We have long surmised that the warnings of climate-related catastrophe by the “sky is falling” crowd were, shall we say, exaggerated. But given the unquestioning embrace by academia and the elite media of the assertion that we are all headed for armageddon in the near future, piercing the veil or finding cracks in the armor of its entirely hypothetical arguments has been difficult. Truth is hard to uncover when those with a vested interest in its suppression replace honest inquiry with group-think virtue-signaling.
But now comes an admission straight from the belly of the beast, which will need to be explained away by the climate extremists. CBS meteorologist and so-called “climate specialist” Jeff Berardelli, who has written extensively about “environmental justice,” whatever that is, must have stunned his audience this week when he made an admission which is sure to enrage everyday Americans and his fellow climate alarmists - for opposite reasons.
Symbolism?
Berardelli began his analysis with conventional wisdom among environmental activists: “In the next 5 years, it is somewhat likely that we will hit 1.5 degrees Celsius … extreme weather events will pick up … heat waves on top of sea-level rise on top of large hurricanes and impactful hurricanes. And so things will get worse and worse if we breach 1.5 degrees Celsius.”
But then came the startling admission: “the 1.5 is merely symbolic … because humans chose it.”
We have been scolded for years by self-serious environmental activists - starting with Al Gore - about our shameful rape of the land and force-fed an ongoing sermon with an unambiguous message: the end is nigh. But when predictions some 20 years ago by Mr. Gore and his fellow travelers of American cities overcome by heat, unbearable droughts and floods (yes, both) and all manner of extreme weather failed to materialize, they decided to move the goalposts, positing that an increase of that exact 1.5 degrees celsius in the global temperature would signal the last roundup for planet Earth. And this time, they really meant it.
Like most conspiracy theorists, they presented an argument that could be neither proven nor disproven, strengthened by the exactness of the 1.5 figure and the weighty title attached to its promoters, “climate scientist,” invented by the movement to add credibility to those predicting climate catastrophe. Nevertheless, that north star number gained currency because it has been embraced hook, line, and sinker by sycophantic corporate media unconcerned by the movement’s many previous false flags and by academics who dare not depart from the woke company line for fear of having their government funding run dry.
So now we are supposed to just shrug when we find out what we always suspected, that the countdown to catastrophe from the environmental extremists was based on a “symbolic” number pulled out of thin air?
A Changing Scale
This 21st-century iteration of climate alarmism has been spawned by acolytes of the same crowd which warned the world of the coming ice age half a century ago. When it became obvious that their predictions were embarrassingly off base, they flipped the script to issue equally dire warnings of the opposite - global warming.
But they don’t use that term anymore either, because the Earth has not warmed nearly as much as they predicted - big surprise. Plus, the expression “global warming” is not sufficiently alarming or all-encompassing. Why limit your predictions of doom to just high temperatures, when you can scare people more thoroughly by adding the specter of hurricanes, tornadoes and tsunamis into the mix? Thus, they moved the goalposts again, and voila - we got environmental extremism 3.0: climate change. (Version 3.1 upgrades it to “climate crisis,” and cleverly connects it to the issue of race, proclaiming that minorities are hit hardest by environmental injustice). And now, we are shocked, shocked to hear from the inside that the whole blasted thing is based on a made-up number.
Have these people ever heard the old expression about crying wolf?
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Read more from Tim Donner.
