Hurricane misinformation is coming at a dangerous time

Los Angeles Times ^ | 10/23/2024 3 AM PT | Andra Garner

[E. Pluribus Unum]

With about six weeks remaining in this year’s Atlantic hurricane season, we’ve already experienced multiple historic storms, vividly illustrating that as humans have warmed the planet, we have also made it more dangerous.

Beryl became a Category 5 hurricane in July, the earliest in the calendar year that any Atlantic hurricane on record has reached that magnitude; Helene yielded catastrophic flooding and damage from Florida to western North Carolina; Kirk traversed the Atlantic to bring damaging rain and winds to France; Milton — one of the fastest-intensifying storms on record — caused damage across Florida; and Oscar surprised forecasters this weekend by quickly becoming a hurricane and dumping flooding rains in the Caribbean. The 2024 Atlantic hurricane season has made it abundantly clear that the consequences of climate change are here.

This hurricane season has also amplified another disturbing trend: misinformation about catastrophic weather extremes. For example, social media users have falsely claimed that Hurricanes Helene and Milton were created or steered by human technology. Such lies generate mistrust and anger, which are too often directed at meteorologists who work to save lives by providing accurate scientific forecasts warning those in harm’s way to evacuate.

Technology capable of creating or steering hurricanes does not exist outside of science fiction, or perhaps the lairs of cartoon villains. Humans shape extreme weather in another way: When we burn fossil fuels such as oil and gas, we release heat-trapping greenhouse gases that act as a blanket abnormally warming our planet. Scientists know that this human-caused warming is the real reason hurricanes such as Helene and Milton have become more dangerous.

This is where we need to focus our conversation — on understanding how climate change is...

[Theophilus]

Andra Garner is threatening America at a dangerous time. If Angela will just remove herself from the climate, things may cool down

[umbagi]

I give her a point for flying the AGW flag in the first sentence, so we can get our waders on before the rest.

[Does so]

“Operation Popeye”...

[thepoodlebites]

This is where we need to focus our conversation — on understanding how climate change is...
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a nonexistent problem. Meanwhile, a covert government program “Hurricane Intensity Modification” caused catastrophic flooding in the mountains of North Carolina from Helene. They/Them can’t acknowledge the tampering because of liability issues.
Our government does not want to be held accountable for anything: the origin of SARS-CoV-2, lockdowns, mask/vaccine mandates, election interference, fraudulent mail-in ballots, EV mandates, law-fare against political opponents, open borders, endless wars, chronic diseases, open warfare on the Bill of Rights and the 2nd Amendment et al.

A good conspiracy is unprovable. I mean, if you can prove it, it means they screwed up somewhere along the line. Jerry Fletcher