The Current Wisdom is a series of monthly articles in which Patrick J. Michaels and Paul C. “Chip” Knappenberger, from Cato’s Center for the Study of Science, review interesting items on global warming in the scientific literature that may not have received the media attention that they deserved, or have been misinterpreted in the popular press.
It’s guaranteed: every article which is “part of a year-long series that explores the places and ways in which climate change affects us” will paint a horrific picture, a part of the strange universe of global warming journalism.
Consider this: global warming has been with us as an issue for a quarter-century. Everyone knows that it lengthens the beach season, but we have yet to see one article showing nubile females and tanned hunks frolicking on the shore.
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In 25 years of global warming hype, why hasn’t one article noted that it will increase the number of beach days? Where’s the beef?[/caption]
In a recent USA Today article “Diseases on the move because of climate change,” The Campaign Continues.
It’s biblical. Brain-eating amoebas. Killer ticks. A fungus kills many among us. About the only thing missing from this one is all the deaths that will result from hail the size of canned hams.
It’s mind-boggling. 0.8°C ago, around 1900, life expectancy was one half what it is now. Malaria was endemic. Food and water-borne illnesses were real killers. All have been pretty much vanquished, despite dreaded warming. Not a mention of this.
Such droning is probably why people tune this stuff out. There’s an epidemic of the real global warming-related malady, apocalypse fatigue, [1] and still the Society of Environmental[ist] Journalists hasn’t gotten the email.
There’s no need to bring out climate change to explain recent patterns of the diseases that can be thoroughly accounted for by any of a large collection of confounding factors. We meant human-caused climate change as that’s the pernicious kind (it’s too bad we can’t ask our ancestors how much they liked the very natural ice age).