On Saturday, NBC’s Today show worried that all of the “environmental benefits” of the coronavirus pandemic “may not last” after the crisis is over.
While devoting a full report to touting “cleaner air and cleaner water” due to less human activity amid global economic shutdowns, the coverage cautioned that it could all be lost “if we return to business as usual.”
“With billions of people across the globe staying put, the environment is now thriving, with cleaner air and wild animals reclaiming parts of their natural habitat,” co-host Peter Alexander announced at the top of the segment.
“You know, here in New York and in many other cities around the world, even underneath the mask, if you take a deep breath, you can tell the air is cleaner and clearer,” chief environmental affairs correspondent Anne Thompson proclaimed.
The headline on screen cheered: “Back to Nature; Stay-at-Home Measures Result in Environmental Benefits.”
Thompson gushed: “From the great outdoors to the world’s great cities, the virus shut down dramatically illustrating our impact on the planet.”
Stanford University Professor Marshall Burke explained: “When we run our economies less, we pollute the environment less. And now we have seen pretty dramatic improvements in things like air quality around the world.”
“Is this a real-time experiment on our impact on the environment?” Thompson wondered.
Marshall agreed that it was, but also acknowledged the dire circumstances: “It is a real-time experiment. I don’t think it’s an experiment we wanted to run. This is not the way to clean up our environment.”
Even so, the reporter kept marveling:
Still, with fewer cars, planes and factories, the change is stunning. The murky waters of Venice’s famous canals now clear. In Wuhan, China, according to NASA, air quality improved 30%, almost 50% in Milan, Italy. Skies clearer in L.A., the Himalayas finally visible.
However, even Thompson pointed out: “Improvements coming at a horrific economic cost.”
She then turned to another environmentalist to push the idea of some changes becoming permanent and take a jab at President Trump as well:
“Climate scientist Radley Horton warns the environmental benefits may not last if we return to business as usual, especially now with the Trump administration’s rollback of pollution controls, including vehicle mileage standards and mercury and soot emissions.”
Radley proposed:
“As we go forward, maybe we’ll see more people only commute into work four days a week instead of five. Maybe we’ll see people not flying as often to conferences and instead, you know, relying more on video conferences.”
Thompson concluded: “Adapting to protect ourselves and the planet.”
Following her taped report, she reminded Alexander:
“Now, all this cleaner air and cleaner water comes just in time for the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, which will be celebrated next Wednesday.”
At the beginning of the month, NBC weatherman Al Roker joined numerous other liberal media colleagues in pushing a “silver lining” to the pandemic – pollution being “way down.”
The press never let a crisis go to waste or keep them from promoting a liberal climate change agenda.
Read rest at NewsBusters
Worth adding too that the MSM are studiously avoiding the unchanged Atm CO2 levels as per Roy Spencer above while lauding pronounced drops in human CO2 emissions.
I think this illustrates beyond all else the total disconnect between MSM ‘climate change’ reporting and reality. Whether this is intentional (criminal scientific fraud) or due to the mind numbing diet of incomplete narrative incompetent reporters regurgitate from IPCC aligned activist scientists (a combination of civil and criminal scientific fraud) I’m not sure.
The primary scientific fraud by the IPCC remains their contention that downwelling IR-C radiation heats the ocean despite their own surface energy budgets precluding this (i.e. no observations – the sun heats the ocean in the tropics via IR-A/B), the Clausius statement “heat does not of itself move from a hot object to a cold object” (or per Abdussamatov, “heat rises up not down”), and their own attribution statement for ocean heating being just speculation in AR4/5 (the “expected” anthro mechanism – “air-sea fluxes”).
The IPCC has no option but to invoke IR-C ocean heating (surface forcing) to keep their TOA theory paradigm alive (Yes, TOA – see IPCC FAQs “What is Radiative Forcing”) even though they explicitly rejected surface forcing in AR4.
But this economic shutdown certainly is “a real-time experiment” as per Anne Thompson above, just not the way she thinks. If Atm CO2 levels don’t dip then that is all that is needed to bring to an end the worst scientific fraud in human history.
Should be…. the Clausius statement “heat does not of itself move from a [cold] object to a [hot] object”
Troposphere being colder than the surface on average.
Except, the global economic shutdown had no effect whatsoever on March atmospheric CO2 levels:
‘March 2020 CO2 Levels at Mauna Loa Show No Obvious Effect from Global Economic Downturn’ April 7th, 2020 – Dr Roy Spencer
https://www.drroyspencer.com/2020/04/march-2020-co2-levels-at-mauna-loa-show-no-obvious-effect-from-global-economic-downturn/
Awkward.
If there is no effect on Atm CO2 levels over the entire lockdown era (there wasn’t during the GFC even though human emissions dipped substantially) then obviously human emissions are not driving Atm CO2 levels.
Again, awkward for CO2-centric climate science.
Shutting down our economy and tanking everyone’s finances won’t last!?!?
Well darn. That’s just too bad.
Astrophysicist and climate change activist N.D. Tyson is doing Youtube videos of interviews with climate scientists celebrating the benefits to the climate of the pandemic.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/04/19/corona-sells-climate/
Once again the Lying NBC Peacock proves why the news is not real news its just the usial leftists propaganda the rest of the M.S. Media tell to us and TODAY its just two hours 120 Minutes of Lies and Fake News