The Media’s Repeating Pattern Of Climate Holiday Fearmongering

A few days ago, the Washington Post ran a story that ranks as one of their worst-ever in terms of climate change alarmism.

Titled “How climate change is complicating a Thanksgiving staple”, it tells the tale of woe about disappearing cranberry sauce due to “climate change” citing “Heatwave, drought, lack of winter ice are taking a toll on a quintessential Massachusetts crop” in the sub-headline.

The story goes on to give a report on the “feelings” of Massachusetts cranberry farmers who believe that climate change is making their job harder.

What’s bad about the story is that it is completely untrue, and objective real-world data smacks it down.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agriculture Statistics Service estimates record Massachusetts cranberry production in 2020. So much for objective journalism at the Washington Post.

It’s as if the writer, Tatiana Schlossberg, granddaughter of President John F. Kennedy, didn’t even try to research facts, but instead relied on the “feelings” of farmers she sought out for the story.

But, this train-wreck of journalism blaming climate change for future grimness at holiday time isn’t unique.

In fact, I’ve discovered that this seems to be a recurring theme with mainstream media reporting during the holidays, telling us that our holidays will be ruined if we don’t act on climate change.

Here are some examples I’ve found over the last decade of wild holiday climate claims that never came true, and likely never will. We’ll start with Thanksgiving.

Here’s how climate change will alter your grandkids’ Thanksgiving meals – Quartz November 22, 2018. Pumpkin pie, cornbread, stuffing, pie crusts, mashed potatoes, and pork are all under threat due to “climate change.”

Six Thanksgiving Foods Affected By Climate Change – Climate Reality Project on November 20, 2017. Al Gore’s pet project predicts doom for all of the usual Thanksgiving fare but adds wine to the threat list. Yes, 2017 was a down year, but 2018 had a global excess of wine. and production has been steady overall. Salud! Gore is back at it again this thanksgiving, because 2020 was another down year for wine globally, most certainly due to COVID19 issues impacting wineries. But hey, never let a good crisis go to waste.

This Is Your Thanksgiving on Climate Change – Mother Jones November 19, 2012. Turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, creamed spinach, corn, and pumpkin pie will be gone. They say “…if the globe continues to warm, that Turkey Day spread could end up looking quite paltry.”

Thanks to climate change, Thanksgiving is OVER – Grist November 19, 2012. This article is almost too stupid to even consider because it is mostly a rant about the previous article in Mother Jones. They add: “America is faced with an important choice: Fix the climate, or cancel Thanksgiving. I think we know which one is the right option.” Umm, I think the right option is to ignore you.

Could Climate Change Ruin Your Next Thanksgiving? – NBC News November 24, 2010: Here the claim is that “climate change” will result in tough, unpalatable, turkey meat, along with the usual threat of the side dishes disappearing.

Ok, so they’ve claimed for ten years now that Thanksgiving will be ruined by “climate change”. All it takes to disprove this is to go to your local grocery store and observe the glut of goodies available to us for Thanksgiving 2020, a year when doom became a theme thanks to COVID19.

How about Christmas?
There’s no shortage of past and future climate doom here either.

Climate change is making Christmas tree shopping harder than ever – Salon December 3, 2019. Is climate change the threat? Nope. Christmas tree shortages were due to the Obama-era economic recession of 2008 causing land selloffs resulting in fewer mature trees available a decade later.

The weird reason your Christmas tree might be shedding needles – Yale Climate Connections December 22, 2017. This might very well be the most ridiculous claim ever made about climate change: “A Christmas tree can fill your home with festive cheer. But it can also fill your living room with a blanket of hard, dry needles. It’s a prickly problem that may be tougher to avoid as the climate warms.” Apparently, writer Sarah Kennedy doesn’t realize that once inside the home, the tree is subject to the interior climate, where, temperature, humidity, and keeping the tree watered are all major factors in needle retention. Outside climate? Not so much. The stupid, it burns!

Your white Christmas is on the way out – Quartz December 21, 2018. The claim: “For millions of people, the holiday will be hotter than those their grandparents experienced. In the coming decades, many children alive today in the northern hemisphere may come to remember a white Christmas as mostly a memory.” Gosh. The only problem here is that it’s been said before. In what has become probably the greatest ever blunder by a climate scientist, on March 20, 2000, The Independent newspaper reported on a statement from Dr. David Viner of the Climate Research Unit in the UK:

In the article, Dr. David Viner said:

“Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past – Children just aren’t going to know what snow is.”

The laughable claim was of course broadly criticized, and highly cited as a huge failure of climate science when heavy snows covered the entire UK in 2010. Eventually, the Independent “disappeared” the article. You can read it here: Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past – The Independent (PDF)

Twenty years later, a White Christmas is still a strong possibility for much of the USA  according to AccuWeather.

Finally, in what many consider to be the sleaziest, worst-ever, climate-related Christmas doomsterism, we turn to radical climate activist, Dr. David Suzuki.

For Christmas 2011, he tried to scare children into thinking that climate change would melt the North Pole, and Santa wouldn’t be able to make his rounds for Christmas.

The sleazy part? Suzuki used Christmas fearmongering to solicit donations.

Clearly, this portrayal of holidays being ruined by “climate change” is a recurring pattern among climate alarmists. They use fear to cater to the uninformed, as a way of taking the joy out of our lives to promote their agenda.

It is worth revisiting what we said about it last year: Climate Grinches Are Trying To Steal Christmas

Ignore them by enjoying your holidays, guilt-free, and be thankful.

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