Circular Logic of Climate Change: A Critique of the Media’s Role in Climate Science
If it rains too much, it is climate change; if it rains too little, it is climate change (Bhatia and Popovich 2021). If it is too hot, it is climate change; if it is too cold, it is climate change (Borenstein 2023 & Paddison, Shveda, and Razo 2023). If there is a hurricane, it is due to climate change. If the weather is perfect, nothing is said about climate change. Before I continue, let me make myself clear. This article is not going to say climate change is not real, the climate changes all the time. This article is not going to say that humans have no impact on the climate; while I do not believe all the impacts of climate change can be blamed on people and as such we cannot control the climate through “environmental” policies, we have some significant impact on the environment and thus the climate. I will admit that my view on climate change is a view that has much less worry than my friends on the left because I do not believe we should try to fight climate change at all costs. When one reads a cost-benefit analysis from Obama’s Department of Energy, the most common word associated with the future impacts of the climate is “uncertainty”. We do not fully understand how we impact the climate and how the climate may change. While I have faith that the worst-case scenarios are more covered in these analyses, the simple truth is we do not know what the impact of climate change will have on the future and what that impact may be. I do, however, know the impact of when the economy is on the brink. For when people go hungry, that is when the trouble starts and revolutions begin. If you crash the economy in the hope to save the climate, you will crash society without a great chance of saving the planet.
However, I am writing today to talk specifically about the media’s role and the “environmental” activists regarding climate change. Perhaps they take inspiration from the boy who cried wolf. If a hurricane season is quiet, no one questions climate change in the media. But when hurricanes start coming across the Atlantic, they say this is due to climate change. Instances of a common weather event do not mean there is climate change. Neither does the absence of a common weather event mean there is no climate change. Rather than blaming incidents of natural weather events on climate change, it would be wiser to discuss possible changes in future patterns of weather; which could be intellectually discussed with a degree of honesty (Green 2017). But, if it is hot in Phoenix for a week, it does not mean this is a sign of climate change. Yes, maybe Phoenix measures temperate greater than it did in 1950. Then again, in 1950, the metro population of Phoenix was less than 250,000 (Macrotrends 2023). Now it is over 4.5 million (Macrotrends 2023). Perhaps the development in Phoenix makes comparing temperatures from 70 years ago similar to comparing apples and oranges. Even if we liked the comparison, comparing a week and trying to tie it to a change in an overall weather pattern caused by climate change relies on a population size that would not satisfy a statistician.
If we want to see if climate change is having a serious impact, we must examine years of data wherein we can see if a new pattern is emerging. Using the hurricane example from before, we should expect more hurricanes now than before according to climate change experts. From 1981–2010, the average number of hurricanes per year was 6.5. Between 2011 and 2017, the average number of hurricanes per year was 6.57 (Stormfax 2018); while this is statistically insignificant, we can argue that there is no difference at all. Comparing major hurricanes, the average between 1981–2010 was 2 (Stormfax 2018). Between 2011 and 2017, the average was 2.86 (Stormfax 2018). If we wanted to make an argument on whether or not climate change is impacting hurricanes, we can make an argument for each perspective. But the most honest reflection from this is we need more data. While we have measured hurricanes for over 150 years, how we measured hurricanes have vastly improved. Trying to compare different years when the technology of recent years is so much more sophisticated compared to older years, may be, again, comparing apples to oranges.
This problem is not only confined to hurricanes but most data regarding evidence of climate change. Most of the data before the 1880s is highly unreliable. So perhaps the climate, in temperature, changed more or less than we think or less. But when we talk about climate before the industrial revolution, we talk about the “Little Ice Age” where there was even a “year without a summer” (National Park Service). If the Little Ice Age was the aberration and we are returning to the normal, then perhaps the impact we have on the environment is not as large as the media says.
Which brings me to my final criticism, the circular logic of climate change. To those “fighting” climate change, they will say that due to pollution caused by humans, this caused the climate to change and thus a new weather event is caused by climate change. But as I said before, the media and the politicians will literally blame any weather event on climate change; therefore, we cannot use any single weather event to confirm or deny climate change. Even if they did not blame every single weather event on climate change, we are still unable to use that weather event as evidence of whether or not there is climate change. Which brings us to the most ironic part. The reason why activists of climate change say that pollution, mostly carbon and other gases, impacts climate change is these gases are added to the atmosphere, this change in the atmosphere prevents the energy from the sun from leaving the planet and thus the remaining energy warms the planet. This argument works because the planet is warming. But you can blame pollution and carbon in the same manner if the planet was cooling. Because there is additional carbon and other gases in the air, we can expect that additional energy from the sun would be blocked therefore there will be less energy entering our planet and the planet will cool. The media and the activists thus have created an argument wherein pollution will cause any change to the temperature/climate and that any weather event is therefore caused by that change. It may be the greatest case of circular logic in the history of logical fallacies.
Again, I am not saying climate change is fake. I am not saying the scientists who work on this subject should be ignored. I am not even saying we should not pursue environmentally friendly solutions. If we can change our energy wherein we rely less on foreign oil and gas and more on nonrenewable energy sources, especially nuclear (Helman 2021), this can help our country economically, environmentally, and national security-wise. However, the environmental solutions need to make sense and not cause costs that hit the American people or the environment. We have seen the plastic bag ban in New Jersey and how it hurts the environment (Guglielmello 2023). We have seen how Mexico City tried to reduce its pollution from car emissions only to increase car emissions (Guglielmello 2023). We also do not need to sacrifice whales and dolphins to the point of extinction especially when the benefits are not large (Cohen 2023 & Potenza 2016). There are geographic areas where wind and solar can do well; there are geographic areas where wind and solar will not do well (Zeihan 2020). If environmental policies are made wherein the solutions benefit the environment and it does not hurt the average American, then these policies should be pursued. But more times than not, these policies are pursued due to ideology with no regard for pragmatism (Guglielmello 2023). This will hurt the American people without benefitting the environment and sow further distrust within the system.
