The various legacy media outlets just continue to prove that they can't be trusted to report on matters of science accurately. There are any number of reasons for this: Laziness, incompetence, lack of knowledge of how the scientific method works, or just plain service to the climate-scold agenda. Of those, I'm inclined to believe that last item is key; that would explain why, again and again, we see reports that omit key data despite constant, repeated correction.
When you presume it's an agenda, after all, then the rest comes clear: Principals, not principles. It's all about the agenda.
Case in point: The legacy media, in particular the climate-panic advocates, are now stirring up heat (hah) about the oncoming El Niño, claiming that we are in for some record-breaking temps; but, again, they leave out some key data.
The headline writers have been busy. A glance at the climate press for the past month produces, in no particular order:
“Atmospheric Code Red: 2026 Super El Niño Now Trending Toward Record-Breaking Intensity” (Severe Weather Europe)
“The ‘Godzilla’ El Nino Is Coming: This Version Is Something the World Has Never Seen Before” (Open Magazine)
“How a monster ocean heatwave could fuel a super El Niño” (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)
There's more, but you get the point. In that first link, the Severe Weather Europe page breathlessly reports:
This “Code Red” scenario for the global atmosphere is being driven by a massive oceanic Kelvin wave that has grown more energetic in recent weeks. This subsurface heat pulse is expected to rise to the surface levels, acting as a “release valve”, that will kickstart the reorganization of global weather patterns, starting in the tropics.
In the second, Open Magazine, likewise breathless, reports:
Something massive is building in the Pacific Ocean, and climate scientists are already reaching for dramatic vocabulary to describe it.
A weather pattern being called the "Godzilla El Niño" is forecast to drive global temperatures to record highs later this year and into 2027.
The warnings are coming from the highest levels of international climate science, and the implications stretch far beyond rising thermometers.
Godzilla, indeed. There's just one problem with these breathless predictions:
They're bollocks.
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This has happened before.
The 2015-16 Godzilla was supposed to be epic. The Pacific was warming hard. The headlines did what the headlines do. California, then in the middle of a four-year drought, was promised relief that would arrive in winter rains of biblical proportions, and was also told that this was the new normal, that the El Niño was the relief, and that the relief would also be cataclysmic. This was the genre.
What happened next is worth remembering. The 2015-16 event peaked near-record by traditional Oceanic Niño Index measures, produced moderate atmospheric coupling, delivered modest impacts in California (some rain, not enough to end the drought), and contributed to a record-warm year that was indistinguishable in the long-term record from the existing warming trend. In June 2016, NOAA’s Mike Halpert formally pronounced the Godzilla dead: There’s nothing left. Stick a fork in it, it’s done.
What the issue here involves is scientific uncertainty. Scientific knowledge is, by definition, tentative, subject to new data, to improved measurements, to examination of influencing factors. Confounding this issue is lazy reporting on the part of the climate-scold media; the key player in these analyses is the American National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and NOAA has some information that sheds a whole new light on these dire predictions; namely, that just like in 2015-2016, it may simply never happen.
The current ENSO Diagnostic Discussion is helpful for separating the meteorology from the press. The May 2026 discussion confirms that El Niño is likely to emerge: 82% chance in the May-July period, 96% chance for the December 2026 to February 2027 winter. That part is in nearly every press story.
What is in almost none of the press stories is the next paragraph. NOAA notes that confidence in El Niño occurring has gone up, but adds a sentence that the press would benefit from reading: “There is still substantial uncertainty in the peak strength of El Niño, with no strength categorization exceeding a 37% chance.”
Read that again, because the press did not. NOAA is saying: we are quite confident that some El Niño will emerge. We have low confidence in how strong it will be. No strength category, not weak, not moderate, not strong, not very strong, has more than a 37% probability assigned to it. That is not a forecast for a Godzilla. That is a forecast for “we will have an El Niño, and we will tell you how strong it is when we know.”
You can read the ENSO Diagnostic Discussion here.
This breathless panic-mongering isn't reporting. It's not honest news. It's climate scoldery and rabble-rousing, in service to an agenda that would have us sacrifice much of our current, modern, energy-hungry, comfortable, and safe lifestyles in the service of an agenda based on claims of staggering uncertainty. It's not about the climate; it's not about the environment; it's not about the planet or even our lifestyles. It's about control. As I've been saying and writing for years, it's always about control, and it's always been about control. Once you realize that, the rest of it all makes sense.
