A recent article in the Seattle Times, titled “From water destruction to deadly heat: Associated Press photographers capture climate change in 2024,” presents a series of photographs depicting various natural disasters and extreme weather events from 2024, attributing these occurrences to climate change. While the Associated Press (AP) imagery is compelling, it’s a false narrative because the article doesn’t distinguish between short-term weather events and long-term climate trends. Instead, the article conflates the two completely separate natural processes.

From Climate at a Glance, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) defines climate as the “average weather conditions for a particular location and over a long period of time,” typically over 30 years. In contrast, weather refers to short-term atmospheric conditions. Therefore, individual weather events, no matter how extreme, do not constitute climate change.

Extreme weather events have occurred throughout history, independent of human-induced climate change. For instance, the Dust Bowl of the 1930s and the Great Blizzard of 1888 were catastrophic events that predate significant industrial CO₂ emissions. Attributing modern extreme weather solely to climate change overlooks the natural variability inherent in Earth’s climate system.

The perception of increasing extreme weather is often amplified by media coverage, including powerful photographs like those captured by the AP, and technological advancements. For example at Climate Realism it is pointed out that certain media outlets are now treating computer model projections the same as actual weather data. Plus, the proliferation of instant communication tools and 24/7 news cycles has led to more immediate and widespread reporting of weather events, creating a false impression of rising frequency and severity, even when statistical data does not show worsening trends.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) AR6 report, Chapter 11, concludes that changes in the frequency and intensity of most severe weather events have not been detected nor can they be attributed to human-caused climate change. Real-world data shows no significant increase in droughts, heatwaves, flooding, tropical cyclones, hurricanes, or tornadoes over the past 100 years.

Despite claims linking climate change to increased mortality from extreme weather, data indicates a significant decline in such deaths. Human mortality attributable to weather-related disasters, including floods, droughts, storms, wildfires, and extreme temperatures, has declined by more than 99% over the last 100 years. In the 1920s, deaths related to weather-related disasters averaged approximately 485,000 each year. By 2020, this number had fallen to approximately 7,790.

While the photographs featured in the Seattle Times article are evocative, it’s essential to approach the subject of weather and climate with a clear understanding of the distinction between the two, and the facts about extreme weather event trends firmly in mind. Attributing individual weather events directly to climate change without considering historical context and natural variability is a disservice to readers. However, given that the AP has received millions of dollars in grants to specifically write scary climate change stories from well-funded climate activists foundations, it seems that the agency and those that carry its stories and photographs, simply don’t care if their claims with regard to the science of climate change and weather trends are factual or not.

Originally posted at ClimateREALISM

Essay by Eric Worrall

“… participants angry about other people’s inaction and apathy had more symptoms of depression and anxiety. …”

Climate anger can lead to action—or curdle into despair: Researchers find out why

by Samantha Stanley, Iain Walker, Teaghan Hogg and Zoe Leviston, The Conversation

…

Our new research surveyed 5,000 Australians and found almost half (49%) are angry about our warming world. So what do people do with their climate anger?

…

13 kinds of climate anger

Far and away, the most common type of anger was directed at the inaction and apathy of other people. About 60% of our angry participants were angry at what they saw as a lack of action and concern.

Who was this directed at? Sometimes, it was aimed at leaders: “a lack of action by government.” Or it was directed at regular people who “don’t care and aren’t willing to help change it.” Businesses or entire nations were also targets.

The next most common grievance (about 13%) was at those who deny climate change. For instance, “There are a lot of people who still think that climate change is not happening.”

…

Which types of anger lead to action?

…

Interestingly, participants angry about other people’s inaction and apathy had more symptoms of depression and anxiety. But participants angry about government inaction and apathy had fewer of these symptoms.

…

Read more: https://phys.org/news/2024-12-climate-anger-action-curdle-despair.html

The quoted study;

The various forms of anger about climate change in Australia and their relations with self-reported actions, intentions, and distress

Author links open overlay panel

Samantha K. Stanley ^ab, Zoe Leviston ^cd, Teaghan L. Hogg ^e, Iain Walker ^fca

^a UNSW Institute for Climate Risk & Response, University of New South Wales, Australia
^b School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Australia
^c School of Medicine and Psychology, Australian National University, Australia
^d School of Arts and Humanities, Edith Cowan University, Australia
^e Discipline of Psychology, University of Canberra, Australia^fMelbourne Centre for Behaviour Change, University of Melbourne, Australia
^f Melbourne Centre for Behaviour Change, University of Melbourne, Australia

Received 23 July 2023, Revised 16 September 2024, Accepted 20 November 2024, Available online 22 November 2024, Version of Record 19 December 2024.

Handling editor: Wokje Abrahamse

Highlights

• •We investigated what makes Australians angry about climate change.
• •The most prevalent cause of anger was perceived inaction and apathy.
• •Anger categories differently related to behaviour, intentions, distress.
• •Anger about government inaction predicts greater action, lower distress.

Abstract

Action on societal issues is often precipitated by feelings of anger. This has been demonstrated reliably for responses to social inequality, but less for other issues. We build on nascent research documenting the links between climate anger, pro-environmental action, and psychological distress, by focusing on the contents of eco-anger. Using a sample of 5244 Australians, we found that 48.6% reported being at least ‘somewhat’ angry about climate change. Content analyses of the focus of this anger revealed diverse reasons for people’s anger. The most common focus was others’ inaction and apathy on climate change, followed by anger directed at deniers, and at big polluters. Altogether, we identified 13 major categories of anger in our corpus of data. In further exploratory analyses, we examined the correlations between anger forms, self-reported pro-environmental behaviour, collective action intentions, and distress. Our findings suggest that behavioural engagement with climate change could depend, in part, on whypeople are angry.

Read more: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272494424002639?via%3Dihub

Assuming the 49% figure is correct, 49% of people angry about climate inaction is an awful lot of anger, and not a lot of action.

There is precious little indication those angry people are personally trying to lead low carbon lifestyles. For example, the percentage of EVs on Aussie roads is nowhere near 49%.

The Green Party vote in Australia in the most recent election was only 12.2%. Australia has compulsory voting, you get fined if you don’t vote and can’t provide a good reason. Only a quarter of those angry people voted for the one party which is utterly committed to climate action at any cost.

Clearly the majority of those angry people have other priorities, whatever anger they feel about climate inaction is less important to them than those other priorities, like hanging on to the gas guzzler, or voting for political parties other than the Green Party, parties which best represent their interests.

It seems odd to me that all this alleged climate anger appears to lead to so little tangible action. Let us hope those angry people have their lives brightened by the company of loved ones on Christmas Day.