important than any of this, it appears that the public does not have a long memory. People want to trust "leaders" and government agencies who have been proven to lie to them. They want to forget the damage that authoritarian policies have done to their livelihoods, their community, their health, and their children.

As the debacle that was Covid fear mongering, bad policy and societal damage fades, a new debacle is gaining momentum. The propaganda media has decided that weather is the harbinger of Armageddon and has pushed the climate change narrative that an "historically hot summer" is the fashionable 'we're all gonna die' scare of mid-2023. In essense:

Climate change has become the new COVID-19

with all of the bad decisions, authoritarian dictates, and fear mongering that are implied by that statement. Far too many of us want to believe, and a reconstituted Team Apocalypse uses that simple fact to manipulate us with a Tsunami of FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) that convinces the public to agree to insane policies (e.g., here) without asking questions. After all, who wants to be a "denier?" Who wants to be labeled a "conspiracy theorist?" Who wants to be shadow banned or censored or criticized by the elites who never, ever have to live within the policies that are forced on the rest of us.

So we have demagogues like Bernie Sanders writing:

The last eight years have been the eight hottest on record. This year is on track to be the hottest year in recorded history, and this Fourth of July might have been the hottest day in the past 125,000 years.

Climate change is ravaging the planet. We are now seeing floods, droughts, extreme weather disturbances and wild fires causing unprecedented damage. If there is not bold, immediate and united action by governments throughout the world, the quality of life that we are leaving our kids and future generations is very much in question.

In the short term, we will be looking at more melting of the Arctic ice caps, rising sea levels and increased flooding. We will experience more drought and a decrease in food production. We will see major damage caused by intense storms, tornadoes and other extreme weather disturbances. We will see a decline in economic activity and the migration of millions of people as a result of water shortages. We will see a major disruption in all forms of marine life as a result of warming sea water and the acidification of the oceans.

Like far too many leftists, Bernie lives in a fantasy world in which accurate "average world-wide temps" can be easily assessed over a 125,000 year period. That, of course, is nonsense. In the real world, the 125,000-year claim has been thoroughly debunked to the extent that even NOAA (a Biden administration agency) will not support it.

But forgetting the real world for a moment and entering catastrophist-world, you'd think we're all gonna die unless we adopt Bernie's hard left and authoritarian dictates going forward. Bernie's warning would be scary if it wasn't for the irrefutable fact that similar warnings were made in 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010, all with due dates predicting catastrophic outcomes that typically were to occur 10 years after the warning. None of those predictions came to pass.

Sure, it's hot. It's summer in the northern hemisphere. Sure, there are periods where we have hot weather, drought, forest fires, heavy rainfall, tornadoes, hurricanes, and the like. But those periods of extreme weather (not climate—weather!) are followed by other periods where the weather moderates.

But the fact-free obsession with climate change continues. In a typically overwrought article in the progressive The New Yorker, Jia Tolentino writes:

It may be impossible to seriously consider the reality of climate change for longer than ninety seconds without feeling depressed, angry, guilty, grief-stricken, or simply insane.

Maybe it's because they're "depressed, angry, guilty, grief-stricken, or simply insane" that climate activists like Bernie, Al Gore, Greta, and John Kerry cannot tell us the quantitative contribution of CO2 or human endeavor have on either weather or climate. But they tell do us 'we're all gonna die' unless we act now! 

But the real question is why the coordinated effort among virtually all of the propaganda media to frighten people. Why the "1000 year records" nonsense? Why the ubiquitous temperature maps in blood red? [recall the ubiquitous Covid death scoreboards of a few years past] Why the breathless warnings by the usual suspects? It's as if this is battlefield prep (a.k.a. PSYOPS), but for what forthcoming battle? Jordan Peterson encapsulates the hysteria well when he writes:

Then
at night
the climate monsters come
and devour
all the children

The same climate activists who see "monsters" in every dark corner, are blind to the reality that both weather and climate are multiparametic, i.e., they are affected by many parameters, and most of those parameters have significantly more impact on climate than CO2. They never seem to discuss the fact that any changes that are occurring in climate are slow moving, that humans adapt well, and that energy and mediation technologies are not static, but ever-changing. They never seem to talk about the reality that emerging nations need energy to grow and prosper and that their dictates would hurt those nations in ways that may be irreparable. They never consider the economic impact of draconian climate policy on the middle class and the poor or on the mental health of children (and some adults) who are continually propagandized with catastrophist claims. Nah, they simply want control, and the power that control imparts.

If any of this sounds familiar, think back only three years. Team Apocalypse (note the date on this link) used the same strategy to invoke policies that have now been proven to be ineffective and worse, severely damaging. We should have learned that before we enact draconian measures, we first determine the harm they might cause. We didn't do that for Covid and apparently, Bernie, Al Gore, Greta, John Kerry and their supporters in the propaganda media want to do it all over again to "save the planet!!". 

They're not only wrong ... they're dangerous.

UPDATE:

Alex Berenson was one of the only journalists who recognized and reported the dishonesty, blatant misrepresentations, and dangers associated with blue state and federal government COVID policies — from the very beginning. For going against the prevailing catastrophist narrative, he was censored, vilified by the propaganda media, and otherwise shunned by all the best people. There was only one problem—he was right about everything — from the damage lockdowns and school closures did to the unnecessary risks associated with largely untested vaccines and mandates for age cohorts that were in no statistical danger from Covid in the first place.

It comes as no surprise, therefore, that Berenson sees the suspicious trending that is discussed in the body of this post. He writes:

Climate reporting in the elite media has become a series of endless, breathlessly reported firsts and 1-in-1,000 year events. The hottest June ever in Houston. The driest August in Tokyo. The wettest April in London. The biggest wildfire in Quebec.

Berenson goes on the explain why this type of narrative driven 'reporting' is nonsensical (read the whole thing). Here's an example:

Last night, a big thunderstorm hit New York’s Hudson Valley, where I live. (I wasn’t home ...

Yes, a thunderstorm in July in the Northeast. Shocker, I know.

This one was particularly slow-moving, though, and it dumped a lot of rain. Or, as the Daily News reported, “Storm in New York’s Hudson Valley kills one, brings 9 inches of rain: ‘1,000 year event.’

1000-year-event? Dear Lord Above, what have we done?

Okay, let’s look at the map.

That purple area is a huge rain dump.

But that’s not a map of the United States, or even New York, or even southern New York, or even the Hudson Valley.

That rain dump covered, wait for it, a handful of towns. For some reason a storm cell got hung up just over the Hudson River - maybe there’s a good meteorological explanation for why, maybe not. It drenched the area to the west and slightly to the east of the river with two months of rain in a few hours.

Whole lotta rain, for sure. Our house is in that blotch somewhere. I felt bad not to be home, until I got the update from my older daughter this morning: it rained, we lost power, the generator came on, the power came back on. Two of the three kids slept through it all. The end.

A 1-IN-1000 YEAR EVENT, I TELL YA!

Now for a little context to balance the steady diet of shrill climate hysteria that has been the mainstay of the NYT, WaPo, LAT, the alphabet networks and the rest of the propaganda media. Berenson provides the context that the propagandists refuse to address:

Weather-related deaths rose slightly from the 1970s through the 1980s. They have plunged 75 percent since, even though the [world] population has nearly doubled. Over the last decade, fewer than 50 people a day died from extreme weather - on a planet that now has 8,000,000,000 people [making your chances of dying about 0.0000000125% on any given day] ....

So the question is not if climate change is real. It is if climate change hysteria, driven largely by people so wealthy that they will continue to live exactly as they do now whatever happens to the global economy, threatens to undo the economic growth that has been the most important factor reducing deaths from extreme weather.

Or we could just keep looking for 1000-year-floods to scream over.

There's a reason for the screaming and it has NOTHING to do with "saving the planet."