Progressive agendas used to be confined to the news and opinion pages of print and electronic media. Now they’re spilling over onto the sports pages.
Case in point: today’s Washington Post sports section includes a lengthy feature story as part of a “Game Changer” series pushing the climate change agenda.
The headline over the story by Rick Maese reads: “Waning Winters.” The subhead reads: “In the Netherlands, an iconic skating race — and a way of life — faces extinction from climate change.”
Maese’s story surrounds the “Elfstedentocht” (11 cities tour), a 135-mile ice skating race over frozen canals in the Friesland province. This race has been going for 110 years, drawing two million visitors and 3,000 journalists.
The forecast for this year’s race is grim because of global warming, he reports. Weather and ice conditions determine when the race is skated and the Dutch are still waiting for this year’s event to happen.
Maese writes the Netherlands “is no longer a romantic wintry wonderland, and there hasn’t been an Elfstedentocht since 1997, marking the longest drought ever between races. Climate change has endangered the race and is slowly dousing hopes across the province.”
Despite evidence of a Dutch natural ice skating competition in 2018, Maese sees the “canal” as half-empty:
“The threats that climate change poses to the sports world are not theoretical, and they aren’t all looming far down the road. Scientists, sports enthusiasts and event organizers around the globe have already noticed an impact, from changes in the ocean that affect water sports and fishing, to extreme heat that has taken a toll on event scheduling and athlete training, to rising sea levels and intensifying storms that endanger communities and livelihoods.”
Maese says last year was the fourth-warmest global surface temperature since 1880, and he makes additional points to support his theory of doomed winter sports.
He says warmer temperatures have altered the Iditarod dog-sledding race in Alaska, there are fewer frozen ponds safe enough for outdoor hockey in the U.S. and Canada, and half the ski season could be wiped out by 2050.
He assures readers such threats to sports events are “not theoretical.”
This doomsday pessimism is placed much higher in the story than Maese’s qualifier that “the Netherlands has never been reliably frigid.”
The Elfstedentocht began in 1909, and in its first 50 years, there was insufficient ice on the canal for racing 39 times. Then there were far fewer automobiles and factories and no talk of greenhouse gases or so-called global warming.
In the intervening years, there was also fearmongering about another ice age. Maese is undeterred by these holes in his story.
Aside from the media’s part in hyping so-called global warming, American sports enthusiasts are enjoying great powder out West.
Snowpack in the Rocky Mountains is very deep, and spring run-off forecasts put some regions in the Southwest at 170-300 percent of median.
Also, a new study finds that the Arctic region was 4.6 degrees Celsius warmer in the 1930s than in recent years. And a few weeks ago, the Midwest suffered one of its coldest arctic blasts in two decades.
So much for the Post‘s hot air and cold science.
Read more at NewsBusters
The Washington Compost like the New York Pravda nothing but pure leftists propeganda not real news just leftists propeganda
I wonder how he would explain the huge snow storms in California and Colorado where there are ski resorts talking about still being open into June and July. Must be that damned global warming, er climate change!
As the winter lingers on they must be bursting at the seams to pump out the latest mann made global warming hysteria.
They have now gone to a summer and winter campaign mascot .
The polar bears for those ice free drowning shots in the Arctic and the dehydrated Koala clinging to life .
They are making progress though they have learned that blowing up non-believer kids in class did jump the shark .
“He (Rick Maese) assures readers such threats to sports events are “not theoretical.”
No. They are “not theoretical.” There are actually numerous historical records of such cyclically and naturally occurring weather events.
Rick Maese is either, intentionally misrepresenting facts, lying by omission or incompetent. More cat litter liner material from the Progressive left.
Latrobe Bulletin
Latrobe, Pennsylvania
Tuesday, February 07, 1939 – Page 7
Canals of Holland to Have 120 Mile canal Skating Race
Institute of Foreign Travel
CANALS OF HOLLAND TO HAVE 120 MILE SKATING RACE
Frlesland, one of the most “Dutch” or Holland’s, provinces, is enjoying this winter the finest skating season in many years. All who have read “Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates”, think of sliding over frozen canals as soon as they think of Holland in winter; but although skating is certainly the most typical of Dutch sports, the climate does not always give it much of a chance. For example, the most exciting skating race in Holland the “Elf-Stedentocht” or Eleven Towns’ Race requires good ice over the entire province of Fries at once, and consequently has taken place (ONLY FOUR OR FIVE TIMES) only four or five times since Its foundation In 1909.
This winter, however, has been very cold for all of Europe, and the great event is expected to take place this month, drawling. Competitors and spectators from every town in Holland as Well as some front abroad. For days before the Elf-Stedentocht young men and red cheeked maidens everywhere in the Netherlands can be seen skimming swiftly over the Ice-bound waterways, under quaint bridges and past frozen-in barges and fishing boats. For The Eleven Towns’. Race is a stiff one and only experienced skaters, thoroughly in trim, can expect even to complete the course.
It is about 120 miles long and runs through eleven Picturesque Dutch towns including Leeuwarden, Dokkum, Lindelloopen and Sneek, and finishes the circuit at Leeuwarden again. More than 500 skaters, both men and Women are expected to line up” at the start early in the morning, but of those probably little more than half will succeed in reaching Leeuwarden kin before nightfall. The winner will receive a beautiful gold medal; but in this race you “can’t lose” unless you quit, for each skater completing the round in one day gets the much coveted” commemoration cross showing that he, or she, has been a successful competitor in the most famous race of the most famous skating country of the world.
The Washington Compost needs to award itself a Pinnochio for its Fake Sports News
Q :
How come the " hype " wasn't posted
in the " comics " section ?
A :
The entire paper IS the comics section !