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.
Well, someone needs to tell the “experts” at The Weather Channel this news. They blame climate change for everything but the short skirts their women wear.
When I was living in New Orleans in the early ‘80s, every hurricane season there was speculation about the killer storm. They couldn’t predict when it would happen, only that it would. 30 years later Katrina came.
Wasn't happy when one moved to Japan for a couple of years....Earthquake was served almost everyday with breakfast!!
Too bad my daughter didn't search hurricane weather when they booked their honeymoon on a Caribbean Island. And it was a big one.
We’ve had only half the normal number of tornadoes so far this year.
However, throughout this week there could be a number of significant tornado outbreaks, starting with today in KS/NE, so the gap below normal will probably shrink quite a bit before the month ends.
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.
I remember recently hearing a reporter babe, asking if a asteroid that flew particularly close to Earth was due to global warming...Not kidding
To be fair, the number of mass shootings has indeed increased, depending on where you set your starting point. And quite certainly the severity of the mass shootings has gone up.
Overall gun violence (and crime, including violent crime) is down, but that doesn't make the news.
It's like the massive coverage given airplane crashes producing the impression that airplanes are more dangerous than cars, when the opposite is very much the truth.
The media's focus on mass shootings is no doubt partly driven by anti-gun ideology, but it is fairly obviously driven even more by the news value and ratings possiblities of these stories.
Nobody tunes in to see a story about somebody not getting shot in Cleveland.
The other problem is that people have worked themselves into a blind seething rage of contempt at ALL scientists because of global warming; you can’t have a thread about a discovery at CERN or some astronomer discovering a new black hole without people posting the same anti-global warming rant they’ve posted a billion times before, and then going on to mock the scientists (in a COMPLETELY different field than climatology) that the original article was discussing.
Science is a pretty big field and pretty specialized, with very specific training that often isolates fairly unrelated fields.
And even within meteorology it’s hardly true there’s a universal GW agenda. Every time the yearly hurricane activity forecast comes out people fall all over themselves to attack it and its authors, and usually make the claim that they are basing their activity forecast on “global warming.”
Most operational (day-to-day or perhaps looking months ahead) mets I know cringe every time a specific weather disaster is linked to Global Warming. Bill Gray and his group that have long done hurricane season forecasts always include a section in their full forecast (that is rarely read) specifically stating that the increased hurrricane activity since 1995 has nothing to do with GW but is a decadal cycle).
And I saw the person that leads the NWS/NHC seasonal hurricane forecast in a presentation specifically shoot down a couple of young goths who were begging him to say Katrina was caused by global warming - I thought they were going to cry.
All weather results from glonal climate change. The climate is in a constant state of flux
You know who you are.
Part of the driver of this sort of thing is rampant “old fogeyism” - the idea that ALL things used to be better but everything is now steadily going to hell. It’s a sickness that Conservatives are particularly prone to.
The other thing that people have a false impression of is that the world is more peaceful now than it has ever been in human history - the chance of an average person dying violently has NEVER lower - be it murder or war.
The human population has grown exponentially into the multi-billions but war between states has become practically non-existent. You have some civil wars but the death rates are pretty low compared to history (20 million people died in the Chinese Taiping Rebellion, out of a much smaller population, in the 1850s-60s.
And terrorism just doesn’t kill many people. But it gets media coverage.
The perception that the world is sinking into widespread war is also fueled by the End Times Apocalpytikook frauds, shysters, and liars. They try to exploit the gullible by simply listing some wars or possible wars (without the context of how the world was MORE violent 100 years ago and 1000 years ago).
Weather Channel is owned by NBC....so they will always spew the Global Warming Hoax....unfortunately. Expect more nonsense from them
Part of the driver of this sort of thing is rampant “old fogeyism” - the idea that ALL things used to be better but everything is now steadily going to hell. It’s a sickness that Conservatives are particularly prone to.
[[Scientist Corrects Gullible Reporter: ‘Climate Change’ Not Causing More Tornadoes]]
He corrected her statement, but he didn’t correct the reporter- that reporter will simpyl say the samel ie over and over again- they have an agenda, and nothign is goign to stand i ntheir way- not even the truth- they will get them essage otu that if it’s hot out, it’s “Man-Caused cliamte change to blame”- if it’;s rainy out it’s “Man-Caused climate change to blame” If it’s cloudy out “It’s Man-Caused climate change to blame” if it’s slightly humid out “It’s Man-Caused climate change to blame” if it’s dry as a bone out “It’s Man-Caused climate change to blame”
If species die off “It’s Man-Caused climate change to blame” if spiders havem ore offsrpring “It’s Man-Caused climate change to blame” if desert tortouises face south at night “It’s Man-Caused climate change to blame” if spotted owl eggs get eaten by racoons “It’s Man-Caused climate change to blame”
If viruses becoem resistent to anti-biotics “It’s Man-Caused climate change to blame” if toenail fungus takes a day logner to clear up “It’s Man-Caused climate change to blame” if peopel in idaho yield more potatoes “It’s Man-Caused climate change to blame” if peopel in Idaho yield less potatoes “It’s Man-Caused climate change to blame”
On and on it goes- No, that reporter was not corrected- just hteir statement was
And ignoring specialists from one field -- especially historical geology -- while emphasizing propaganda from others in the guise of "climate science" is a major reason we're in this muddle. Another is the fact that many people today simply are not well educated in science and aren't capable of informed critical thinking.
Anyone seriously interested in this topic should read a great book I just finished: "Global Warming: Alarmists, Skeptics & Deniers." It's written by G. Dedrick Robinson, Professor Emeritus of Geology at James Madison University in Virginia. Dr S. Fred Singer, Chairman Science & Environmental Policy Project, says:
"The author makes it very clear that a changing climate is not unusual. It is in fact the norm -- although change is often so slow that humans cannot detect it directly. But historical geologists know how to display the evidence to the public. This may be the single most important contribution of this well-written and fact-filled book.”
I was searching websites concerning hurricanes once (haven’t been able to find this particular website since, but I know the story is out there somewhere) and read about a hurricane so severe that Spain actually stopped colonizing Florida for a while. It happened, I think, in the 1500’s - totally wiped out a larger settlement, and the Spanish said hmmm, let’s think about this.
Giant storms are not increasing, they’ve always been there. Very few people know that the British were driven out of Wash DC while burning the WH because a violent tornado materialized in front of them - scared the living daylights out of them. Certainly a rare event.
The tornado that saved the US capital in 1812.
http://www.afweather.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123042444
Well during the war of 1812 but it was really 1814.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.