Cyclone Gabrielle? Climate Change!
I wouldn’t have known, except I have a daughter stranded in Hawkes Bay, where all the bridges out of town have been washed out, likely destroyed, electricity will be out for the next few weeks, internet and telephones are gone, and rescue services overloaded.
Anxious to know some more I did something I haven’t done for the last 20 years: I went to the BBC for information. I’m old enough to remember when the BBC – like the New York Times and CNN – was a reliable news source, that is a news source where you could reliably get facts, not just opinions.
And yes, the article (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-64630183) does mention some facts on how horrible the typhoon and its damage are: “the severity and the damage that we are seeing has not been experienced in a generation” the New Zealand PM said.
The BBC however felt such a crisis was too good to waste, and sensed a need to add some unsupported verbiage on ‘climate change’.
Many mainstream news outlets do so as it makes for good clickbait: social media can suggest such an article to news consumers who are interested in or afraid of any vaguely related subjects such as floods, droughts, hot spells, cold spells, heart attacks, etc.
The fact that the IPCC (Technical Summary, 5.8.2; Tropical Phenomena) declared that:
“Future projections of regional climate extremes in West Asia, Southeast Asia and Australia are … of low confidence”
does not in any way hinder BBC’s self-appointed climate experts from reaching conclusions that the IPCC would presumably find iffy.
In addition, ‘climate change’ was probably not foremost on the mind of most of the BBC’s customers, the news consumers who were mainly worried about loved ones.
Over the last 20 years the BBC have migrated from “news” to “entertainment” and can perhaps be forgiven for seeking kudos and clicks over truth.
But what to think of New Zealand’s own government? “The severity of it, of course, [is] made worse by the fact that our global temperatures have already increased by 1.1 degrees,” said ‘climate change’ minister James Shaw.
This tone-deaf declaration mainly illustrates how mind-bogglingly unempathetic and useless Mr Shaw is.
Why is he pontificating about global ‘climate change’ when a third of his population is being affected by the worst storm in living memory, and a quarter of a million people are without power?
Come to think of it, why does New Zealand need a ‘climate change’ minister at all if all he’ll do in times of real crisis is to pontificate to the BBC about a fairly insignificant recent global warming?
IPCC’s Technical Summary implies he is more interested in supplying misinformation to foreign journalists than to solving any problems at home.
But perhaps he should be forgiven for worrying about a 1.1 C increase in global temperature while his country was in crisis as he was likely the only minister who couldn’t find something useful to do.
Perhaps after New Zealand has rebuilt their bridges, restored electricity and internet, buried their dead, rebuilt their houses, and restored their food supply chains, they will realize that a ‘Ministry of Climate Change’ is about as useful as a Ministry of Silly Walks.
Header image: mz.co.nz
Please Donate Below To Support Our Ongoing Work To Defend The Scientific Method
PRINCIPIA SCIENTIFIC INTERNATIONAL, legally registered in the UK as a company 
incorporated for charitable purposes. Head Office: 27 Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AX.
Trackback from your site.
Doug Harrison
| #
As a New Zealander I was horrified to hear James Shaw, using the terrible disaster that is now inflicting such pain on my country, as a propaganda opportunity. The man is a nerd who has no respect for truth or facts and as such is totally evil.
Reply