If we made a drinking game based on media using the word “scorch” to describe warm weather we’d be under the table by now. Or under the weather. For instance DW.com’s “Europe: Scorching heat grips the continent”. And “vast swathes of Europe continue to reel under scorching summer temperatures”. Or Axios’s “Nearly 130 million people are under extreme heat warnings or advisories today, as a heat dome continues to scorch the Midwest and East Coast.” Or Bloomberg’s “China’s Scorching Heat Poses Summer Test for Electricity Grid”. Or Castanet’s “Scorching heat in Europe puts regions on high alert”. Or the CBC’s “Ontario, Quebec and large swaths of U.S. battle scorching temperatures”. Or France24’s “Spain suffers scorching heatwave”. The BBC throws in “Scorching European heatwave turns deadly in Spain and France”. And Climate Cosmos offers “Europe's Hottest Summers: The 10 Countries Scorched by Extreme Heatwaves”. And the weird thing is it’s not just everyone using the same word, it’s everyone using a word that’s obviously wrong.
By any reasonable dictionary definition, scorching involves things getting scorched. As in the surface at least is charred, burned or otherwise blackened and broken. But none of the things being described in this story are, and if a country got scorched you wouldn’t be wondering which one it had been.
Especially with “The numbers don't lie – our planet's oceans are scorching hot.” You literally cannot scorch water. And what’s with:
“Europe's extreme weather continues amid scorching heatwave/ Athens has been forced to close the Acropolis as Greece is scorched by a 42C heatwave that has all but brought the nation to its knees.”
All but. As in not at all. The dictionary flees in terror. (Oh, and in case you’re counting, the all-time modern-era temperature record in Greece was set in 1977.)
Then there’s this rant “Europe Scorched by Record-Breaking Heatwave Amid Climate Crisis” which is wrong in that Europe is not scorched, it’s not a record-breaking heatwave and it’s not a climate crisis because the things they say are happening are not. Including but not restricted to:
“Red and amber heat warnings are in place across Portugal, Italy, France, and others, as the ‘silent killer’ of extreme heat increasingly threatens lives. Experts warn that such deadly heatwaves, already responsible for around half a million deaths annually worldwide, are becoming more intense and frequent in a warming world.”
Silent killer? News story after news story hollers about it… even as cold continues to kill far more human beings than heat, in hot as well as cold countries. Also:
“Countries including Spain, Serbia, and Slovenia have recorded historic highs, with Spain hitting 46°C in early June.”
Yeah? Would that be the same Serbia whose thermometer-era record high was set in 2007? The Slovenia whose equivalent dates to 2013? Or the Spain whose all-time modern-instrument high was set in 2021 if you discard higher readings from 1978, 1926, 1881 and 1876 because they may not have been done right unlike modern ones in the middle of vast stretches of urban asphalt and cement? Indeed.
Something is charred and disintegrating. But it’s your reputations.
This type of propaganda reporting reminds me of the Covid Era propaganda reporting. It is all too familiar and it really works on those who tune into the Any O'clock News!
Let's not forget those blood red weather maps either.Same temps,same calender dates as years past when they were more neutral colors.Alarmism sells news,the media loves it.
Well, the last few days here in the great white north have been scorching. I guess we'd call them scorchers. Not literally of course. And I'm quite enjoying it but not spending too much time in the sun. Too great a risk of getting scorched. Literally. But that can happen even if it's not a scorcher day. Just requires sun and fair skin exposed for too long.
Apparently, the scientific versions of Chicken Little are not very creative communicators. Though running in circles, flapping your flightless wings and crowing the words "the sky is falling" doesn't really offer many possibilities for literary improvement! May I point out that we were having a mild and wet spring until about 10 days ago when for some odd reason temperatures suddenly rose. I wonder if it has anything to do with the sun being high in the sky in these northern climates, the sun is up at 5:00 AM and sets at 9:00 PM in Wisconsin...that would be 16 hours per day of "scorching"!
It's not a "weird thing" that "just everyone using the same word" that's the plan from https://coveringclimatenow.org/ the community of "500+ news and media outlets with a reach of 2 Billion + in 60+ countries to "support, convene, and train journalists and newsrooms to produce rigorous climate coverage that engages audiences."
"Co-founded in 2019 by Columbia Journalism Review and The Nation magazine in association with the Guardian and WNYC, CCNow invites journalists everywhere to transform how our profession covers the defining story of our time. Unless news outlets around the world dramatically improve and expand their climate coverage, there simply will not be the public awareness and "political will" needed to tackle the crisis."
A new role for "news", the "Triumph of the Will" demands the masses sing from the same song sheet with no discordant notes. Alan Rusbridger announced in 2015 the "Guardian" was no longer a newspaper with balanced coverage but "a campaigning organization" against Climate Change and would give no coverage to anything not in support of the message.