No the Pacific islands are not drowning because of climate change – and all the media outlets who insist on claiming otherwise really need to get a grip.
This is the highly unusual message in the normally eco-hysterical Guardian from a scientific researcher evidently disgusted by the way any new paper even remotely connected with climate change is seized on by the usual media suspects as further proof of imminent “man-made global warming” catastrophe.
Dr Simon Albert, a researcher at the School of Biological Sciences at University of Queensland, was speaking out in irritation at the way a paper he had published in Environmental Research Letters on the Solomon Islands had been misrepresented by alarmists.
Among the offending newspapers which had used it to generate hysterical headlines was ‚Äì you guessed it ‚Äì the Guardian. ‘Five Pacific islands lost to rising seas as climate change hits‘, it reported last week. The New York Times, the Washington Post and Think Progress covered the story in similarly apocalyptic terms.
Albert was not impressed. He told the Guardian:
All these headlines are certainly pushing things a bit towards the ‘climate change has made islands vanish’ angle. I would prefer slightly more moderate titles that focus on sea-level rise being the driver rather than simply ‘climate change’
