NY Times turns up volume on ‘climate propaganda machine’

The New York Times announced last week that it will expand its coverage on climate change, just as the Trump administration plans to defund most federal climate programs and the global commitment to pay for climate policies starts to wane.

A group of journalists at the Times will now be “devoted entirely to climate issues” and work with their international news bureaus to report how “the calamities caused by climate change seem to be intensifying.”

{mosads}According to Hannah Fairfield, head of the new climate reporting team, the Times will “produce visual, explanatory and investigative journalism” during a time of “uncertainty regarding the Trump administration’s environmental policies.”

This is an interesting move because it’s not as if the paper lacks coverage of climate issues; in fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find a bigger climate change cheerleader than the New York Times.

Rarely a day goes by that the Gray Lady isn’t wringing her hands and clutching her pearls about the certain doom we all face because of anthropogenic global warming. Its opinion page is one sustained wail about the imminent doom we all face at the hands of President Trump and his planet-pillaging cabinet.

In the past month, the Times published more than 200 articles that mention climate change. One story suggests climate change caused cherry blossoms to bloom early in Washington, D.C., just before a winter storm killed them off. California’s drought-turned-deluge, famine in Africa and a water crisis in Mexico City were all blamed on climate change — and that’s just in one month. 

Exactly zero articles in the Times gave voice to those who legitimately question how much, if at all, human activity is contributing to the aforementioned catastrophes.

Last month, after a top scientist from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration exposed serious misconduct at that agency related to a key climate report released a few years ago, the Times downplayed his accusations, calling it an “inter-office spat” and smearing the whistleblower as a temperamental bully with a personal grudge. 

Let’s not forget the Times’ reliably apocalyptic Nick Kristof, who wrote a rambling albeit heartbreaking column before Inauguration Day that blamed Donald Trump — and Americans in general — for starving children in Africa.

After interviewing the mother of a malnourished baby in Madagascar, Kristof said, “We Americans may be inadvertently killing her infant son.” He wrote that, “Trump should come and feel these children’s ribs and watch them struggle for life. The basic injustice is that we rich countries produce the carbon that is devastating impoverished people from Madagascar to Bangladesh.”

No doubt Kristof will have more horror stories to share about how American profligacy causes children to starve when he joins many well-heeled NYT readers next year on a monthlong tour around the world, traveling on a customized Boeing 757 to talk about — yes, you guessed it — climate change.

As if all that alarming coverage isn’t enough, the Times is ready to turn up the volume on its climate propaganda machine. Why? Because the media and everyone on the left now realizes what is at stake — they are about to lose their best excuse to expand government, raise taxes, promote globalism and punish industry.

Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, bluntly said during a press conference on March 16 that, “Regarding the question as to climate change, I think the president was fairly straightforward. We’re not spending money on that any more. We consider that to be a waste of your money.” 

It’s not just here where the checkbook will be closed for climate policies. At the behest of the U.S., China, India and other countries, the G20 finance ministers dropped any reference to climate change in their draft communique prepared over the weekend. The report will be presented during the G20 meeting in Germany this July. 

So the left is staking out a fierce battle to win over public support to see if Democrats can make climate change abandonment a rallying cry in 2018. A Gallup poll issued last week shows Americans are still split on the issue, with roughly one-third saying the seriousness of global warming is generally exaggerated and one-third saying it is underestimated.

While most said the increase in global temperatures is due to human activities, most do not believe global warming will pose a serious threat in their lifetime. It’s too early to say whether opening up the scientific debate on man-made climate change will hurt or help public perception.

What we do know is that climate mouthpieces like the New York Times will only ramp up their personal attacks on so-called deniers, push climate doomsday scenarios and blame every weather incident on America’s carbon output. If you think the headlines and articles are egregious now, just wait.

Julie Kelly writes about environmental and food policy and is a contributor to The Hill and National Review Online. Her work has also appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and The Huffington Post.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.