- This just in: Climate change will make Africa hot! The Globe & Mail blares: “Deadly heat in West Africa warns of climate change-driven scorchers to come, says report”. And when report says, well, case closed though, as is typical of modern journalism, they don’t link to the actual document. But it’s from the usual “attribution scientist” witch doctors at the state-subsidized World Weather Attribution, who insisted that “In a pre-industrial climate, we wouldn’t expect to see heat waves at this intensity at all. It was the hottest that anyone in living memory has had to deal with (there)”. We blew the whistle on the WWA folks’ flimsy data manipulation in our Heatwaves video. This time they didn’t even wait for the data: the Globe writes without embarrassment that: “Despite a lack of data, WWA estimates there were hundreds or possibly thousands of heat-related deaths, and it warned such extreme heat will become much more common without greater global efforts to reduce planet-warming emissions.” Yeah. Despite a lack of data. Who needs that junk? (They peddle a sob story from Niger, where the record high was set in… 1978.)
- Back to the Future: Canary Media hypes a solar/hydrogen/sailboat that “runs on 100% renewables. Can it help clean up bigger ships?” Since the world relied for millennia on sailing vessels that ran on 100% renewables then quickly switched to the modern kind as soon as they were invented we’re inclined to say No. Indeed “This fossil-free assemblage can provide all the energy that’s needed for weeks on end, although that requires constantly balancing supply and demand. When asked what the crew gives up first when the solar-power production is low, [crew member George] Conty quickly replied, “Comfort.” A dark or cloudy day can mean taking cold showers or forgoing kitchen appliances like the toaster and espresso machine.” A world without espresso? Say it ain’t so. But then, who needs that comfort junk? Plus isn’t coffee dying out thanks to climate change, or at least the good stuff?
- Chocolate certainly gets it again, courtesy of The Atlantic and, of course, “extreme weather, heightened by climate change.” Plus a huge range of other stuff but who needs that junk? “For high-end chocolate brands, whose products use lots of cocoa, the recent price hikes are reportedly an existential threat.” Yeah. And next year when you go to the store, they’ll still have it. (Incidentally we googled “poison ivy” “climate change” “the Atlantic” and of course learned that “You may have observed that poison ivy is proliferating. Increased CO2 also stimulates poison ivy growth and boosts the chemical within it (uruschiol) that causes the contact dermatitis.”) Try it yourself. Pick some nice plant and see what they said climate change would do to it, and then some nasty one.
- Potatoes are also going, evidently. So says Roger Hallam, “Co-founder of Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil” in a cheery “Update on how you are going to starve”. Actually world potato production is high and rising. But who needs facts when we have climate change?
- And indeed that pesky climate change that’s coming for us is already here, in two stories in various outlets, including on the same page in the April 15 National Post. One declares that researchers think “python farming could offer a solution to rising food insecurity around the globe, exacerbated by climate change”, although to be all technical there is not rising food insecurity around the globe but record harvests and population size and well-being, and the other that everything from peregrine falcons to coyotes to the cabbage white butterfly are fleeing into cities: “Urban areas are awash in wildlife that faces growing pressures due to climate change”. No, they’re not “awash”, and urban coyotes are hardy news. Still, “‘Within a few years, the animals that you feed at your bird feeder might look very different,’ said Alessandro Filazzola, the study’s lead author”. And if not, there won’t be a follow-up story, just as if we all don’t start ordering the McSnake and the planet survives nobody will say gee, didn’t have to scarf the constrictor after all.
- Speaking of might and could, we’re told that “Canada’s 2024 wildfire season expected to be even worse than last year’s” and of course you know what’s to blame: “The federal government said these conditions are set to be impacted by both the ongoing effects of climate change and it being an El Niño weather pattern year”. Well, at least it’s a testable proposition. But if it doesn’t happen, and they even do a follow-up, something else will explain it.
- Scientific Communism again highlights the strange link between climate alarmism and full frontal wokery by emailing a warning “Attack on the Family” that starts (try to guess) “The large number of U.S. state laws currently codifying discrimination against LGBTQ kids is taking a toll on the mental health of parents as well as their children, reports freelance science writer Marla Broadfoot.” Yup. That’s a science issue all right.
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24 Apr 2024 | News Roundup
"Despite a lack of data, WWA estimates there were hundreds or possibly thousands of heat-related deaths".
We got a model which says what the temperature should be and how many heat deaths there should be as a result. We don't need no stinkin' real-life data. Our model gives us everything we need for a good climate scare story.
Regarding "ordering the McSnake":
Sweetwater, Texas (where I was born though I almost never lived there) has an annual "Rattlesnake Roundup" at least in part because there are so many of the blasted things they need to be culled. There are contest for the most caught and the largest, etc. One thing they do is serve up rattlesnake in various dishes. I have happened to be visiting relatives who still live there during the Roundup and have actually tried fried rattlesnake. Dipped in cornmeal batter and deep fried it is fairly tasty. Likewise ground, pan fried and served in a hamburger bun (hence the "McSnake" reference) with the usual hamburger trimmings it's also not at all bad. I wouldn't travel the 300 odd miles (~482km) to eat it but it was fine when I was in town anyhow. Funny thing, I don't expect the increased CO2 has hurt the snake population one little bit. With increased plant growth due to higher CO2 the various small critters that rattlesnakes prey on have to be exploding in numbers which means the rattlesnake population must be burgeoning.
Note: It's been a while since I was in Sweetwater. My dad's last sister passed away and all the cousins live elsewhere.
@ Bill Mullins
It's a small world 🙂
While I lived in Fort Worth in the late 1980s, I went with some colleagues to a rattlesnake hunt event in Sweetwater, which probably was the 'Roundup' event you mentioned. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) it was so unseasonably cold on the day that no snakes were enticed to appear while we were there. We did, however, have a lunch with slivers of fried rattlesnake and it wasn't bad - frog or chiken-ish, as I recall.
@Anders Bonde,what about all those pythons slithering around in Florida?Thanks to man's foolishness,not climate change.Are they good eating?
Do you know?Myself I prefer a big ol' steer!