While we can appreciate the regular reportage by this paper and others on matters pertaining to climate change and global warming, it would be at least modestly appreciated if there could at least be a little coverage of newsworthy items that will allow the educated reader to determine for his or her self whether there is justification for the billions of tax dollars being dedicated to the cause of fighting supposed climate change.
For example, we are routinely told that the increased frequency of damaging Atlantic storms on the Eastern seaboard and Atlantic provinces is a result of global warming. In light of this, why did so few mainstream media outlets fail to report that it has now been over 3,100 days since a Category 3 or greater storm has made landfall in the continental U.S.A.? Some environment reporters routinely refer to 2012’s “superstorm” Sandy, which was only a Cat 2 storm. Not only was it eclipsed in intensity by storms that hit the New York region in 1938 and 1944, the greatest degree of storm damage occurred in areas that were no urbanized until well after the great mid-century storms. Storm reportage also fails to account for inflation when describing storm damage in historical terms.
(http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/hurricane_drought_2014.jpg)
We are also told that increasing wildfires, especially in the American West, are a symptom of global warming. Interestingly, the U.S. National Interagency Fire Center has recently published a 10-year graph that indicates that shows anything but a pattern of increasing wildfires. The same agency also indicates that some 75 per cent of all wildfires are human caused. It only takes a vacation drive through Montana, Wyoming and Utah to again understand how property damage from such fires is on the increase, though.
The years 2013 and 2014, to date, are record low years for tornado activity on the Great Plains, yet almost all tornado event news coverage mentions global warming and climate change.
We are routinely told that climate change will bring greater and more enduring drought to large parts of the globe. Again, news outlets have failed to inform the public that the area of the globe enduring drought has remained constant or even shrinking slightly for decades.
(http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/05/22/interesting-graph-fraction-of-the-globe-in-drought-1982-2012/)
In the same vein, Americans and Canadians who vacation in the southwest are routinely apprised of the impact of global warming in exacerbating the already dry conditions of the Colorado River Basin, yet the geological record shows that multi-decade mega-droughts have been endemic to the region for over 500 years, and that the late 19th to the mid-20th century were exceptionally wet for the region.
(http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/05/02/worst-drought-of-this-century-barely-makes-the-top-10/)
Global warming activists routinely point out that 97 per cent of scientists support the idea that global warming is occurring at an unprecedented rate. What they don’t tell you, and nor do most news outlets, is that the 97 per cent figure amounts to a total of 79 climate scientists who chose to respond to a questionnaire, and that the chair of the IPCC himself roundly debunked the “97 per cent” figure in testimony before the U.S. Congress. Again, few major news outlets carried any mention of his testimony.
(http://www.climatedepot.com/2014/05/30/un-lead-author-michael-oppenheimer-admits-to-congress-climate-science-not-settled-the-question-of-exactly-how-warm-the-earth-will-become-as-a-result-of-rising-co2-thats-not-settle/)
We are also often told that we must expect increasing numbers of deaths from the effects of intense summer heat. This in spite of the fact that thousands more Britons died from cold-related issues this past and the previous winter, than will die in all of Europe in the coming next few years from the effects of intense heat.
(http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/06/02/which-is-responsible-for-more-u-s-deaths-excessive-heat-or-excessive-cold/)
There is also far too little reportage on the fact that the U.S. Weather Service has recorded more temperature records related to colder temperatures than hot over the last few years. In spite of near breathless reportage of summer high temps last year, there were a record low number of 100F and higher temperature recordings in the continental U.S.
Global warming activists are demanding that our society commit the very real act of economic, social, and cultural suicide in order to forestall the very hypothetical effects of a completely hypothetical issue. Our news media owes the paying public considerably more of the whole story, not facts cherry picked to support a politically driven agenda.
Bill Greenwood
Red Deer