Thursday’s CBS Evening News led with the severe weather threatening those in the Midwest, but in addition to looking at the storm track and damage thus far, the storms were hyped as a consequence of global warming.
Anchor Scott Pelley ruled in an opening tease that “[t]ornadoes in Texas” struck “on the same day that a new study blames climate change for a surge in severe storms and wildfires.”
The talk about global warming quickly resumed after a report from a Texas affiliate on the storm damage thus far:
Well, this was also the day that government scientists said 14 of the last extreme weather events were made worse by climate change caused by pollution. Examples cited included the 2014 California wildfires and cyclones in Hawaii.
In the first of two reports on the topic, correspondent John Blackstone lamented that “[e]xtreme heat events are one focus of today's report on the impact of climate change around the world” as “heat waves like the one that gripped South Korea were made worse by human-caused climate change, things such as car emissions, burning coal, and methane gas.”
Along with heat waves, Blackstone touted the report’s claim that all other types of weather have been exacerbated due to global warming before only briefly acknowledging that weather patterns have often been changing:
The report studied 28 extreme weather events around the world last year. 14 of those, including devastating floods in Australia and New Zealand, were found to be made worse, in part, by climate change, but the impact of human activity can be complex, the report says. In the United States, record snowfall in the northeast and Midwest was not the result of climate change, rather just cyclical weather patterns. However, the study says severe wildfires in California are becoming more likely because of global warming.
Correspondent Ben Tracy followed with a second segment that tried to tie everything in the prior piece with the weather pattern of El Nino (which has actually been naturally occurring on its own for ages).
This was far from the first time that the CBS Evening News pushed the left’s agenda on global warming. On July 21, the network touted another government study that former NASA climate chief James Hansen warned was a “dire forecast about the climate in the years ahead.”
Back on April 8's newscast, the network aired portion of Dr. Jon LaPook’s fawning interview with President Obama proclaiming the dangers of global warming for the average American’s health.
The relevant portions of the transcript from the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley on November 5 can be found below.
CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley
November 5, 2015
6:30 p.m. Eastern [TEASE]
SCOTT PELLEY: Tornadoes in Texas on the same day that a new study blames climate change for a surge in severe storms and wildfires.
(....)
6:32 p.m. Eastern
[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE CAPTION: Climate Change]
PELLEY: Well, this was also the day that government scientists said 14 of the last extreme weather events were made worse by climate change caused by pollution. Examples cited included the 2014 California wildfires and cyclones in Hawaii. By land and by sea, we have two reports. First, John Blackstone.
JOHN BLACKSTONE: Most years, the Dungeness crab harvest in California is bountiful, worth close to $60 million, but this year, there may not be any harvest. High levels of toxic algae in the ocean make the crab too dangerous to eat. The widespread algae bloom is because of unusually high temperatures in the Pacific. Sarah Cohen is a marine biologist at San Francisco State University.
SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY’s SARAH COHEN: It's unbelievably warm. We've never had a warming event like this. The extent of it, the different contributing factors, and how this is going to play out this season leads scientists to have huge concerns.
BLACKSTONE: Extreme heat events are one focus of today's report on the impact of climate change around the world. The study found that in 2014, extreme heat waves like the one that gripped South Korea were made worse by human-caused climate change, things such as car emissions, burning coal, and methane gas. The report studied 28 extreme weather events around the world last year. 14 of those, including devastating floods in Australia and New Zealand, were found to be made worse, in part, by climate change, but the impact of human activity can be complex, the report says. In the United States, record snowfall in the northeast and Midwest was not the result of climate change, rather just cyclical weather patterns. However, the study says severe wildfires in California are becoming more likely because of global warming.
COHEN: Climate change is causing a lot of unfortunate, disastrous impacts around the world.
BLACKSTONE: This is the fourth year scientists have studied whether extreme — human — whether human activity is at least partly to blame for extreme weather things such as droughts and wildfires and over those years, Scott, more than half of the extreme weather events they've studied have been linked to human-caused climate change.
PELLEY: John Blackstone on a beautiful day by the Bay. The extreme warming of the Pacific that John mentioned is quickly changing the ecology all along the west coast, and here’s Ben Tracy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE FISHERMAN #1: Yeah!
BEN TRACY: Off the coast of Southern California, fishermen are having a field day.
(....)
TRACY: And farther south, kayakers are finding themselves surrounded by hammerhead sharks, rarely seen off California. Chris Lowe is a marine biologist and director of the Shark Lab at Cal State Long Beach. He says El Nino, warming of the ocean water, is shifting the ocean’s ecosystems north.
(....)
TRACY: Tourists near Alcatraz watched as a great white shark attacked a sea lion. It's believed to be the first great white ever seen catching prey inside San Francisco Bay. Sea lions are also starving to death because the small fish they eat have moved to colder waters, another impact of El Nino. Now, El Nino is also expected to change the weather here in California and bring some much-needed rain after four years of drought. Scott, those El Nino-fueled storms typically begin in January.
