I have to ask: is scientifically absurd climate change hype from the media now in Julie Principle territory, meaning that it is so predictable that it isn’t even worth noting of complaining about? CNN village idiot Don Lemon has been injecting climate change propaganda into his coverage at every opportunity, as have (going even lower down the intellectual scale) the Ladies of the View and others. When I read that Ian had been downgraded to a tropical storm, I wondered, “Hmmm…does that now mean this storm isn’t the result of climate change, since we’ve been told that we are facing more and more destructive hurricanes (which so far have not materialized as predicted, mirabile dictu)?” Then Ian was upgraded to a hurricane on the way to South Carolina—so Ian again owes his existence to climate change? Someone ask Don or Whoopie, quick.
President Biden, before asking where Willard Scott was (Kidding!), said yesterday that Hurricane Ian could be the “deadliest hurricane in Florida’s history.” This was and is nonsense, but the mainstream media went out of its way to try to cover for Joe by putting out misleading articles like NBC’s “How Hurricane Ian compares to Florida’s most destructive storms” and Reuters’ “Factbox: The worst hurricanes in Florida’s history as Ian takes aim.” According to these and other sources, the only hurricanes in Florida history occurred since 1990, making it pretty easy to rank Ian among the “deadliest” (if you ignore Katrina). Well heck, if Florida had no hurricanes until the last 30 years, Don Lemon must be right about climate change!
Of course, Florida has had scores of deadly hurricanes, the worst on record probably being the un-named 1935 Labor Day hurricane, which killed more than 400 people. (So far, the death toll in Florida is 12). The President was scaremongering and talking nonsense again, but keeping Florida’s storm history to just 30 years was a clever way to cover for him.
Funny, I’m pretty sure climate change wasn’t a problem in 1935….how did that storm happen?
In its deceptive, Joe-supporting news story, NBC writes, “[H]urricanes in recent years have become rainier and more intense because of climate change.” No evidence is given, naturally, because this is all confirmation bias. The articles also cleverly pivot from Biden’s absurd “deadliest” prediction to “most destructive” or “worst” using “costliest” as the measure for what constitutes “destructive.” Obviously Florida is far more developed now than in, say, 1960, when Hurricane Donna killed at least 364 and caused $900 million damage in 1960 dollars.
Conclusion: It is literally impossible to get straightforward information from the news media today without having to spend time on independent research and checking multiple sources. The reason for this is that the news media is adding its partisan and ideological agendas to everything….even the weather.
Ethics Alarms 
I have heard it rumored – although I haven’t verified it myself yet – that the National Hurricane Institute’s maps showed that it would hit Fort Meyers, as of almost a week ago. But some of their models showed Tampa in the 5% possibility crosshairs, and so all the local media picked up and ran that Tampa was about to get it. Resulting in people being surprised when it ran straight into Fort Meyers as predicted, because they WEREN’T warned.
Ideological agendas have to involve weather because Climate Change is the bugaboo they are counting on to reshape our country and the world into their image. Climate change deniers are those anti-intellectual white nationalist conservative fascists who are a danger to democracy.
The narrative is built and is being promoted by most media outlets.
But the Julie Principle should be used sparingly. I can’t shrug off a deliberate attempt to mislead the public in order to help a preferred party seize permanent power the same way I can shake my head at Trump’s poor communication skills.
The media has clearly crippled some people’s ability to employ logic. A fine example: Yesterday someone posted a comment that Ian was Destanis’s fault, because he doesn’t appropriately believe in climate change, and also, he’s conservative so the entire state is doomed. DOOMED!
A smart aleck wandered into the conversation, and said that perhaps those folks with damage hadn’t followed Biden’s clear hurricane preparedness directions by getting vaccinated. No less than 5 people responded to this clear sarcasm with a fact check that Biden did not say to prepare for Ian by getting vaccinated. Biden did say to prepare for hurricanes as a whole by getting vaccinated. Sure, he didn’t specifically say it about Ian, but he did say it. None of those people had the mental capacity to see that the fact check was clearly a spin on what Biden said, but that the comment was sarcasm.
I wanted to be surprised, but alas, I was not.
I am waiting for the hyped-up coverage of the preparedness or lack thereof by the Mayors of the Carolina coastal cities and the governor of South Carolina.
I saw a study (possibly at Coyote blog) that tracked hurricanes over many years. All hurricanes. Using NOAA data. It showed that hurricanes occur at a pretty constant annual rate, about 10-12 per year. Most play out over water, never making landfall anyplace. The ones that make landfall do so without much rhyme or reason. Only those that make landfall generate much press, especially those hitting the US or a US possession.
An aside: wasn’t there a hurricane, maybe 20 or more years ago, that all but wiped an Air Force base of the off the south tip of Florida? That would be a candidate for “most destructive, wouldn’t it.
The hype is intended to pound on DeSantis and any mistakes he is about to make that will impact BIPOCs, racist that he is: the more horrific and apocalyptic the media can make of this storm, the better chances are DeSantis gets hammered (Ianed?) in his 2024 bid for President when he runs against Pres. Kamala Harris, whom the media will have crowned the greatest president the known universe has ever seen, beginning with her prescient observation that we have always had deep relations with the East Asi . . . erm . . . the Republic of North Korea.
I figure the coverage would go like this: If DeSantis called on 1,000 power trucks to restore power in areas bludgeoned by the storm, he would be shelled for not calling 1,500 power trucks. If he put 3,000 fire trucks on the front lines waiting to help, he would get pounded for not putting 3,005 on the front lines. Water? 38 millions of water wouldn’t be enough – he should have had 48 million gallons. Roads? Who needs roads for those evil gas guzzlers when electric vehicles would have been more efficient and saved the environment? Food? He is pandering to white racist privilege because he doesn’t care about food equity justice. Clothing? Well, The Gap is so bougy . . . . You get the picture.
jvb
Well, that didn’t take too long. Check out this twitter post:
jvb
Maybe there were others, only they got classified as deaths from Covid-19.
Here’s something reasonable from CNN or all places: https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/29/opinions/hurricane-ian-florida-population-strader/index.html
As I would say, stop putting mobile homes inches above sea level out on sand spits in the Gulf of Mexico might be a good start, eh?
The articles also cleverly pivot from Biden’s absurd “deadliest” prediction to “most destructive” or “worst” using “costliest” as the measure for what constitutes “destructive.”
See . . . now here’s where it gets insidious: Using “costliest” as the metric is a sure winner when the damage assessment is done following a period of excessively-high inflation since the cost of EVERYTHING is much higher these days than it has been in the past.
But “You never let a serious crisis go to waste.”, isn’t that right, Rahm?
–Dwayne