Borenstein concluded with the ramblings of frequent MSNBC climate alarmist guest and University of Pennsylvania Earth and Environmental Science Professor Michael Mann. “‘How on God’s Earth are we still burning fossil fuels after witnessing all this,’” Mann told Borenstein. This is the same Mann (no pun intended) who scaremongered to MSNBC in June 2022 how we supposedly “have less than a decade” to save the planet, an exhausted propaganda talking point that the media have been peddling for years. He also grumbled in June 2023 that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in West Virginia v. EPA (2021) that prohibited federal agencies from arbitrarily regulating carbon emissions at power plants without congressional approval meant it supposedly “removed the right to a livable planet.”
Of course, readers wouldn’t know it until the bottom of Borenstein’s 31 paragraphs-long agitprop that AP received $8 million in 2022 from a consortium of leftist, eco-obsessed nonprofit organizations like the Rockefeller Foundation and Quadrivium (the activist organization of News Corp. Executive Chairman Rupert Murdoch’s estranged son and climate activist James Murdoch). The purpose of the leftist grant was supposedly for the purpose of “significantly expand[ing]” AP’s “climate coverage” with the goal to “infuse” media landscape with climate journalism, all while keeping the deceptive veneer of being “unbiased news” intact. Borenstein’s own disclosure made it seem like that its nonprofit financiers were apolitical and that AP was still acting independently: “Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.” Yeah, sure. [Emphasis added.]
But Borenstein’s knee jerk reaction to wield any weather event to bellyache about the climate boogeyman is definitely on brand. After all, this was the same Borenstein who mindlessly touted the output of an unofficial climate model — not actually measured temperatures — to sensationalize in a July 6 headline how “[f]or third day, it was the hottest day on Earth, as global temperature matches record set Tuesday.” Borenstein and his co-author would later update their headline after it was clear they had egg on their faces: “Earth hit an unofficial record high temperature this week – and stayed there.”
The authors inserted comments from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in their newly edited piece calling the output data “‘not suitable’ as substitutes for actual temperatures and climate records,” undercutting their initial premise entirely.
