In the wake of Hurricane Irma, the New York Times advanced the “climate change” agenda from every angle in Tuesday’s edition. First up, the paper featured more odd respect for religion from its colorful left-wing reporter Jason Horowitz, in “Pope, in the Air, Puts Foot Down on Climate Change Denial and DACA Reversal.” The text box: “The pontiff says pro-life believers must defend the unity of the family.” And another Times reporter stuck up for the tasteless global warming warriors using Hurricane Irma to forward "climate change."
A paper loathe to credit Christianity for pro-life or traditional marriage views readily broadcasts the left-wing views of Pope Francis and in particular his bashing of Donald Trump:
As he flew near Caribbean islands devastated by Hurricane Irma on his way back to the Vatican from Colombia on Sunday, Pope Francis said that political leaders and others who denied climate change reminded him of a passage from the psalms about man’s stubbornness.
“Man is stupid, the Bible said,” he said. “It’s like that, when you don’t want to see, you don’t see.”
In a typically wide-ranging news conference that included his questioning of United States President Donald J. Trump’s commitment to issues of life because of his plan to strip undocumented immigrant children of protections from deportation, the pope urged those who denied climate change to consult scientists who had clearly determined it was real and that humanity would “go down” if global warming was not recognized and addressed.
“Then,” he said, “decide and history will judge the decisions.”
During Mr. Trump’s May visit to the Vatican, the pope gave him a copy of his 2015 encyclical letter, “Laudato Si,” which called for a human response to global warming, and top Vatican officials appealed to the president not to withdraw from the landmark Paris climate accord. Weeks later, Mr. Trump pulled out of the agreement.
It wasn’t just global warming. Horowitz also used Pope Francis to criticize Trump’s move to end DACA:
On the flight, the pope nevertheless appealed again to Mr. Trump, this time on his decision to end President Obama’s Deferred Action for Children Program, known as DACA. The program allows children brought illegally to the United States to stay without fear of deportation. Mr. Trump has given Congress, which has failed to pass immigration overhaul for the last decade, six months to enact legislation to resolve the status of about 800,000 people affected by his decision.
When the Times doesn’t challenge a “pro-life” message, better read closely.
“I hope they rethink it a bit,” he said. “Because I heard the U.S. president speak. He presents himself as a man who is pro-life. If he is a good pro-life believer he must understand that family is the cradle of life and one must defend its unity,” said Francis, who in the past has said that advocates, like Mr. Trump, of a wall to keep out migrants on the Mexican border were “not Christian.”
(T. Becket Adams at Washington Examiner said the Pope’s statements are more hedging and vague that Horowitz and other reporters are making them out to be.)
Horowitz showed himself not so fond of more conservative Catholics in an August report for the Times in which he made common cause with a piece making the rounds of Catholic intellectual circles singling out “ultraconservative” Trump-supporting conservatives as dangerous: “From the Vatican, a Warning Shot for Hard-Line Catholics in the U.S.”
Meanwhile, reporter Lisa Friedman on Tuesday used a comment from the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to stick up for the tasteless global warming warriors now using the tragedy of Hurricane Irma to forward their environmental agenda, in “For E.P.A. Chief, Discussing Climate After Storms Is ‘Insensitive.’” The text box: “Concerns that the U.S. is dodging questions on global warming.”
Friedman found a Republican to mouth concern over climate change and promptly teed him up in paragraph two, while instantly identifying her by party (something the paper consistently fails to do with Democrats in trouble):
Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, says it is insensitive to discuss climate change in the midst of deadly storms.
Tomás Regalado, the Republican mayor of Miami whose citizens raced to evacuate before Hurricane Irma, says if not now, when?
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For scientists, drawing links between warming global temperatures and the ferocity of hurricanes is about as controversial as talking about geology after an earthquake. But in Washington, where science is increasingly political, the fact that oceans and atmosphere are warming and that the heat is propelling storms into superstorms has become as sensitive as talking about gun control in the wake of a mass shooting.
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Ben Kirtman, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, said he believes failing to discuss climate change hurts Florida and the entire country.
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Dr. Kirtman and Dr. Berry are among a group of Florida scientists who confronted Governor Rick Scott in recent years for his refusal to acknowledge that human-made greenhouse gases are driving climate change. Last year they wrote a letter to then-candidate Donald J. Trump asking for a meeting to discuss the consequences of climate change in Florida. They said the Trump campaign never responded.
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In Florida, scientists say, Gov. Scott’s aversion to even the words “climate change” have prompted scientists to self-censor their work.
“If you write a proposal and it talks about fixing some infrastructure because of climate change, it’s not going anywhere,” Mr. Kirtman said. “You spend an awful lot of effort word-searching your document for the words ‘climate’ and ‘change.’ It’s silliness.”
That is one reason many scientists maintain it is critical to use the megaphone that the dual devastation of Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma has provided. People, they note, are finally paying attention.
Friedman cited an obscure news source to make her case of benighted Republicans ignoring the obvious facts of climate change:
It’s unclear whether experiencing powerful storms will change minds. A 2015 study published in the journal Climatic Change found Americans experiencing extreme weather events are not necessarily more concerned about climate change. Last week E&E News interviewed several Republican lawmakers whose constituents were hit by Hurricane Harvey and most said they had not considered the issue of climate change.
