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AFTERNOON TEA
Afternoon TEA: How do you feel about being lied to?
Did you know that scare tactics and lies are being used to persuade you?
We’ve all heard politicians and media outlets asserting that “extreme” weather, like the recent heatwave in the Pacific northwest or increased rainfall during hurricanes, is caused by climate change. And, these predictions are nothing new. In 1995, a United Nations report predicted that rising temperatures would cause all the beaches in the Eastern United States to disappear by 2020.
Don’t buy into this narrative. Misinformation and scare tactics like this are used by “green” activists to drive a politicized climate agenda with no apparent regard for the contradictions in their own statements or the costs to American families who need affordable energy to live their lives.
So, it’s not a surprise that it was underreported when climate experts on both sides of the political spectrum flat-out denied the claim that climate change caused recent heatwaves. As the graph below from the Heartland Institute and based on EPA data shows, “More high temperature records were set during the first half of the twentieth century than during the past 50 years.”
We all want a cleaner environment now and for future generations. But, these over the top claims are simply meant to instill fear and are damaging to those of us who want to find real solutions for both our environmental and energy futures. As University of Washington professor and meteorologist Cliff Mass put it in a recent report he wrote about the Pacific Northwest heat wave, “Society needs accurate information in order to make crucial environmental decisions.”
