It’s imbecilic for The Associated Press to act like any person with common sense would take its screeching about “human-caused climate change” seriously now after being paid millions to spread eco-propaganda.
AP’s climate “writer” Seth Borenstein kicked off his July 31 enviro-screed by making it sound like the beginning of a science fiction novel. “At about summer’s halfway point, the record-breaking heat and weather extremes are both unprecedented and unsurprising, hellish yet boring in some ways, scientists say. Killer heat. Deadly floods. Smoke from wildfires that chokes. And there’s no relief in sight,” Borenstein cried. "Here’s a rundown of the summer of Earth’s discontent."
Borenstein buried a more logical explanation for the extreme weather event and yet still managed to smear it with climate change, anti-fossil fuel drivel: “‘This story, these impacts, are going to continue,' [NASA climate scientist Gavin] Schmidt said. 'We’re going to be seeing this pretty much this year and into next year' with a natural El Nino warming of the Pacific adding to the overwhelming influence of human-caused climate change largely from the burning of coal, oil and gas.” [Emphasis added.]
Of course, readers wouldn't know it until the bottom of Borenstein's 31 paragraphs-long agitprop that AP announced in 2022 that it was receiving $8 million from a consortium of leftist, eco-obsessed nonprofit organizations like the Rockefeller Foundation and Quadrivium (the activist organization of News Corp. Executive Chairman Rupert Murdoch’s estranged son and climate activist James Murdoch). The purpose of the leftist funding was supposedly for the purpose of “significantly expand[ing]” AP’s “climate coverage” with the goal to “infuse” the media landscape with climate journalism, all while keeping the deceptive veneer of “unbiased news” intact.
The vague disclosure in Borenstein's article made it seem like its nonprofit financiers were apolitical and that AP was still acting independently: "Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content." Yeah, sure. [Emphasis added.]
Borenstein concluded his climate Armageddon rant with the ramblings of frequent MSNBC climate alarmist guest and University of Pennsylvania Earth and Environmental Science Professor Michael Mann. “‘How on God’s Earth are we still burning fossil fuels after witnessing all this,’” Mann told Borenstein. This is the same Mann (no pun intended) who scaremongered to MSNBC in June 2022 how we supposedly “have less than a decade” to save the planet, an exhausted propaganda talking point that the media have been peddling for years. He also grumbled in June 2023 that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in West Virginia v. EPA (2021) that prohibited federal agencies from arbitrarily regulating carbon emissions at power plants without congressional approval meant it supposedly “removed the right to a livable planet.”
Climate Depot Founder Marc Morano slammed Borenstein for his ridiculous sensationalization in comments to MRC Business. “The AP is hyping every bad weather event it can find globally to fit their narrative,” Morano rebuked. “What they do not explain is that your chance of winning the lottery is very low, but the chance of someone, somewhere, winning the lottery is very high. So the activists essentially hype 'lottery winners' of extreme weather events and try to imply these events are increasing and happening everywhere.”
But Borenstein’s knee-jerk reaction to wield any weather event to bellyache about the climate boogeyman is definitely on brand. After all, this was the same Borenstein who mindlessly touted the output of an unofficial climate model — not actually measured temperatures — to sensationalize in a July 6 headline how “[f]or third day, it was the hottest day on Earth, as global temperature matches record set Tuesday.” Borenstein and his co-author would later update their headline after it was clear they got the story wrong: “Earth hit an unofficial record high temperature this week – and stayed there.”
The authors inserted comments from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in their newly edited piece calling the output data “‘not suitable’ as substitutes for actual temperatures and climate records,” undercutting their initial argument.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact the Associated Press at 212-621-1500 and demand it quit acting like a mouthpiece for its eco-extremist donors.
