While you boring shlubs may be worrying about China’s drive for world domination, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the ongoing disarmament of the West and the American retreat into isolationism, the cool people are saying the cool spring doesn’t mean it’s not the hottest and worst and waaaah! We are all going to die. For instance, and we kid you not, MSN reports “Over 150 ‘Unprecedented’ Climate Disasters Struck Worldwide in Early 2025”. Unless they didn’t, and we were just chasing clicks. And the thrill we used to get from modest doses of alarmism now just leave us feeling vaguely tired and depressed, so we need to keep amping up the dosage even though it makes for a pathetic spectacle.
Unprecedented is a big word. Thirteen letters, five syllables, Latin roots. Very learned. But the problem is that it does not mean what they think it means. It has become even more common in alarmist propaganda, in this case from Weather-Fox, than “collapsing polar vortex”. But even if the other things the story said were true, this adjective in quotation marks in the headline would still be false.
For instance the grisly slideshow starts with “The Rise of Unpredictable Weather Patterns” which is just silly because the unpredictability of weather was a standing joke long before the invention of television made weatherpersons the butt of it. Then we get “Record-Breaking Heatwaves Scorch Continents” which is just a lie, because no continent has been scorched and there haven’t been record-breaking heatwaves.
In the United States, which has the best records, we know perfectly well the worst heatwaves were a century ago, in the 1930s. Elsewhere we just don’t know. And how can anyone, even a journalist on deadline, write “Devastating Floods Submerge Cities”. Name one city that has been submerged. You can’t. Shame on you.
Apparently not. Next comes “Wildfires Rage Across Drought-Stricken Regions”. But we have pretty good data on wildfires going back centuries, and they’re far less common now than they used to be. If anything’s unprecedented, it’s how much is not on fire.
As for “Polar Ice Melts at Alarming Rates”, wake us when it’s over. But not to say “Hurricanes Intensify and Multiply” because, again, they don’t. We have good data and it shows no increase in number or force. And we’re almost done, though they’re not, because the next slide went:
“Drought conditions have become more severe and widespread, posing a significant threat to global food security. In Africa, prolonged dry spells have decimated crops, leading to food shortages and increased prices.”
No. No they have not. There is no discernible global trend in droughts, and the regional pattern is one of uncertainty. So they just made that part up. But even if it were true, is it the first time? Is it “unprecedented”? What of known past megadroughts like the monster in the southwest of what is now North America some eight centuries ago? Actually it was worse. Way worse. You have said the thing that is not.
And went right on saying it. But we stopped reading. We don’t say they’re lying. But we almost wish they were because liars might become ashamed and stop, or simply start worrying about getting caught. This stuff instead spews forth without thought. Literally.
