Original article (in Bosnian) was published on 08/10/2024; Author: Nerma Šehović
On a conspiracy theory website, it was published that the media are using hurricane “Helene” to “push an agenda” of supposedly fabricated global warming. This is yet another “contribution” to denying climate change.
At the end of September 2024, the southeastern part of the United States was hit by hurricane “Helene”. On October 3, 2024, the website Nulta tacka published an article seemingly dedicated to this natural disaster, with the following headline:
“Media Using Hurricane Helene to Promote the ‘Global Warming’ Agenda”
The article equates the terms “global warming” and “climate change”, claiming that neither is real, that there is no scientific consensus on climate change, and that hurricane “Helene” is baselessly linked to it.
Even as the death toll from hurricane Helene continues to rise, experts in mainstream media are rushing to use the disaster as an excuse to promote their narrative that ‘global warming’ is real.
According to Just The News, a number of prominent hosts, commentators, and other TV personalities have taken advantage of the hurricane to spread lies about so-called “global warming”, also known as “climate change”.
‘We are living in an era of extreme weather that requires new terms’, said Major Geret from CBS News.
He further falsely claimed that the world has seen an increase in all types of natural disasters, despite this being debunked by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
(…)
The topic of global warming was raised during the vice presidential debate on Tuesday night, with CBS News moderators blaming global warming for the hurricane.
After both candidates responded to the statement, the moderators falsely claimed that there is a “scientific consensus” that global warming is real, even though no such consensus exists.
These claims were also shared on the Nulta tacka Telegram channel and on Facebook here.
What are the facts about global warming and climate change?
Global warming refers to the long-term warming of the Earth’s surface caused by human activities, primarily the burning of fossil fuels that increase levels of greenhouse gases, which trap heat in the planet’s atmosphere. Climate change is a term that describes long-term changes in Earth’s weather patterns, partially caused by greenhouse gas emissions, i.e., global warming.
Thus, they are two distinct, yet interconnected terms. There is abundant evidence that climate change caused by human activities is real. This includes, among other things, the melting of Greenland’s ice sheet, rising average sea levels, disruptions in animal migration patterns, and the increase in Earth’s average temperature.
Contrary to the claims featured in the Nulta tacka article, there is a scientific consensus on climate change. According to a 2016 study, over 90% of climatologists whose work has been published in scientific journals believe that human activity is causing global warming, and more than 99.99% of peer-reviewed scientific studies since 2012 have also reached the same conclusion.
Therefore, there is a scientific consensus that climate change caused by human activity is real, meaning nearly all experts in the field agree with this claim. The denial of climate change, which is so popular on social media and certain websites, mostly does not come from the scientific community. As noted in Raskrinkavanje’s analysis published on July 22, 2022, oil companies have been financing the spread of disinformation and conspiracy theories about climate change for decades (1, 2, 3, 4).
Hurricane “Helene”
Hurricane “Helene” struck the southeastern United States on September 26, 2024. The storm first hit Florida, then North and South Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, and Tennessee. Over 200 people have died, and hundreds more are missing. The material damage is enormous. Even mountainous areas, hundreds of kilometres away from the ocean, were affected (1, 2).
Several U.S. media outlets have reported that climate change may have partially contributed to the destructiveness of this hurricane (1, 2, 3, 4). As Cary Mock, a professor of geography at the University of South Carolina, explained in an article published by The Conversation on October 7, 2024, “Warm ocean water fuels hurricanes, and warmer air can hold more moisture, creating stronger destructive storms”.
Climate change, in addition to intense droughts, can contribute to more intense storms and floods. For example, higher temperatures lead to greater water evaporation, which creates denser clouds and produces more rain. This results in more floods and more intense storms. Of course, there are other factors that contribute to natural disasters and their destructive consequences, including inadequate government policies, unplanned urbanization, poor forest management, and so on. You can find more information on the effects of climate change on extreme weather conditions in Raskrinkavanje’s analysis available here.
In any case, there is no “agenda” of global warming. It is real, confirmed by a multitude of undeniable evidence, and agreed upon by the scientific community. The claim that the media are using hurricane “Helene” to promote the “agenda of fake” global warming is rated as a conspiracy theory.
