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There’s no scientific evidence of ‘human-induced climate change’ causing stronger hurricanes

Published

4 months ago

9 minute read

From LifeSiteNews

By Paul Schwennesen

The scientific consensus on hurricanes, which isn’t covered by breathless climate reporting, is that humans have had no detectable impact on hurricanes over the past century. We must demand honesty and contextual complexity on climate reporting.

As Hurricane Beryl barreled its way across the Gulf of Mexico and into the U.S. mainland, the attention-getting headlines had beaten it there by a long shot – claims that it was a remarkable outlier were appearing in climate-frantic narratives more than a week earlier.

CBS News claimed it was “historic,” alongside headlines on “How to talk to your kids about climate anxiety.” The BBC reported that it was “the first hurricane to reach the category four level in June since NHC [National Hurricane Center] records began and the earliest to hit category five – the highest category – in July.” While technically true, and warranting some mention, the claims tend to misrepresent, by implication and association, the current scientific understanding of hurricanes and human impacts on climate change.

The scientific consensus on hurricanes, a consensus not covered by breathless reporting on climate, is that humans have had no detectable impact on hurricanes over the past century. The National Climate Assessment published by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, for instance, in Appendix 3 reads:

There has been no significant trend in the global number of tropical cyclones nor has any trend been identified in the number of US land-falling hurricanes.

So what’s actually going on? Is Beryl’s historic early arrival an indication of something fundamentally different about hurricane activity? Does it or does it not represent the bitter fruit of humanity’s ecological sins? The answer is almost certainly not. Rather, the hype around Beryl’s early arrival represents a major misunderstanding, a mass-bias phenomenon which sees evidence where evidence doesn’t really exist.

Historically speaking, of course, hurricanes are commonplace in the Gulf. “Hurricane” derives from the prehistoric Taíno name for the god of evil winds, Jurucán. The Spanish quickly adopted the name to describe the violent storms which wreaked such havoc on their exploratory efforts in the New World. Both the 1527 Narváez and 1539 De Soto expeditions, for example, were pummeled by hurricanes that may well have reached category five, had the NHC been around to classify them as such. So while it is conceivable that Beryl is a major anomaly and portent of evil tidings, it is very unlikely to be.

Instead, its media portrayal as Exhibit A in the case for anthropogenic climate change is fundamentally inaccurate. Today’s dire headlines are a perfect example of what Steve Koonin, in his book Unsettled, calls “the long game of telephone that starts with the research literature and runs through the [scientific] assessment reports to the summaries of the assessment reports and on to the media coverage.”

The media, he says, often end up distributing a narrative that is directly counter to the actual evidence. They do this partly from misunderstanding the scientific and statistical significance of observations, but mostly because extreme headlines fit a generally understood narrative. Such reports are far more likely to be recognized and absorbed by the news-reading public. This selective attention pushes a bias toward extremism in climate reporting that significantly inflames the political climate, to our collective detriment.

Instead, what happens is that reports which are technically true (like Beryl’s record early arrival) make it into the common current only if they fit the general alarmist narrative. The BBC perfectly exemplifies this in its coverage, noting that “Hurricane Beryl’s record-breaking nature has put the role of climate change in the spotlight.” It then goes on to say, toward the end of an article most people will never fully read:

The causes of individual storms are complex, making it difficult to fully attribute specific cases to climate change. But exceptionally high sea surface temperatures are seen as a key reason why Hurricane Beryl has been so powerful.

This is how the slight-of-hand works: BBC reporters, no doubt in interviews with hurricane experts, were obliged to quibble somewhat about the implications of Beryl’s record-setting classification. They properly note that it is “difficult” (impossible, in fact) to attribute Beryl’s record to climate change as such. And they are correct that high sea surface temperatures are a major factor in Beryl’s extraordinary rise. But it is the way these technical truths are presented that leads to errors in association. Very few casual readers would be likely to read the article, headlined with “How record-breaking Hurricane Beryl is a sign of a warming world” and not make an inductive leap to the causal inference of human-induced warming. This is a problem, because such an inference is in fact not substantiated by any scientifically accepted observations.

Now, to be sure, this works both ways. This is not a claim that human emissions have no impacts, after all, only that we must be very careful about what the evidence actually says before channeling it into policy recommendations. Nor is my point that we can safely disregard all negative reports about the environment, since there are clearly issues that warrant our genuine collective attention. For instance, I’ve played a bit of sleight-of-hand myself: I correctly noted that major hurricanes are below the historical average, but I did not highlight the fact that overall hurricane count is up. Likewise with the Great Barrier Reef: while coral coverage is remarkably up, the kind of monoculture coral crop accounting for the rise still leaves room for ecological concern.

The real point is that we must demand honesty, including contextual complexity, on climate reporting. Especially since the stakes are so high (either in matters of our environment or individual liberty), we cannot afford to play games with half-truths and obfuscations. Intelligent free people deserve fuller, more comprehensive, less-activist reporting on climate change. Beryl has made a record of sorts, yes. What that record really means in the context of human-induced climate change is fundamentally, scientifically unknown. Maybe that would be a better headline.

Reprinted with permission from the American Institute for Economic Research.

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Trump’s government efficiency department plans to cut $500 Billion in unauthorized expenditures, including funding for Planned Parenthood

Published on November 21, 2024

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From LifeSiteNews

By Emily Mangiaracina

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy shared their plans to ‘take aim’ at ‘500 billion plus’ in federal expenses, including ‘nearly $300 million’ to ‘progressive groups like Planned Parenthood.’

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are planning to ax taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood as part of their forthcoming work for the next Trump administration, they revealed in a Wednesday op-ed in The Wall Street Journal. 

The businessmen have been appointed by President Donald Trump to lead a new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which will work from outside the official government structure to cut wasteful government spending and excess regulations, as well as “restructure federal agencies,” as Trump announced last week on Truth Social.

Musk and Ramaswamy shared Wednesday that as part of their work at DOGE to downsize government spending, they will be “taking aim at the $500 billion plus in annual federal expenditures that are unauthorized by Congress or being used in ways that Congress never intended,” thereby “delivering cost savings for taxpayers.”

They specifically called out Planned Parenthood as one institution that will lose taxpayer funding once DOGE kicks into gear. In their op-ed, the duo said the federal expenditures they plan on cutting includes the “nearly $300 million” dedicated “to progressive groups like Planned Parenthood.”

Musk and Ramaswamy also reportedly will take aim at the “$535 million a year to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and $1.5 billion for grants to international organizations,” according to Catholic Vote, although they have not shared all of the federal spending they plan to cut or reduce.

“With a decisive electoral mandate and a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court, DOGE has a historic opportunity for structural reductions in the federal government,” the business duo wrote. “We are prepared for the onslaught from entrenched interests in Washington. We expect to prevail.”

Mogul and X owner Musk, who was outspoken before his DOGE appointment about the big problem of waste, noted last week that if the government is not made efficient, the country will go “bankrupt.”

He reposted a clip from a recent talk he gave in which he explained that not only is our defense budget “pretty gigantic” — a trillion dollars —but the interest the U.S. now owes on its debt is higher than this.

“This is not sustainable. That’s why we need the Department of Government Efficiency,” Musk said.

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Censorship Industrial Complex

Congressional investigation into authors of ‘Disinformation Dozen’ intensifies

Published on November 21, 2024

By

From LifeSiteNews

By Dr. Michael Nevradakis of The Defender

The Center for Countering Digital Hate, authors of ‘The Disinformation Dozen,’ faces a Nov. 21 deadline to provide Congress with documents related to its alleged collusion with the Biden administration and social media platforms to censor online users.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), authors of the “Disinformation Dozen,” faces a Nov. 21 deadline to provide Congress with documents related to its alleged collusion with the Biden administration and social media platforms to censor online users.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, on Nov. 7 subpoenaed CCDH  as part of an ongoing congressional investigation, launched in August 2023, into the nonprofit’s censorship-related activities.

The subpoena requests all communications and documents “between or among CCDH, the Executive Branch, or third parties, including social media companies, relating to the identification of groups, accounts, channels, or posts for moderation, deletion, suppression, restriction, or reduced circulation.”

The subpoena also requests all records, notes, and other “documents of interactions between or among CCDH and the Executive Branch referring or relating to ‘killing’ or taking adverse action against Elon Musk’s X social media platform (formerly Twitter).”

 

CCDH previously included Kennedy on its “Disinformation Dozen” list, published in March 2021, of the 12 “leading online anti-vaxxers.”

Leaked CCDH documents released last month by investigative journalists Paul D. Thacker and Matt Taibbi revealed that CCDH sought to “kill” Twitter and launch “black ops” against Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald J. Trump’s nominee for secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

“Black ops” are defined as a “secret mission or campaign carried out by a military, governmental or other organization, typically one in which the organization conceals or denies its involvement.”

A subsequent report by Taibbi and Thacker showed that CCDH employed tactics it initially developed to help U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and the U.S. Democratic Party, to target Musk, Kennedy and others.

CCDH used ‘explicit military terminology’ to target speech

Thacker told The Defender the leaked documents “definitely spurred” Jordan’s subpoena.

Sayer Ji, the founder of GreenMedInfo, was also listed among “The Disinformation Dozen.” He said the leaked documents were “chilling” and that CCDH’s efforts were part of “the largest coordinated foreign influence operation targeting American speech since 1776.”

Ji told The Defender:

The leaked documents confirm what we experienced firsthand: CCDH wasn’t just targeting 12 individuals – we were test cases for deploying military-grade psychological operations against civilians at scale.

Just as the British Crown once used seditious libel laws to silence colonial dissent, CCDH’s operation expanded to silence hundreds of millions globally, from doctors sharing clinical observations to parents discussing vaccine injuries.

Ohio physician Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, also on “The Disinformation Dozen” list, told The Defender, “The exposure of the manipulation that went on behind the scenes to silence us is what we suspected, and now we know … We have the sad last laugh against their attacks. They are the ones with blood on their hands.”

Ji said CCDH’s internal communications reveal not just bias, “but explicit military terminology – ‘black ops,’ ‘target acquisition,’ ‘strategic deployment’ – coordinated between Five Eyes networks and dark money interests to target constitutionally protected speech.”

Writing on GreenMedInfo, Ji said, “CCDH’s ‘black ops’ approach includes coordinated media smears, economic isolation, and digital censorship.” Ji said CCDH’s activities represent “a new level of institutionalized power directed at civilian targets, often bypassing constitutional safeguards.”

Thacker said Jordan’s investigation should expand to include CCDH’s “black ops.”

“I don’t want to speculate on what CCDH was doing with ‘black ops’ against Kennedy,” Thacker said. “I think that should be explored by a congressional committee, with CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed put under oath,” Thacker said.

CCDH facing multiple lawsuits, possible Trump administration investigation

Jordan’s subpoena is the latest in a series of legal challenges for CCDH. According to GreenMedInfo, the organization faces several lawsuits and government investigations.

Following last month’s CCDH document leak, the Trump campaign said an investigation into CCDH “will be at the top of the list.”

The campaign also filed a complaint against the Harris campaign with the Federal Election Commission, “for making and accepting illegal foreign national contributions” – namely, from the U.K. Labour Party.

This followed the release of evidence indicating that the Biden administration coordinated with the U.K. Foreign Office as part of what GreenMedInfo described “as a systematic censorship regime involving CCDH and affiliated organizations.”

A lawsuit Musk filed against CCDH in July 2023 for allegedly illegally obtaining data and using it in a “scare campaign” to deter advertisers from X will likely proceed on appeal. A federal court initially dismissed the lawsuit in March.

Discovery in the Missouri v. Biden free speech lawsuit may also “shed further light and legal scrutiny on the critical role that CCDH played in allegedly suppressing and violating the civil liberties of U.S. citizens,” according to GreenMedInfo.

CCDH, others flee X in protest

Earlier this week, CCDH deleted its account on X, the platform it wanted to “kill.”

Writing on Substack, Ji said CCDH’s departure from X, during the same week Trump nominated Kennedy to lead HHS, represents a “seismic shift” and marks “a watershed moment, signaling the unraveling of entrenched systems of control and the rise of a new era for health freedom and open discourse.”

Several other left-leaning organizations and individuals, including The Guardian and journalist Don Lemon, also said they will stop using X, after Trump tapped Musk to lead a federal agency tasked with increasing government efficiency.

According to NBC News, many ordinary users are also fleeing X, citing “bots, partisan advertisements and harassment, which they all felt reached a tipping point when Donald Trump was elected president last week with Musk’s support.”

But according to Adweek, X’s former top advertisers, including Comcast, IBM, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Lionsgate Entertainment, resumed ad spending on the platform this year, but at “much lower rates” than before.

“Elon Musk’s ties with Donald Trump might spur some advertisers to think spending on X is good for business,” Adweek reported.

Thacker said CCDH’s deletion of its X account was “aligned” with the departure of “other organizations and ‘journalists’ aligned with the Democratic Party.” He said it appears to have been a “coordinated protest.”

Ji said organizations like CCDH view X “as an existential threat.” He added:

Having experienced both Twitter 1.0’s AI-driven censorship system and X’s more open environment, I understand exactly why CCDH sees X as an existential threat. X represents what Twitter 1.0’s embedded censorship infrastructure was designed to prevent: a truly free digital public square.

Under Musk’s commitment to free speech, their tactical advantage disappeared. They’re not leaving because X is toxic. They’re leaving because they can’t control it.

Online censorship ‘may no longer be sustainable under intensified scrutiny’

According to GreenMedInfo, CCDH’s departure from X “appears to reflect an internal recognition that their operational model – characterized by critics as a US-U.K. intelligence ‘cut-out’ facilitating  unconstitutional suppression of civil liberties – may no longer be sustainable under intensified scrutiny.”

In recent months, several mainstream media outlets have corrected stories that relied upon CCDH reports claiming “The Disinformation Dozen” was responsible for up to two-thirds of vaccine-related “misinformation” online.

According to Thacker, this reflects an increasing awareness by such outlets that readers are turning their backs on such reporting.

“The outlets that promoted CCDH propaganda are being investigated by their own readers, who are fleeing in droves. Readers are voting against this type of propaganda by refusing to subscribe to these media outlets,” Thacker said.

Yet, “many outlets continue to host these demonstrably false narratives without correction,” Ji said.

According to Ji, these false narratives resulted in medical professionals fearing the loss of their licenses for expressing non-establishment views, self-censorship among scientists “to avoid career destruction,” suppression of “critical public health discussions” and the labeling of millions of posts as “misinformation.”

“This isn’t just about suppressing speech. It’s about establishing a new form of digital control that echoes the colonial-era suppression our founders fought against,” Ji said.

“CCDH has polluted political discourse by pretending there is some absolute definition of the term ‘misinformation’ and that they hold the dictionary,” Thacker said. “That’s nonsense. They spread hate and misinformation to attack perceived political enemies of the Democratic Party.”

Ji called upon Congress to investigate “The full scope of those silenced beyond the ‘Disinformation Dozen,’” the “systematic suppression of scientific debate,” “media organizations’ role in amplifying foreign influence operations” and “dark money funding networks” supporting such organizations.

Thacker said Congress should examine possible CCDH violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. “We need to also look at how much foreign money they took in and whether we as a nation are comfortable with foreign influence trying to alter the law and political discussions.”

“The fight isn’t just about correcting past wrongs or personal vindication. It’s about preserving fundamental rights to free speech and scientific inquiry in the digital age,” Ji said. “If we don’t address this systematic abuse of power, we risk surrendering the very freedoms our founders fought to establish.”

This article was originally published by The Defender – Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

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