Climate Activists Hope That Fake News About Droughts Will Win

Summary: Activists hope that daily apocalyptic news stories about climate change will mold public opinion, no matter how much they exaggerate the science. For a stunning example, look at the news and facts about droughts.

The propaganda barrage by climate activists has few precedents in modern US history, increasing in intensity and the magnitude of its exaggerations. Any extreme weather, no matter how typical in history, becomes evidence of human influences: heat waves, cold, floods, snow, and – as described in this post – droughts. Activists hope that their flow of alarmist “news” will shape public opinion, just as a riven can carve through mountains.

About the California drought, forever until it ended

“Thanks El Nino, But California’s drought is probably forever” by Rick Stockton at Wired, May 2016.

“California Braces for Unending Drought” by Ian Lovett at the NYT, May 2016.

Editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle: “Drought is the new normal“, December 2017.

The Pacific Institute on the California drought: “Responding to the drought is responding to a ‘new normal’ water future with climate change” (2016).

See this example from September 2016 showing how sober research becomes apocalyptic warnings.

• “Prolonged California aridity linked to climate warming and Pacific sea surface temperature” in Science Reports. Conclusions: “it remains uncertain if the Pacific will react in a similar manner in the 21st century, but should it follow apparent past behavior more intense and prolonged aridity in California would result.”
• The UCLA press release is more dramatic: “Pacific Ocean’s response to greenhouse gases could extend California drought for centuries.”
• A story by KTLA-5 is apocalyptic: “‘The New Normal’: California’s Severe Drought Could Last Indefinitely, New Study Says.” UCLA Professor Glen MacDonald, the lead author, said “it’s not beyond reason that as we move into the 21st century that this isn’t a drought. This could be what would we consider normal conditions for California: a drier and hotter state,”

The Texas drought, a new normal until it wasn’t

“Texas’ Permanent Drought” by Forrest Wilder at the Texas Observer, July 2011.

“Texas Climate News sought out the state’s finest climatologists, oceanographers and public-policy experts. If nothing else, their responses make clear that the Lone Star State is headed for a new normal.” {Dallas Observer, 14 October 2013.}

“Fear in a Handful Of Dust” by Ted Genoways, The New Republic: “Climate change is making the Texas panhandle, birthplace of the state’s iconic Longhorn, too hot and dry to raise beef. …environmental activists and reporters began to ask whether “drought” – a temporary weather pattern – was really the right term for what was happening in the state, or whether “desertification” was more appropriate. … ‘If climate change is the real deal then the human race as we know it is over’.”

“Drought is ‘the new normal’” by Lacey Jarrell at the Herald and News, September 2015.

“Texas’ Record Floods Are the New Normal” by TakePart, September 2015.

Back to reality: good news about droughts

“We don’t even plan for the past.”
— About our unpreparedness for the inevitable repeat of past weather, by Steven Mosher of Berkeley Earth at Climate Etc.

Neither of those droughts was unusual for their regional climates. Scientists said so at the time. (See the quotes in the posts listed below.) Such short-term events tell us little or nothing about climate trends. But clickbait-loving leftist journalists misreported the science.

Full post

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