In an apparent exception to the rule that climate change only ever causes bad things, the Washington Post tells us that “The global camel population has doubled over the last 20 years, something the U.N. agency for agriculture and investment attributes partly to the animal’s suitability amid climate change.” Apparently East Africa has been in drought for 3 years so villagers in Kenya are switching from cows to the famously drought-resistant but obnoxious Camelus dromedarius and as a side-benefit “camels produce more milk than cows.” Of course what they produce is camel, not cow, milk, and if it tasted any good we’d expect farmers to have swapped their cows for camels long ago. On that note the Post reverts to form, telling us that climate change killed off most of the cows. Which they at least see as a bad thing, despite their recent obsession with ending cattle farming in western countries in the name of saving the climate. Soon you’ll be eating bugs and washing it down with a nice cool glass of camel milk.

If you listen to camel enthusiasts, the stuff is a treat:

“A little nervous to try camel milk? You’ve heard about the amazing health benefits, but what about the taste? Camel milk has a sweet, slightly salty, and creamy taste. It has a similar smooth consistency to 2% milk, even though it is very lean and low-fat. Most people who try it for the first time expect to hate it! They expect it to taste gamey or sour.”

And the Post seems very sure about it:

“Cows, here and across much of Africa, have been the most important animal for eons – the foundation of economies, diets, traditions. But now grazable land is shrinking. Water sources are drying up. A three-year drought in the Horn of Africa that ended last year killed 80 percent of the cows in this part of Kenya and shattered the livelihoods of so many people. In this region with the thinnest of margins, millions are being forced to adapt to climate change…”

Ah yes, climate change. Because East Africa never used to have droughts. But where’s the evidence? What indicates that Kenya is drier now, or drier in a worse way, than it was for “eons”? A recent Fraser Institute study confirms what others have been saying, and we have been cataloguing, for some time now. The evidence does not exist.

Alarmists now take the change for granted rather than arguing for it and offering systematic proof. News stories say things like “glacier melt is a global phenomenon blamed on climate change” and do not ask if it started centuries ago. They email:

“To mark this special day, Thomson Reuters’ Ethical Corp Magazine has collated its annual list of 20 trailblazing women in the fight against climate change. In the year since Ethical Corp published its first list, the climate situation has become more critical.”

Critical how? Well um uh everybody knows…. CORAL BLEACHING!

“Over a longer period of time, a rise of 1.5C is believed to be the tipping point for mass coral die-offs, with scientists estimating that 90% of the world’s corals could be lost.”

Just as they weren’t in the Holocene Climatic Optimum, whatever that thing was.

The study catalogues many such quotations, including a new and even shriller Canadian government publication “Understanding the climate crisis” that helps us do no such thing with blazing verbiage such as:

“We are already seeing the impacts of the climate crisis across the globe with more severe and more frequent wildfires, floods and droughts in many parts of the world. It affects our economy, our infrastructure, our health and overall well-being too. Together, we can do our part in the global struggle by taking action to build a cleaner, healthier, and more sustainable Canada—and minimize the cost of the impacts of climate change.”

Then it invites us to “Learn more about the causes of the climate crisis and Canada’s plan” to shovel money out the double-glazed window and nag us all into changing what we eat.

Whereas we say learn more about the evidence, because for instance a new Global Warming Policy Foundation report “Weather Extremes in Historical Context“ shows that panic over floods, tornadoes and yes droughts is driven by ignorance.

Not ignorance quite as bad as that exposed by U.S. Congressman Doug LaMalfa among people with the gall to come and testify before a House of Representatives committee without bothering to do their homework even on the basics because well um uh everybody knows or something. Or even the teenager CBC fawningly interviewed who said there “Used to be coral, there used to be sea life” and it’s all happening “so fast and so slow” and “I just feel like there’s nothing we can really do but we can just slow it down” if we “empower the people who have the power”. But bad.

Including that, as Bjorn Lomborg keeps insisting, natural disasters are killing a lot fewer people than they used to, not more.

As the Fraser study says, the bottom line is that:

“many types of extreme weather show no signs of increasing and in some cases are decreasing. Drought has shown no clear increasing trend, nor has flooding. Hurricane intensity and number show no increasing trend. Globally, wildfires have shown no clear trend in increasing number or intensity…”

As they note of drought in particular:

“Severe droughts have been a continuing feature of the Earth’s climate for millennia, despite the brouhaha in the mainstream media over the extended drought in Europe during the summer of 2022.”

And while they don’t delve into the premodern era with respect to East Africa in particular, they do show a chart of (mostly reconstructed not measured) “Historical droughts in California, 800 to 2010” that shows a lot of fluctuation but absolutely no secular trend.

Of course, the fact that drought is not increasing globally doesn’t mean it isn’t increasing in some particular place. We’re not the ones who deny that weather is variable, including over long periods and big areas. For instance we accept the Medieval Warm Period, unlike those whose lips drip with “denialism” and “settled science”.