Media, stop blaming ‘climate change’ for hurricanes

After Hurricane Helene pummeled Florida and other states, I have no doubt that members of the media are making their own storm preparations. Climate alarmist journalists almost certainly have stories pre-written claiming that whatever impact the storm has is because of climate change, and propagandist attribution groups like World Weather Attribution are preparing to release rapid-attribution “studies” to back up journalists’ assertions.

Even before the destruction is properly assessed, there will likely be dozens of articles in the mainstream news claiming that Helene was made more powerful, more likely, or more damaging because of climate change. Journalists will bring up insurance costs in Florida, or the costs in general of the damage from the storm, as though this is proof of those claims. It’s nonsense, of course. Obviously, storm damage is more costly as property values rise and development expands, and climate change seems to be an awfully convenient excuse for raising insurance rates when the data show that hurricanes are not becoming more frequent or intense in Florida. In fact, Florida recently went 11 years without a single landfalling hurricane, which was a real anomaly for the state.

I am not going to focus on just hurricanes here, though, because the media do this for every kind of weather event, especially those that result in human deaths and property damage. However, often it is actually climate policy and the failure to properly maintain and improve infrastructure that causes the most problems.

Sometimes the media even claim that climate change is making it harder for people to be safe in general from extreme weather. This is simply false.

They will point out correctly that homeless people are more likely to become ill and die from exposure to extreme high temperatures because of a lack of shelter and air conditioning. This, however, is not because of climate change. “Hottest year ever” claims are suspect, based on woefully incomplete data. The truth is that prior to satellites, there are few temperature records outside of the United States and Europe. We are thus forced to rely on proxy data, which are location-specific; but even so, many of them indicate there were several periods in just the past 10,000 years that were warmer than today.

As importantly, the homeless are also more likely to die from exposure during cold weather, and many more do each year. The media ignore this as it doesn’t fit the “dangerous global warming” narrative.

Overall, the frequency of people dying from those extreme-temperature conditions has declined rapidly around the world over the past hundred-plus years, largely due to a massive decrease in cold-related fatalities.

Deaths from climate and weather-related disasters in general have also declined.

What do we thank for these improving conditions? The very things climate alarmists would have us get rid of – namely, fossil fuels and their byproducts.

Home air conditioning and heating are wildly undervalued in wealthier countries, where we take them for granted. But they really do prevent probably tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths due to exposure every year. These kinds of luxuries are gradually becoming more expensive, which makes it harder for poorer people to afford, because of the anti-energy policies that these same alarmists promote.

Studies have found that U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rules and regulations pushed by the Biden-Harris administration targeting power plants are expected to cause instability in the electric grid and lead to massive blackouts. Wind and solar are not dispatchable power, and battery technology is not anywhere near scalable for what is needed. This causes higher prices and less power reliability, which won’t help anyone trying to handle even modest weather events.

As much as the political left likes to villainize plastics, they play a pivotal role in the sterility of medical facilities and have increased the survivability of major surgeries.

The hurricane-resistant infrastructure in hurricane country also relies heavily on oil and gas refining byproducts and high-energy intensity manufacturing processes: acrylic and laminated glass windows, water-resistant underlayment materials on rooftops, flashing, insulation, high-performance concrete, anchoring systems and many more than I can reasonably list here.

This kind of advanced infrastructure is expensive but well worth it. The problem is it becomes more expensive, sometimes prohibitively so, as climate policies make using fossil fuels more difficult – policies that will do nothing to prevent hurricanes and heatwaves.

Stay safe and stay smart when the weather looks bad, but know that our fears are being manipulated by the very people trying to promote policies that actually do put us in increasing danger.