Given the gravity of the policy alternatives facing America, it is more important than ever these days to be a “philosophical detective” when reading the news. Why? Because so much “news” is really propaganda.
Take, for example, an Associated Press report that was published on page 9 of section one of the Sunday 10/25/20 New Jersey Star-Ledger in the section Nation & World. The article was titled “After the debate, some ask: So what is Biden’s energy plan?” * The article reports on confusion sowed by Joe Biden’s contradictory remarks in his second debate with Donald Trump.
But I want to highlight a few instances of bias that I believe objective people should be on the lookout for. All further italics are mine.
The Democratic presidential nominee has spent months touting a $2 trillion plan to boost investment in clean energy and stop all climate-damaging emissions from the U.S. economy by 2050.
Later, the article uses the term “climate-damaging fossil fuels.” Human caused emissions of greenhouse gases, namely carbon dioxide, have contributed to a general, though relatively mild, global warming, a.k.a. climate change. But climate change does not equal climate damage. The warming likely has some negative effects, but also some important positive effects, such as accelerated plant growth, which has helped expand food production and the subsequent drop in hunger. A more objective term would be “climate-impacting emissions.”
With less than two weeks until the election, Biden’s comment is prompting a sudden test of whether voters who increasingly say they are worried about the climate crisis will embrace steps to confront it.
The term “climate crisis” is a political slogan. It’s purpose is to sow a sense of fear and urgency. Statists need a sense of crisis to justify their power, and they’ll need plenty of liberty-crushing power to push through the Green New Deal and other criminal socialist agenda items. To Environmentalism, which these days has formed an unholy alliance with the socialist Left, the crisis has nothing to do with reducing climate danger. The “crisis” is in the very fact that the climate is changing due to human activity. Environmentalists’ value standard is nature unaltered by human impact. Climate danger has always been a crisis for humans. So the fact that humans have impacted nature in a positive way, making ourselves safer from those dangers, means nothing. Human benefit is not a good. It is a crisis, because human betterment requires impacting the environment in a big way. Climate impact is a side effect. But it’s not the bad effects that concern the climate crisis mongers. Good or bad, human caused climate change is bad because it’s not “natural,” and must be stopped regardless of the harm to human well-being. Yet here is the Associated Press using the term “the climate crisis” as if it is an objective fact, not agenda-driven propaganda.
During a season of worsening wildfires, hurricanes and other disasters, scientists are issuing urgent warnings that big cuts in burning oil, gas and coal are needed right away.
Scientists’ “urgent warnings” are the result of political interests trapping scientists into conclusions with leading questions. As Bjorn Lomborg explains in his book False Alarm, the gimmick is to give scientists an impossible “what if” question; to wit, “If we are to keep global warming to 2c degrees above pre-industrial levels, what actions are needed?” Why 2 degrees? It’s arbitrary. So scientists are trapped into “issuing urgent warnings.” Does this mean scientists believe fossil fuels should be drastically cut? No. Only that if we are to keep warming to 2c degrees, then we must cut fossil fuels. Does this mean disaster without “big cuts” in fossil fuels. No. The IPCC’s own projections show continued human progress in life quality and prosperity without any cuts whatsoever, even if the projected increases in frequency of weather extremes comes to pass.
Polling by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago shows a majority of Americans acknowledge people are causing global warming and link global warming to worsening natural disasters.
It has become a knee-jerk response to always blame every “natural disaster”, no matter how common, on climate change, evidence not needed. This is not surprising, given the steady drumbeat of propaganda. But a closer look at the evidence shows little, if any, meaningful worsening of destructiveness from weather extremes. A good example of how this dichotomy is being pulled off can be seen from a Reason article by Ronald Bailey, U.N. Reports 'Staggering Rise in Climate-Related Disasters'. “And yet,” Bailey notes, “fewer lives are being lost with no increase in proportional economic losses.” Digging into the report’s “evidence for how rising average global temperature specifically is affecting humanity,” Bailey finds a trend of increasing climate safety for humans. Where it counts most, things are getting better, not worse. The genuine disaster would be from drastic cuts in fossil fuels, which provide the energy needed to keep us safe from climate danger. Polling will not tell you that. Facts will.
Improving technology and falling prices mean renewables already are making huge gains in the marketplace.
This is simply not true. Yes, technology is improving and prices have come down, as expected as economies of scale take hold. But gains in the marketplace? Take my home state of New Jersey. Despite years of subsidies, NJ still gets 94% of its energy from natural gas and nuclear power. Worldwide, fossil fuels continue to outgrow wind and solar.
Solar, wind and other clean energy will surpass coal and nuclear next year in the share of U.S. electricity they produce, the U.S. Energy Information Administration says.
This is vague. What constitutes “clean energy” when the cleanest energy source, nuclear, is lumped in with coal? The AP’s bias toward Environmentalism, which opposes nuclear and is a key faction of the Left, is obvious. Objectively, any serious agenda to “fight climate change” must include nuclear power. As to “the share of U.S. electricity,” the statement only makes sense if natural gas counts as the “other clean energy.” Natural gas is booming, thanks to the fracking revolution, and has been replacing coal at a ferocious rate, as it has gotten cheaper and more plentiful. The AP’s vageness leaves the impression of dramatic solar and wind gains, not the reality that the main driver of clean energy gains is from natural gas, a carbon dioxide-emitting fossil fuel. The only way “Solar, wind and other clean energy will surpass coal and nuclear” is if the “other” is natural gas.
In 2019, major media outlets worldwide launched a Covering Climate Now campaign. This is the way CNN/Business announced the launch of the project:
More than 250 news outlets around the world have committed to Covering Climate Now.
What is it? An initiative to provide focused coverage of the climate crisis in print, on air and online.
Participating news outlets are running stories in the run-up to the UN Climate Action Summit on September 23 [2019]. The organizers hope to keep it going well past this month. [emphasis added]
I don’t know how this initiative fared since then. But this is pretty much a smoking gun on the media's approach to climate change. Articles like this one are no surprise. This is not reporting. This is activist journalism smuggled in under cover of news reporting.
* [This is the title given by the Star-Ledger. The AP’s original title is Biden’s warning on oil tests voter resolve on climate change. By ELLEN KNICKMEYER and KATHLEEN RONAYNE, and published on October 24, 2020]
Related Reading:
The Collectivist Left Media Launches Major ‘Climate Crisis’ Propaganda Campaign
False Alarm by Bjorn Lomborg
New U.N. Study Shows Climate Catastrophists Getting More Open About their Totalitarian Designs
‘Climate Crisis’: The Dem’s Path to Totalitarian Socialism
The End of Doom: Environmental Renewal in the Twenty-first Century--Ronald Bailey
Ten Global Trends Every Smart Person Should Know: And Many Others You Will Find Interesting by Ronald Bailey and Marian L. Tupy
Sanders Validates Hicks’s ‘Crisis of Socialism’ Contention
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