National Public Radio (NPR) recently published a largely pictorial article, titled “Meet 5 women documenting the effects of climate change around the world,” composed of photographs taken by women that supposedly, “highlight climate change.” In reality, what these women covered in dramatic photographs are the impacts of civil strife, government corruption, and natural weather events, on communities, not harms human caused climate change.
The article suggests that extreme weather is worsening globally, impacting different communities in different tragic ways. Even the International Panel on Climate Change disagrees with this fundamental point, and a comprehensive analysis of the IPCC data on extreme weather by the Global Warming Policy Foundation’s Ralph Alexander, Ph.D., concludes that “Careful examination of the actual data reveals that if there is any trend in weather extremes, it is downward rather than upward.”
Data show that climate related deaths are way down worldwide in recent decades compared to the past, shown in the image below.
One of the highlighted regions, Somalia, is described in the NPR piece as “one of the places that has contributed the least to global carbon dioxide emissions, and yet its environment is among the most severely impacted, in irreversible ways.”
Somalia suffers from severe flooding during their monsoon season, called “Gu rains.” These periods of flooding are essential to agriculture in the region, as it is otherwise mostly arid. Like in California, fluctuations between drought and monsoon have historically been regular part of Somalia’s climate, possibly due to an oscillating system in the Indian Ocean called the Indian Ocean Dipole which is similar to the Pacific’s El Niño. As population centers in Somalia grow into low-lying areas, previously used for monsoon dependent agriculture, they are more susceptible to encountering floods resulting from periodic, seasonal Gu rains.
Somalia is plagued not so much by climate change but rather by violence and government corruption, leading to destroyed or delayed vital infrastructure and poorly managed aid resources. Civil war has been raging in Somalia since 1991. This was covered by NPR in the past in this article, describing the once-beautiful city of Mogadishu which is now in chaos and ruin.
The United Nations says that places like South Sudan also suffer famine primarily because of human violence and war in the region, stating in a BBC report that “The main cause of the famine is conflict.”
East Africa recently suffered from locust swarms, as shown in the NPR photos, which hatched out in largely unpopulated parts of the region. As described in this report, due to poor coordination between nations and green-agenda driven lack of pesticides, locusts swarmed and devoured unprotected crops before they could be sprayed and killed. Locusts are not unprecedented in Africa, and are certainly not due to climate change. In fact, their hatch rates may be tied to that same Indian Ocean Dipole event that serves as a driver for the Gu rains in Somalia.
The NPR piece also showcases West African coasts as suffering from coastal erosion and flooding, which they say is caused by accelerating sea level rise. As covered in Climate Realism here, and in this Heartland Institute analysis here, it is clear that coastlines grow and shrink as a result of natural forces like tectonics or storms, and also due to human development impacting the structural integrity of coastlines. No human-caused warming required.
Regions with major river deltas are likely more susceptible to land subsidence and sea level rise than others, as this study shows, such as the Volta River Delta of Ghana. Major land subsidence and erosion began to occur in Ghana after large dams were built upstream which reduced sediment flow into the delta.
The NPR article also implies Hurricane Maria was a creation of climate change. Hurricanes are entirely natural events and no single hurricane can be attributed to climate change. What the data does show, however, is hurricanes have not been increasing in number or severity as the planet modestly warms, as discussed in these Climate Realism articles here, here, and here.
Taking pictures of people in distress after severe weather events, then attributing their suffering to man-made climate change is uninformed at best, and cruel exploitation at worst. The impact of natural disasters globally can be reduced in developing countries as they have in the developed world through human innovation, adaptation, and economic growth. The harms resulting from war and government corruption have nothing to do with climate change and won’t be solved by cutting carbon dioxide emissions. Directing focus away from the real causes of human struggles in at-risk regions of the world serves no one but the journalists in pursuit of accolades from the like-minded mainstream media for pursuing the progressive political cause of expanding government control to fight supposed climate change.
https://www.heartland.org/about-us/who-we-are/linnea-lueken
Linnea Lueken is a Research Fellow with the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy. While she was an intern with The Heartland Institute in 2018, she co-authored a Heartland Institute Policy Brief “Debunking Four Persistent Myths About Hydraulic Fracturing.”
Everywhere you go, there’s climate change. Must be causing all these bad things, then. Right?
Climate change only causes bad things. Period. Nothing good ever came out of climate change.*
*Except the end of the last ice age, the Roman Warm Period, the Medieval Warm Period, etc., etc. This time, it’s different don’t you know…
jeffery p, it’s more different than we even realize, it snowed today in Eugene, Oregon (my twin brother lives there) and that is the latest recorded snow in Eugene history. Also, more mixed rain and snow for several days. NPR will probably publish a retraction any minute now.
We’re supposed to have snow & graupple and rain this Thursday, Ron Long. I object vehemently to this aberrant weather when the daisies are pushing up.
What causes the climate to change? The most powerful molecule in the known and unknown Universe: CO2, also known as the God molecule. /s
Atoms are very unreliable they’ll make up just about anything.
the God molecule – 🤣 love it.
There’s death in Death Valley now.
It used to be so nice, part of the time (still is).
What’s the famous phrase? When all you have is a hammer, everything is a nail.
It’s just awful!!!! I had to shovel a half-inch of snow off my front steps on April 2 and this past Saturday!!! If globull warming is responsible for that, I blame the stream of hot air coming out of the empty heads of these climate fanatics because they’re spewing out so much hot air, we’ll NEVER be free of it!!!
That was /sarc, in case someone can’t figure it out.
Even high gas prices are the result of climate change, or more precisely, the fear of climate change predicted by models precisely tuned to the requirements for supporting a civilization destroying agenda being pursued by those envious of and who feel guilty of the advancements that arose from freedom and industrialization.
Climate Change policies will bring about the very calamities their proponents claim to want to avoid.
Sort of like selling ObamaCare with “If you like your plan you can keep your plan” lie.
In execution, ACA did exactly opposite of what ACA’s main proponent claimed. And the cynical thing is they knew it at the time. Similarly, Climate Change policy has nothing to do with avloiding climate change.
Lying big is what Democrats do.
It’s a wicked solution to a purportedly hard problem… deja vu.
Its a wicked solution to a fabricated problem.
Geopolitical Charlatanism.
They’re jumping for joy in Shanghai.
Shanghai looks like a horror show. The Chicoms have locked up 25 million people over covid. You could hear the locked-in Shanghai residents screaming from their apartments in agony and despair on television tonight. It was horrible to watch and listen to. Xi is insane.
Similar to all of the economic impacts attributed to Covid when they are really the result of the stupid and ineffective policies that were implemented to “stop” Covid (and failed miserably). They even used the same scare tactics if they “didn’t do something now”.
And they used the same fake appeal to science to support their malfeasance.
National Propaganda Radio needs to have its public funding removed.
Another LBJ monstrosity. Would it be possible to auction off the frequencies, too, or did the affiliates already have licenses before they became ‘member’ stations?
Public funding, privileged access, and unearned authority.
(oops)
NPR = Not Particularly Relevant? Not Plausible Radio? New Pseudo Religion?
Our local station does a nice 2-hour Bluegrass music show on Saturday evenings but paying for all of the rest of their all-propaganda-all-of-the-time programming isn’t worth the expense for getting only two good hours a week.
Normally Propaganda Radio.
If it were proven scientifically that Hunter’s laptop caused climate change, would NPR report it?
Actually, the causal linkage between Burying Hunter’s Laptop story and accelerated Man-made global warming is real.
NPR consumers are the victims.
It like a Liberal paying a cable bill to watch CNN or MSNBC to get their fix of lies and disinformation to avoid the mental discomfort of cognitive dissonance.
DEFUND the NPR.
The only reason I occasionally Watch/Listen Too NPR is to see what the latest false rumor being peddled.
They are desperate to relate and transpose real death and destruction from the far away land war in Europe to their Party agenda edifice. I wonder what the holdouts were saying about Germany in 1940.
What’s really alarming is the magnitude of
climate changeglobal warming mass hysteria among supposedly highly-educated Westerners. Even more frightening is that these people want to believe it’s happening. You can point to graphs of measured temperatures and sea level and they simply won’t believe the pace of warming and sea level rise is so minimal.They want to believe it’s a catastrophe and that only a revolutionary change to our economies, governments, and lifestyles will “fix” it. It’s like they feel guilty about our luxurious lifestyle (compared to the rest of the world) and need to atone for our collective sin by forsaking the things that allow us wealth and leisure. But instead of self-denial, they want to impose a sort of perverse Lent on all of us, imposing their guilt on the rest of us and forcing us all to not have fossil fuels. I propose that they try 40 days without fossil fuels and get back to us after their “fast”. Meanwhile, poor people couldn’t care less. They have real problems to worry about.
I might give some minuscule credence to the sea level rising thing if I saw all the hoity toity folks suddenly pulling up to their beachfront mansions with moving vans. At the same time. And, since that ain’t gonna happen, no worries. Not that I’ve ever been worried about the climate(weather), it is what it is and gonna be no matter what “man” does.
NPR? Hah! Way past its shelf life. Defund.
Hah! Handmade tales are a first-order forcing of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change (CACC) and Progressive (i.e. monotonic) Corruption (CAPC). #HateLovesAbortion
The Western nations offer the poorest most disadvantaged countries windmills and sun mirrors, the CCP offer these same countries coal-fired power stations and modern infustracture. So which side do you think these countries will take?
Does anyone remember the photos of the tribal african women trying to cook a chicken using a climate change solar “stove?”
Perfectly describes the BBC – everything now has some sort of Man-Made climate change angle
Here’s a lovely recent example:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57969877
Best of all, they actually mention ‘ancient drains’, increased area of concrete/roads/houses and other impermeable surfaces. They flat-out admit that the infrastructure builders & maintainers have failed. That the old (Victorian) infrastructure was never meant for the numbers of people and size of the cities
While asserting that The Victorian builders didn’t anticipate/forecast the future weather correctly.
You’ve gotta laugh
But the BBC still have to get in, at the top of the article, the words ‘intense’ ‘extreme’ and ‘climate change’
But then – by whose definition is today’s weather any more intense or extreme than it was 20, 50 or 100 years ago?
They’re appealing to their own selves as the authority on the matter.
Hence and as someone said here, it’s become a self-fulfilling prophecy= because Climate Change has become the de-facto and ultimate buck-pass – it will become a reality
A reality created by lazy & brain-dead virtue signallers, paralysed by self-importance, who expect everyone else to ‘do something’ while paying them a comfortable living for telling them to as much.
And the only thing they can think of doing is = Pay More Tax, while they themselves bow down and pray at the altar of Junk Science inside the church of Political Correctness
CC is the best thing that has ever happened to politicians. No matter what happens, mostly due to their abject, total incompetence, they blame it on climate change. It’s the magic incantation that absolves all their sins. It’s a miracle!
What are these climate alarmists going to do if, God forbid, they get their way on everything and guess what, climate change marches on without missing a beat?
NPR: National Propaganda Radio. The truth has no place in modern political discourse, especially when the is such strong motivation to pick the pockets of honest taxpayers, and remove all of their civil rights.
Indeed, Andy. We all saw what happened with Covid. Even the formerly mild-mannered, lovable Aussies saw many of them and their government turn into a nightmarish, 21st Century version of 1930s Germany or, modern day China.
This is an example of what I have been saying. These people don’t use proper science or fancy language to get their message across. They just make things up, show nasty pictures and move on knowing no one will do a damn thing about it. What they are doing is criminal and they need to pay for it. We don’t need fancy language or complicated science to counter them. We need to show the common American that these people are not being truthful and what they are doing is not science, in the plainest, simple, honest and briefest way we can.
This article is right on the nail. It is sickening to see human misery exploited through misrepresentation as “climate change.” They are sick puppies at NPR but they would have no insight into how sick they are.
Saw this today
Griff trying to make it come true again today
Mr. kerbob: That graph is obviously cherry-picked. What about 1508??
As tax day approaches, another reminder that NPR and PBS get government funds to produce the same drek that other domestic propaganda providers (CNN, NYT, etc.) produce. As a taxpayer, that makes me very angry. Maybe the normally useless Republican Party will finally get off their butts when they’re back in the majority and eliminate government funding of these garbage outfits, although I expect nothing but disappointment.
There is NO climate-related death risk!
There are NO climate-related deaths!
Weather IS NOT climate!
When I was at college, more than 50 years ago, I RISKED bad marks if I did not distinguishe weather and climate OR if I used both words as if they were synonymous OR if I used any one of them incorrectly.
Where did FUNDAMENTAL instruction and education go?
It got chipped away at, bit by bit, as the unintended consequence of left wing ‘good intentions’ for education.
These folks should experience the rain sometime, particularly the Gu Rains. The rain drops are large and will leave bruises. On some folks, even welts. Everything around Mogadishu is angry. The Acacia trees, the rain, the animals just trying to survive, etc. These folks would do well to visit. Treat it as game show, the last one standing wins.
I was there after the events in Blackhawk Down. I did motor pool supply. It’s a great place to be from, far away from.
Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry on Wednesday pushed renewable offshore energy, claiming that Russian President Vladimir Putin cannot manipulate the wind and sun.