Sen. Bernie Sanders is promoting misinformation again. As Hurricane Ida ravaged Louisiana, the socialist used the natural disaster to push his political agenda.
The Vermont octogenarian likely knows less about climate science than economics, but never wasting a crisis to advance radical policies remains his ultimate goal. And his claims are false.
The destruction from Hurricane Ida is devastating. Our thoughts are with those in danger and with first responders saving lives. But let's be clear. If we do not act boldly to combat climate change, what we see today will become the norm as the planet becomes more uninhabitable.
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) August 30, 2021
Three months into so-called hurricane season, Ida is first hurricane to hit the United States.
According to projections from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, changes in climate will actually decrease the number of hurricanes by 25%, while potentially increasing some in intensity.
Even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — hardly a right-wing entity — reports the amount of category 4 and 5 hurricanes could increase by 2100, but the number of hurricanes overall will go down.
Akin to California wildfires, or failed New Orleans levees in 2005, political decisions matter. With levees now properly maintained, Ida has produced only a couple deaths in Louisiana, compared to nearly 2,000 fatalities from Hurricane Katrina.
The aforementioned facts won’t stop misinformation and partisan agendas, though.
The Washington Post published nearly 1,500 words Monday night about “How climate change helped make Hurricane Ida one of Louisiana’s worst.”
The newspaper’s young “climate reporter” reminded her parochial readers that human beings are causing these awful hurricanes.
But the author must have missed information from the National Hurricane Center that storms today are not more common or powerful than, say, 60 years ago.
To wit, three of the five category 4 or 5 hurricanes to pound Louisiana since 1950 occurred more than six decades ago, a period where some still warned of a coming Ice Age.
Until late 2017, the U.S. went a dozen years without a Category 3 or higher hurricane making landfall, constituting the longest period in recorded history. The busiest time for major hurricanes was the 1940s, while the past decade was among the slowest.
Even President Joe Biden’s EPA reported in May that, “Since 1878, about six to seven hurricanes have formed in the North Atlantic every year. Roughly two per year make landfall in the United States. The total number of hurricanes and the number reaching the United States do not indicate a clear overall trend since 1878.”
These facts and stats should be relayed to Sanders’ office and the Post’s spin room.
A.J. Kaufman
A.J. Kaufman is an Alpha News columnist. His work has appeared in the Baltimore Sun, Florida Sun-Sentinel, Indianapolis Star, Israel National News, Orange County Register, St. Cloud Times, Star-Tribune, and across AIM Media Midwest and the Internet. Kaufman previously worked as a school teacher and military historian.
