Right-Wing Media Use Tornadoes To Cast Doubt On Climate Change, Attack Global Warming Activists

Wash. Times: “Global Warming Crowd” Should Ask, “What If Everything They Have So Deeply Believed And Trusted Over The Years Turns Out To Be Completely Wrong?” In an April 28 editorial, The Washington Times accused "[c]limate-change fanatics" of “search[ing] for new meaning in tragedy” and stated that “the global-warming crowd should be asking themselves: What if everything they have so deeply believed and trusted over the years turns out to be completely wrong?” From the Times:

This year is seeing one of the worst tornado seasons in decades, and speculation is rampant about whether climate change is involved. When the dust settles, it's obvious that the rolling collapse of the case for global warming has forced alarmists to argue that even without scientific evidence, the risk is too great to reach any other conclusion.

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Tornadoes fit well with the de rigueur notion of “global climate disruption” being pushed by White House science adviser John P. Holdren. After all, nothing says disruption quite like a tornado. Conclusively linking increases in the frequency and destructive power of tornadoes to human activity would push the climate-alarmist agenda much more dramatically than other alleged effects of carbon-dioxide emissions. Amateur video of houses being ripped apart by killer storms is more riveting than footage of supposedly melting glaciers.

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There is no evidence that America is facing an increased risk from tornadoes based on human activity or carbon-dioxide emissions, but what if it is? Can we accept that risk? “What if global warming *does* cause more and more powerful tornadoes in the south?” asks The Atlantic. “What then?” This type of non-argument is typical of the reasoning the alarmist camp has been forced to employ as the factual basis for their pet theory crumbles. The questions the global-warming crowd should be asking themselves are: What if everything they have so deeply believed and trusted over the years turns out to be completely wrong? What if the belief system that has given their lives meaning for decades can no longer sustain its inner contradictions? What if their god dies? What then? [The Washington Times, 4/28/11]

Drudge: “Sorry, Al: Tornadoes Whipped Up By Wind, Not 'Climate Change.' ” On April 28, the Drudge Report linked to an article about the tornadoes with the headline, “Sorry, Al: Tornadoes whipped up by wind, not 'climate change.' ” The article to which Drudge linked indeed quoted several climatologists who “dismissed ... climate change as a factor” in causing the tornadoes. but none of the experts quoted in the article claimed that climate change is not happening. From the Drudge Report:

[Drudge Report, 4/28/11]