The media never let an opportunity to hype climate change. On the Nov. 1 edition of Bloomberg Business, the cover story was titled “It’s Global Warming, Stupid” which appeared in huge black letters with a red background on the cover. Underneath the title was a picture of flooding caused by Hurricane Sandy.
The article [1], written by assistant managing editor and senior writer Paul Barrett, outlined how Sandy was, of course, made worse by man-made global warming. Eric Pooley, senior vice president of the lefty Environmental Defense Fund and former Bloomberg Business deputy editor, was quoted in the story saying that while we can’t assume the storm was directly caused by global warming, it is likely it was made worse. “Now we have weather on steroids,” he stated.
Barrett continued on with the predictable calls for more alternative energy research and lamented that the issue of global warming was not discussed more in the presidential debates. He even called for a carbon tax as a way to help contain global warming. “… the idea of pricing carbon must remain a part of the national debate,” he wrote.
In typical pro-global warming style, Barrett called out the “climate deniers” for their political influence: “In truth, what’s lacking in America’s approach to climate change is not the resources to act but the political will to do so.” He concluded his article by calling politicians and the public to own up to our influence on “climate-related disasters.” In his view, the only way to cut back the costs is of such disasters is to “accept” our part in “helping to cause them.”
Not surprisingly, Bloomberg editor Josh Tyrangiel decided to hype up the new issue of BusinessWeek by insulting anyone who may question the legitimacy of man-made global warming. “Our cover story this week may generate controversy,” he tweeted [2] on Nov. 1, “but only among the stupid.” That’s one way to get more subscribers to Bloomberg Business.
Bloomberg Business is not the only publication or media outlet to link Sandy to global warming. The New York Times published a blog on Oct. 28 as Sandy was beginning to ravage the East Coast speculating that Sandy may, in fact, have been caused by global warming [3].
It is typical for the media to hype up specific weather incidents and link them to climate change [4] even though an Obama administration scientist specifically said “weather is not climate [5]” in 2010. Wild fires in Texas [6], freak wind accidents in Indiana [7], and warmer weather in general [8] have all been linked to global warming by different media outlets since 2011.