The left seems to be willing to employ any tactic in furtherance of their agenda, and the core of that agenda is control. Control of you, of me, of what we do, where we live, what we eat, what we drive; you know, control. Climate panic-mongering is just one of many tools the left uses to try to control us.
But there's always the problem that the facts, when looked at dispassionately, don't support their panic-mongering. In the latest episode, the Seattle Times' "ClimateLab," a propaganda sheet masquerading as a science journal, is attempting to blame rising river and sea levels on human activity. But an intrepid climate blogger, who runs the Cliff Mass Weather Blog, has called them out - and he's bringing the numbers to the table.
Demonstrably false information, serious science errors, and continuing misinformation.
Yes, we are talking about another Seattle Times ClimateLab article. ClimateLab is sponsored journalism, whereby advocacy groups pay for "journalism", which coincidentally supports the group's positions.
The story is about flooding in the South Park neighborhood of Seattle, a community built on the floodplain of the Duwamish River. An area that has flooded regularly for millennia.
The Seattle Times makes the unfounded claim that human-caused global warming is a major driver of the flooding....suggesting that the major flood of December 17, 2022, demonstrates that this neighborhood is "on the front lines of climate change".
The article states that South Park has to "brace for climate change" and by mid-century (2050) that the water level should rise by another foot.
As I will prove below, the Seattle Times claims are clearly contradicted by clear scientific evidence.
By sponsored journalism, Cliff Mass means "paid propaganda." This is the journalistic equivalent of a vanity publisher, not a science journal, and not to be taken seriously. And, as we see, the flood that the ClimateLab piece is attempting to spread panic over was not due to climate change, anthropogenic or otherwise:
The recent Times article highlighted the major South Park flood of December 27, 2022. This event brought flooding to the South Park area as water levels rose to 15 feet MLLW, the mean lower low water level, which represents the average of the lowest low water for each day, calculated over a 19-year period.
The water was very high because of several factors occurring simultaneously: a very large astronomical King Tide associated with the moon and sun being aligned during a favorable time of the year, very low and unusual atmospherc pressure (which caused water levels to rise), and heavy prior rain, that revved up the Dumaamish River.
None of these were associated with global warming.
That's true. Tides are caused by the moon and the sun; as noted, the King Tide is when the gravitational pull of the moon and the sun are aligned, making for a very high tide indeed. Rain, one could make a case that warmer air can contain a greater volume of water vapor, but since when is rain an unusual thing in the Pacific Northwest?
Here's where it gets good:
On average, Seattle's sea level has risen about 2.09 mm (.08 inches) per year. So over the past fifty years, a period where rising CO2 levels and associated warming became significant, the sea level in Seattle rose about 4 inches.
So perhaps 4 inches of the 15 feet of the extreme water level during that 2022 flood MIGHT be explained by human-caused global warming.
That is TWO PERCENT. I repeat 2%. So why in the world is the Seattle Times ClimateLab pointing its finger at global warming? Such claims are contrary to data.
So, the sea level has risen about four inches in 50 years. The ClimateLab people are claiming that sea levels will rise another foot in the next 25 years, when, based on past measurements, we can only expect another two inches. That, when you're talking sea levels, is barely noticeable. For the sea levels to rise a foot, the rate of sea level rise would have to accelerate at an incredible (in the original sense of the word) rate.
That's not going to happen. ClimateLab's reporting here is irresponsible panic-mongering.
See Also: Big News! The Climate Catastrophe That Wasn't.
This Is Good: CO2 Causes Plant Growth, Global Greening
We've seen the predictions of climate scolds fail, one after the other, time and again. And now we see why; they ignore the actual data, they ignore what the math tells them, they ignore the facts. To spread their message, they rely on unreliable sources, like the Seattle Times' "ClimateLab" vanity publisher. It's laughably easy to prove their assertions wrong; as Cliff Mass Weather Blog has shown us, all you have to do is start picking apart their assertions and doing the math.
And we all know why. It's not about the climate. They know it's not about the climate. We know it's not about the climate. It's about control, and outfits like ClimateLab are hoping to fool enough of the people all of the time to gain that control.
