At times in the past couple of years, the scare tactics have been akin to a 1950s horror movie, including somewhat hysterically a film being released wherein oil workers in Alaska were actually killed by Mother Nature supposedly rising up to defend herself from climate change.
On Wednesday, USA Today added giant snakes to the equation, using the frightening imagery of Burmese pythons -- which can grow in size to 20 feet and 250 pounds -- roaming America if citizens don't immediately change their wicked carbon dioxide emitting ways (emphasis added, h/t NBer Brau):
As climate change warms the nation, giant Burmese pythons could colonize one-third of the USA, from San Francisco across the Southwest, Texas and the South and up north along the Virginia coast, according to U.S. Geological Survey maps released Wednesday.
[...]
Two federal agencies - the USGS and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - are investigating the range of nine invasive snakes in Florida, concerned about the danger they now pose to endangered species. The agencies are collecting data to aid in the control of these populations.
They examined Burmese pythons first and, based on where they live in Asia, estimated where they might live here. One map shows where the pythons could live today, an area that expands when scientists use global warming models for 2100.
"We were surprised by the map. It was bigger than we thought it was going to be," says Gordon Rodda, zoologist and lead project researcher. "They are moving northward, there's no question."
Of course, late in the article we find that the problem isn't actually global warming. It's that people are buying these snakes as pets, and then abandoning them:
If federal officials had to worry only about Florida, it would be "decades" before the pythons move into other states, Rodda says. But people keep dumping pythons they don't want into the wild. "We just learned about some that had been released in Arkansas," he says.
Hmmm. So, maybe officials ought to do more to prevent these snakes from being brought into the country, and stop using them as a political tool to advance climate alarmism:
In Florida, they eat bobcats, deer, alligators, raccoons, cats, rats, rabbits, muskrats, possum, mice, ducks, egrets, herons and song birds. They grab with their mouth to anchor the prey, then coil around the animal and crush it to death before eating it whole.
If you see one, don't attempt to engage it. Leave the area, note the location and notify the authorities.
Anyone question why so many people feel those that advance the global warming myth should be called climate alarmists?
Somewhat comically, within hours of this article being published, as Rush Limbaugh discussed the New York Times hit piece on John McCain, he referred to people in the drive-by media as snakes.
As such, Americans indeed should be very afraid, not of pythons roaming the planet, but of irresponsible journalists that know absolutely nothing about science advancing this myth by using such disgraceful scare tactis.
