Editor’s Note: The mainstream media has posted dozens if not hundreds of stories touting claims that a record breaking heatwave is hammering parts of the United States, which the media links to climate change, see, for example stories from Reuters, Forbes, the Los Angeles Times, and USA Today. Climate Realism has previously debunked this latest round of record setting heat wave claims, here and here. This article from the editorial board of Issues & Insights, should put the alarming climate falsehood about the present summer heatwave, among other seasonal perennial “extreme weather” assertions the mainstream media commonly makes, firmly to bed.
By the I&I Editorial Board
There’s a summer heat wave going on, which gives journalists the opportunity to fill up their stories with climate change boilerplate. It no longer matters whether any of it is true. Just the opposite, in fact. If you point out the truth, you’re accused of being a denier.
Sure, the data doesn’t show an increase in the number of heat waves, or hurricanes, or tornadoes, or wildfires. Yet every time one or the other strikes, the press robotically connects that event to “climate change.”
And so, true to form, every story about the current heat wave says that climate change is to blame.
Axios, which is a bellwether for liberal conventional wisdom, asserts that “climate change greatly increases the likelihood of heat waves, as well as their intensity and duration.”
But the page the story links to – GlobalChange.gov – includes the map below, which breaks down the U.S. into seven regions and compares the number of days where the temperature exceeded 95 degrees from 2002-2021 to 1901-1960.
Take a close look at the map.
If the globe is warming, you’d expect those hot days to go up everywhere. But of the 50 states in the country, only 10 saw an increase in 95-plus degree days over those periods. Most of the U.S. saw decreases.
And while the Southwest saw an increase of 5.5 days, the Southeast saw a drop of 9.7 days, and the Midwest a decline of 5.6 days.
Then look at the chart below which tracks the number of heat waves each year going back to 1895.
Notice anything? To our eye, there’s no discernible trend at all. Particularly when you consider that the truly terrible heat waves occurred in the 1930s, long before human activity could have had any meaningful effect on global climate.
Then there’s this whopper of a lie in the Axios story:
“Why it matters: Extreme heat is the top weather-related killer in the U.S.”
The story links to a Weather.gov page, which says right at the top that “Extreme heat is the number one weather-related killer.”
But the very next sentence takes that back, saying “Extreme heat and humidity is one of the leading weather-related killers in the United States.”
The truth is that extreme cold, not heat, is more lethal, as data from the Environmental Protection Agency (the biggest climate crisis propagandist of them all) make clear.
The same is true for other claims that “climate change” is causing more extreme and more deadly weather.
Every time a tornado hits, the media say that twisters are getting more frequent and more violent. Except that’s a lie, as the chart below shows.
Here’s what National Geographic said about tornadoes: “There is no real evidence that tornadoes are happening more often. A lot more are being recorded now than in 1950, but a closer look at the data shows the increase is only in the weakest category, EF0. There’s been no increase in stronger twisters, and maybe even a slight decrease in EF4s and EF5s.”
Every hurricane season, we’re told that they are getting more frequent and stronger. But there’s no discernible trend there, either. See the chart below, also from the EPA.
Well, surely climate change is causing more forest fires. We hear that every time there is one, so it must be true, right?
Sorry, but it’s another climate lie, as the chart below, from the National Interagency Fire Center, shows. There’s also the fact that many of the worst forest fires are the result of mismanagement of the land by the state and federal government, not climate change.
But since that doesn’t fit the “climate crisis” narrative, why not lie about it?
Originally published by Issues & Insights. Republished with permission.
The argument will remain in some minds since some of the key data does not show current years, like graphs that only go to 2015 or 2017.