Neither Ox nor Donkey Stops Climate Change in Its Course?
On Tuesday, a study by the German Federal Environment Agency that attests to all kinds of damaging consequences of climate change in Germany. On Thursday, a pan-European state of emergency. And today, Friday, the next big rendezvous of the panic orchestra [1] by the grace of Greta: Climate Strike – The Next Episode. The children who are already hysterical to the core during „Fridays for Future“ should now feel even more confirmed. The state of emergency is there, the end of the world is imminent. And only the immediate abolition of freedom in favor of the green dream of eco-socialism can save us, humanity and the planet. [2]
So far, so dramatic. But what about the facts? When we talk about global warming, we are talking about the average global temperature. Or rather: Let’s not talk about it. Although the topic is on everyone’s lips, many leading media, politicians, and even those climate researchers [3] who are inclined to alarmism and thus feed their institutes, prefer to give scientific facts a wide berth in public. For good reason. For even a cursory glance at them casts serious doubt on the alleged state of emergency. [4]
But Greta Thunberg and consorts have no time for climate-relevant periods anyway. Saving the world will not tolerate any delay. And sometimes the way is the goal. Ergo: Should global warming – pardon: global heating – [5] including all conceivable catastrophic scenarios fail to materialize by pure chance, we would at least be richer by a CO2 tax, if not by a completely new political and economic system, which is certainly better than what the „old white men“ have left us. [6]
Pino, Marco. “Den Klimawandel in Seinem Lauf Hält Weder Ochs Noch Esel Auf?” JUNGE FREIHEIT, 29 Nov. 2019, https://jungefreiheit.de/wissen/umwelt/2019/den-klimawandel-in-seinem-lauf-haelt-weder-ochs-noch-esel-auf/.
- Defamation of the different institutions by implying, that their purpose is to create panic.
Overexaggerating and allegations to label them as extremists.
- By calling the scientists “researchers” whilst calling his work research, the author implies equal value.
- Accusation of ignoring and prohibiting facts, because they would undermine their theories. But the author himself is not scared of talking about facts, because they are supposed to support his thesis. The author creates a reality, where his argument has more value than his opponents.
Implying, that the opponent exaggerates and is not reasonable.
- Another accusation of trying to overthrow the political system and victimization of the majority society.
Analysis:
Even though the author of the article states, that different institute’s data varies a lot, the models about climate change that respected scientists use, are supported by evidence from mathematics and physics (Harper 2018). If Data may change from source to source, there is no problem with a comparison, since the underlying calculations stay the same within different models used.
The graphs provided by the “Junge Freiheit” article is although not even close to the graph provided by the UAH. Since the author does not give any citation, there is no way to check the actual numbers and data he refers to, but the online published data from the University of Alabama, which is mentioned as the source in the text, is a lot different from the data provided in the self-created graphs. (Geary 2023).
The most important source we have when it comes to climate change is the IPCC, which Marco Pino, the author, doesn’t even mention. The IPCC, a collective of climate change scientists, concludes, that the global surface temperature will increase even in the most unlikely most positive scenario (Pörtner et al. 2022).
The article also mentions that the El-Niño-Streams have no influence on an overall increase of global temperatures, even though their own graph shows this trend.
About the source:
The source, the “Junge Freiheit”, is a self-proclaimed conservative medium. It is one of the few news sources that promotes the new right. It is frequently used as a news source for politicians of the German right-wing populist party AfD. The most important agenda of the website is to offer a “different opinion” in contrast to the so called mainstream media, which in their opinion only supports leftist and green ideology. The “Junge Freiheit” is observed by the domestic intelligence service (‘Verfassungsschutz’), which came to the conclusion, that the media group publishes and spreads anti-democratic and xenophobic ideas (von Norheim, Müller & Schepppe 2019).
Sources used:
Geary, Jennifer. “Global Temperature Report :: The University of Alabama in Huntsville, 2023, https://www.nsstc.uah.edu/climate/.
Harper, Lauren. “What Are Climate Models and How Accurate Are They?” State of the Planet, 18 May 2018, https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2018/05/18/climate-models-accuracy/.
Pörtner, Hans-Otto, et al. “Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability.” IPCC â Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2022, https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/.
von Nordheim, Gerret, Henrik Müller, and Michael Scheppe. „Young, free and biased: A comparison of mainstream and right-wing media coverage of the 2015–16 refugee crisis in German newspapers.“ Journal of Alternative & Community Media 4.1 (2019): 38-56.
