The day after the devastating tornadoes which swept through the Midwest killing over 80 people, President Biden made a statement blaming these tornadoes on climate change to push his climate agenda. Likewise, left-wing Hollywood actor Mark Ruffalo tweeted, ‘this is what climate catastrophe looks like’. The propensity of politicians and activists to exploit the pain and suffering of American citizens for their own agendas is unconscionable. Every time there is a natural disaster from tornadoes to hurricanes to wildfires to even earthquakes and a pandemic, there are scores of politicians and activists chomping at the bit to exploit the suffering of the people to win political points.
Climate activists tend use a singular weather event like this as definitive proof of their position, relying on the fear it creates to sway people more so than using actual facts and data. Ironically, when there are other weather events, like a blizzard or a polar vortex or record freezing temperatures which seemingly disproves their position on global warming, the same climate activists will snap back, lecturing us that blizzards and polar vortexes are weather, and not climate, and weather events prove nothing about climate unless it is a hurricane or a tornado that they can use to push their climate agenda.
For all the talk that we hear about following the science, very rarely does anyone actually follow the science, on either side of the political aisle. Science is measured. Science is unemotional. Science is dispassionate. Scientific decisions should never be based on emotion. Science does not succumb to fear. But too often, these days, emotion and fear has become mixed up, and even confused with science. Everything about the climate change debate from the climate activists has been to tap into the collective fear of the American people. We are continually told that New York City will be 50 feet underwater, or there’s going to be mass starvation, famines, and diseases, if we don’t do anything about climate change.
Instead of looking at the data like rational thinking people to properly assess the situation and make the best decisions, politicians and activists want you to look at the death and devastation to tap into your fears and emotions. Climate activists claim that climate change is causing a dramatic increase in these types of natural disasters. Every hurricane that hits the United States and tears through a community, is automatically blamed on climate change, as if there were no such thing as hurricanes prior to the invention of the internal combustion engine in 1860.
But the actual numbers tell a completely different story. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, government statistics, there were more hurricanes that made landfall in the United States in the last half of the 19th century (97) and the first half of the 20th century (95), than there were in the last half of the 20th century (72). Over the 150-year span from 1850 to 2000 when there was a dramatic steady increase in the use of fossil fuels and release of carbon into our atmosphere as a result of the industrial revolution, there was a steady decline in the number of hurricanes that made landfall in the United States. Over the first 20 years of the 21st century, we have seen an uptick in hurricane activity in the United States, but that uptick merely brings the numbers back to where they were previously, 100 years ago. The last half of the 18th century averaged 19.4 hurricanes hitting the US per decade, and the first half of the 20th century averaged 19.0, while the first 2 decades on the 21st century averaged 19.5 which is an increase from the 14.4 which was averaged in the last half of the 20th century.
But the activists do not care about the facts. They do not care about looking at the data. They want to use fear, not facts, emotion, not knowledge to influence people. None of this is about science, none of it is about the truth, this is all about creating a narrative to support their agenda because their agenda could never be supported by the truth or by science. And once they create this narrative based on fear, they try to convince us that the only way to combat it is for the government to seize more power and more control over the people, and spend trillions of our tax dollars.
We are continually told that Carbon Dioxide that is released from burning fossil fuels is polluting our planet. Carbon Dioxide is a trace element that makes up 0.04% of the Earth’s atmosphere. Below is the breakdown of the elements in the Earth’s atmosphere:
It seems strange that the one gas which makes up only 0.04% of our atmosphere, which is vital to life on this planet, is the gas that is targeted as the biggest pollutant on the face of the earth. The gas that is the oxygen for plant life has been classified as an existential threat to all life on this planet. If we look at it from a Marxian point of view which is where most people on the left, and definitely those who are the loudest climate change activists come from, as to why they would target carbon dioxide, we would rightfully conclude because it is the gas that is produced when we use our most abundant energy supply, fossil fuels. The Marxian goal in every society is to control the people by controlling the means of production, and the best way to control the means of production without seizing companies outright, is to control the energy supply. If the government dictates who gets the energy, the government controls the means of production, which means they control the people. The government is using the guise of science for their political purposes.
We have witnessed this the last two years with Covid-19. The worst virus threat that humanity has faced in the last 100 years, has come from government bureaucrats’ manipulation of science. The arrogance of these government scientists to think that they could manipulate microscopic pathogens in a lab, and they would be able to control them. They do not have that level of power over nature. Mary Shelley, in her book, Frankenstein, warned us of this level of arrogance that “science” can fall prey to. The total lack of respect that many government scientists have for the powers of nature have caused the millions of deaths that we have witnessed through this pandemic. Did they actually believe that they could manipulate a pathogen, and then be able to control it? That’s exactly what Dr. Frankenstein did in the book, he created the monster, thinking that he would be able to control the monster, but inevitably, the monster overpowered him, and people died.
But Covid has been used the same way tornadoes and hurricanes are used, to scare people so the government can take more power, and more money from the people. They use emotion, not scientific fact. In the many Senate hearings, press conferences, and interviews that people like Dr. Fauci have engaged in, there is very little actual scientific evidence and data that is provided to the American people about this virus. When the virus was first spreading back in 2020, there was a running infection and death count that could be found on almost every news website. Surprisingly, the death counts stopped after Joe Biden took office, even though the number of infections and deaths have not decreased under his watch. So, were those running death counts put on the websites to inform the American people, or to scare them? Either way, why are they not put up now considering there has not been a dramatic drop in infections and deaths? The same thing happened with the death tolls in Iraq and Afghanistan. During the Bush presidency, the military casualties and deaths were tallied on a daily basis, but when Obama took office, we stopped publically keeping track of casualties and deaths in foreign wars, as if they suddenly didn’t matter, or more precisely the emotion generated from those deaths could not be exploited anymore for their political purposes.
Our leaders have been very secretive with the facts surrounding the vaccines. We are told to shut up, don’t ask questions, and take the shot. Why aren’t the accurate and up to date efficacy rates of all three vaccines readily available for all to see? Why aren’t the negative side effect rates of all three vaccines presented to us? Why don’t we know how many people have died within 24 hours of getting a vaccine? Within 48 hours? Within a week? Within a month? Why don’t we see the death rates from Covid broken down by age? Broken down by comorbidity? Broken down by age and comorbidity? What are the reinfection rates of people who recovered from Covid? And what are their outcomes? Why are they keeping this information from us? Are they not tracking this information? If not, why not? All of this is information we need to make the best decisions for our lives, yet it is all very scant. Instead, we get anecdotal evidence designed to stoke fear, not to inform.
When Donald Trump heralded hydroxychloroquine as a potential treatment for Covid based on a handful of examples of people who were sick with Covid, and got better after taking the medication, his advocacy for that remedy was rejected because it was based on anecdotal evidence. Yet, Joe Biden and the Democrats use a hurricane or a tornado as proof of climate change. Or BLM uses the death of George Floyd as proof that all police departments are systemically racist. All of these singular events never prove anything scientifically, but they are very effective in creating narratives and drumming up fear in the hearts and minds of people which is used to exploit the people. When they cannot win based on the facts or based on scientific evidence, they use emotion created by anecdotal evidence to steer the narrative in their direction.
The scientific advancements in the 20th and 21st century are not being used for the benefit of humankind. The Internet was created under the belief that it would make all of our lives easier and better, but it has become the ideal mechanism for those who control the Internet to exploit anecdotal evidence and fear to manipulate the people into thinking and behaving the way they want them to behave. Like Frankenstein’s monster, scientific inventions and innovations often times grow to the point that we can no longer control them, and they end up controlling or even threatening our very lives.
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Judd Garrett is a graduate from Princeton University, and a former NFL player, coach, and executive. He has been a contributor to the website Real Clear Politics. He has recently published his first novel, No Wind.