Posted on 05/27/2013 8:43:18 AM PDT by Impala64ssa
Occasionally, we hear from people who believe that liberal media bias isn’t really that big of an issue because most people don’t really trust reporters to tell the truth. While public trust in the media is at an all-time low, that hardly means they lack the power to shape opinion.
A perfect case in point is the notion popularized by environmental alarmist Al Gore that the Earth is experiencing more severe weather events supposedly caused by “climate change.” Like his earlier debunked claims that global temperatures were increasing, this statement is also false. But many people are simply unaware of the facts.
That is understandable given that most people are not interested in keeping tallies of the number of hurricanes and tornadoes. Being uninformed about the facts, they are easily susceptible to having their opinion influenced by the media’s love of disaster coverage and also of extremists like Gore making false claims about severe weather phenomena.
One such person who appears to have been influenced in this way is Los Angeles Times reporter Stacey Lessca. Fortunately for her, yesterday she received some much-needed education during an interview with a scientist working for the National Severe Storms Laboratory. After discussing some of the particulars of the recent tornado that struck Moore, Oklahoma, Lessca shifted her questioning toward environmental orthodoxy (to watch, fast-forward to the 11:20 mark), asking research scientist Robin Tanamachi if there really were more tornadoes happening thanks to “climate change:”
“It seems like there’s been more severe weather, it seems, it just feels like hurricanes are getting worse. Hurricane Sandy ravaged the East Coast. This tornado now has killed 24 people in the town of Moore. Do you think that more severe storms are becoming the norm, and do you think that they are directly related to climate change?”
Tanamachi answered that this was not the case whatsoever and that people who thought otherwise were likely being influenced by the media’s continual reporting on weather events:
Well the statistics don’t bear that assertion out. What we’re finding is that people’s perception is that severe weather has increased. That perception is largely based on media presentation and that an event like the Moore tornado is now broadcast worldwide within moments of its occurence. And so it can seem more local to people than it is.
But as far as the number of tornadoes, we haven’t been able to discern an increasing trend. As far as the number of hurricanes, we haven’t been able to discern a really solid increasing trend with that. So it’s just a matter of people being aware of those events when they occur and being aware of them almost immediately after they happen.
This is not the only issue where the media have influenced the public into believing something that is false. As Geoffrey Dickens noted earlier this month, a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center found that only 12 percent of Americans were aware that gun violence has decreased even though the drop has been quite significant. By contrast, a majority, 56 percent, believed incorrectly that gun violence had increased. This misperception was almost certainly created by the press which has been feverish in its coverage of mass shootings and in its advocacy for anti-gun laws.
Side note: The idea that human wickedness has some sort of effect on climate has long been a staple of some religious thought and it is yet another way in which modern environmentalism is actually similar to a religion. Both Al Gore and your garden-variety End Times lunatic believe that humans are being punished for their sins with more extreme weather events like hurricanes and tornadoes. It is sad reflection on modern society that the former is on his way to becoming a billionaire while only the latter is dismissed as a crank.
Hat tip: Gary Hall.
No, the internet isn’t causing more storms, it’s beause we landed men on the Moon. At least, that’s what my grandmother says.
“Do we really know how much Gorebull warming contributed to these crime stats?”
“Aren't student test scores effected by Gorebull warming?”
” Childhood obesity has direct ties to Gorebull warming, it's too hot for the kids to run and play.”
” Gorebull warming causes uneven tire wear on cars.” — (Don't offer to give any opinion on why, let the bastards ponder it for the rest of the day.)
That was on CNN a couple of weeks ago — I was about to post that myself.
In the aftermath of the Boston bombing, a lot of people on the right denounced it as a "failure" of the Obama administration.
Here's the problem.
I don't know if anybody else really remembers the days after 9/11. Most people, I believe, assumed we were in for a steady drumbeat of Islamist bombings, with hundreds if not thousands killed each year.
If somebody on 9/12 had stood up and proclaimed the total death toll on American soil of Islamist bombings in the next (almost) 12 years would be 3 (and that attack over a decade later) he would have been considered delusional.
I realize there have been various non-bombing attacks, as at Ft. Hood, but the total death toll is still far under 100 in over a decade.
American military and intelligence types have done a truly astonishing job in protecting us, when you consider that at minimum there are some tens of millions of Islamists who want to kill Americans, and that some of them have massive resources to throw at the problem.
You do know the Weather Channel is now owned by NBC? It’s just another part of their propaganda network.
Don’t know if you’ve seen this book, but I highly recommend it.
http://www.amazon.com/War-Before-Civilization-Peaceful-Savage/dp/0195119126
Anti-intellectualism, knee-jerk negativity and credulous swallowing of bogus conspiracy theories are not skepticism, do severe harm, and should be attacked whenever they present themselves.
Absolutely right.
I read that too:
http://www.hurricanescience.org/history/storms/pre1900s/1559/
I remember recently hearing a reporter babe, asking if a asteroid that flew particularly close to Earth was due to global warming...Not kidding.
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Hardly surprising, some people simply have no natural sense of how things work. I think some could study physics for ten years and still lack the basic understanding that others have simply by observing the world around them. I have listened to people draw some conclusions so absurd that I simply ignored them because I considered it pointless to try to educate someone that unknowing.
One example; this comes from more than one person but I have stood and watched the stream that borders on my property flood until it is a quarter mile wide rather than its normal forty feet or so and had people stand there beside me and say that it wouldn’t flood that way if the ditches were cleaned out! The ditches they referred to were under two or more feet of water as they were speaking! I mean the entire area of land in which the ditches had been dug was under at least two feet of water. They could not understand that ditches only carry water into the stream, somehow they thought the ditches could carry the water away and prevent the flooding. The same people would sometimes try to say that the same stream was flooded because the river it empties into was backing the water up to where I live. They apparently never notice that sometimes the river floods massively from upstream rains and the tributary I live on is unaffected. These people often seem to have the notion that THEY are the ones who know what is really happening and it is others who are confused.
“Sandy” ..devastating? yes. Hurricane? not when it reached the US.
It was in the 80s the first time I went to New Orleans. I recall walking with a native looking up at the levee and he commented that some day, a big storm would hit and the whole city would be underwater.
Any intelligent person there knew it was inevitable. It was just a question of when it would happen.
Same goes for the Northeast where Sandy hit. It was tragic, but not in anyway unexpected.
Thanks Impala64ssa.
Thanks
A good part of the problem with modern “journalism” is that it attracts a type of individual that’s so snot gobbling stupid that they’re only real skill is the rotating of thumbs from anus to mouth.
That, my friend, was the quote of the month! :’)
I’m glad no one tried to spin this article about torna- uh, never mind.
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