A recent article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “Ad running in Wisconsin gives a new name to weather events worsened by climate change: unnatural disasters,” discusses an advertising campaign that is trying to mobilize moms to take climate action when voting, by scaring them with claims that climate change is causing worse floods, heat waves, and wildfires. [emphasis, links added]
This is false.
The trends for none of the types of extreme weather events they are warning of are worsening.
American families are in less danger from the weather now than at any other point in history.
The article says:
An ad running in Wisconsin and other swing states is urging residents to consider a new term to describe severe weather events worsened by climate change: “unnatural disasters.”
Science Moms, a nonpartisan group of climate scientists that emphasizes the risks climate change poses to families, is spending $2.5 million on the ad campaign, one of a handful they’ve run as they expand across the U.S., including on billboards. It underscores that human-caused climate change is making floods, heat waves, wildfires, and other extreme weather worse — jeopardizing kids’ ability to experience the world the way generations prior could.
Right away, the central claim of both the advertising campaign and article is false. Floods, heat waves, and wildfires, among other natural weather events, have not become more extreme by any measure that can be recorded.
Beginning with flooding, media outlets and climate activists’ claims to the contrary, data does not show there is an increase in the frequency or intensity of flooding events.
The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports with only low confidence that climate change is impacting flooding worldwide, it is just as likely that flooding is getting less common.
In the United States, the picture is likewise not very scary, damage from flooding appears to have declined over time, even as modest warming continued.
Despite an increase in infrastructure over time, the costs as a proportion of the U.S. gross domestic product of flood damage have significantly dropped since the early part of the 20th century.
Heat waves have received a lot of media coverage over the past year. Climate Realism has covered many of the specific heat-wave events in detail here, here, and here, for example.
The stories almost uniformly falsely claim that some location or other in the world experienced unprecedented temperatures while ignoring historical data that show otherwise.
They also ignore the growing impact of the urban heat island effect, which can have a significant warming effect, especially at night, in downtown areas, as discussed here in detail.
Most notably, however, data show that the vast majority of the United States has seen a decrease in the number of days equal to or over 95°F. (See figure below)
Additionally, historical data show the most severe heat in the United States occurred in the 1930s; recent extended heat records are not even close.
Finally, regarding wildfires, again the worst wildfires occurred in the United States during the beginning of the 20th century.
As Climate Realism has covered in great detail here, here, and here, for instance, available data do not indicate that the conditions necessary for massive wildfires are getting more likely over time, and at the global scale they are becoming less frequent and severe.
Proof of the latter point is provided by NASA and the European Space Agency. Satellite data from those organizations show that over the past few decades, the number of wildfires and acreage lost to them has declined dramatically.
Moms do not need to be worried that climate change is going to make America less safe for their families.
It is shameful that the Journal Sentinel chose to uncritically parrot the alarmist talking points from moms who, rather than being called “Science Moms” would be more accurately named, “Moms Lacking a Good Science Education.”
Data show their claims are false, their fears are unjustified, and thus the Journal Sentinel’s decision to promote their point of view is fake news.
Read more at Climate Realism
Non-partisan my a*s. “Climate change” is a catch-all phrase for disagreeable weather. Any attempt to connect weather to carbon dioxide is farcical. CO2 is a mere .04% of air.
Mothers should worry more about the lies their kids are bring tuaght at the Schools lik with this Global Warming/Climate Change Scam
I was wondering who these “Science Moms” were so clicked on the link to their website. I found that Katharine Hayhoe was one of these so-called “climate scientists. She who will block you on twitter (aka X) even if you’ve never commented on anything she poste as she did to me. She refuses to debate any real scientists like pretty much every other of the Climate Alarmist “Scientists”. Just more scare mongering.
I’ve always felt that the side which refuses to debate is the one in the wrong. If the facts were on the side of climate alarmists they would be saying, “bring it on!” But, as we know, it is the climate realists who always say, “bring it on!” This should demonstrate which side has the better arguments.