4 Apocalypses That Never Were

Climate change is real and may cause real problems. But media outlets keep pushing hysterical myths that don't materialize.

"Climate change will make earth a living hell!" claims popular astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

I don't believe him.

The media say, "All Arctic ice will soon melt away! Polar bears are dying off! Global warming causes food shortages!"

Bunk, bunk, bunk.

They are addicted to scaring us.

My new video covers four more myths about climate change:

Myth 1: It's worsening droughts.

The Environmental Defense Fund wins donations partly by claiming, "climate change is worsening drought." Media morons parrot the claim.

It's just not true.

The Environmental Protection Agency: "The last 50 years have generally been wetter than average."

Globally, there's been no increase in drought.

Heartland Institute Research Fellow Linnea Lueken notes, "The media…completely ignore previous years where there were record-low amounts of drought. Every individual drought that occurs in the United States, or anywhere in the world, is not evidence of catastrophic climate change. It's weather."

Myth 2: Climate change is worsening wildfires.

During California's wildfires, silly people at NBC News ranted, "Climate change [is] creating infernos larger than ever."

Bunk.

U.S. Forest Service data shows fires burned much more in the 1930s.

But the climate has gotten warmer! Doesn't that dry trees out and cause wildfires?

No, laughs Lueken. "One degree of change does not dry out all of the brush.…The real driver of these issues is land management."

Poor land management. California restricts clear cutting—removing almost all trees in an area. And they don't allow small fires to burn like they once did, naturally. So, overgrowth builds up and fuels bigger fires.

Also, today's wildfires affect more people not because of climate change, but because there's more suburban sprawl. More people build more houses in the path of grass fires.

Myth 3: Sea level rise will soon cause catastrophic damage.

In 2004, The Guardian wrote, "A secret report…warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas…by 2020."

By 2020.

Last I checked, European cities were OK.

"Sea level rise is absolutely occurring," says Lueken, "but it's been slow.…About a foot per century. There is no way that people wouldn't be able to adapt to it."

Exactly. More than 100 million people already live below high-tide sea level thanks to dikes like those Holland built years ago. And the Dutch built them without the modern equipment we have.

Adjusting to rising water makes more sense than recent environmental policy: moves to ban gas-powered vehicles, giving money to politically connected windfarm developers, etc.

That costs a fortune, but it will make no noticeable difference.

Climate change is real and may cause real problems.

But we can adapt to them, rather than getting hysterical about myths.

One last myth: Coral reefs are disappearing!

The BBC writes, "Coral islands in Australia at risk of disappearing."

According to New York Public Radio, "Scientists Say The Great Barrier Reef is Officially Dying."

It's just not true.

"2024 actually saw record coverage for the Great Barrier Reef," says Lueken. "Corals thrive in tropical conditions."

Between 2019 and 2024, coral coverage more than doubled.

I'm embarrassed for my profession. They pump out nonsense.

"It drives me absolutely batty every time one of these claims is made," says Lueken. "All it takes is a quick Google search to pull up publicly available data on any of these conditions."

"If the good news is so obvious, why would they keep reporting bad news?" I ask.

"Good news doesn't grab headlines…[and] research funding and grants."

That's key.

It took me years of reporting before I realized that scientists who gave me the best, most alarming, and interesting quotes were often just wrong. It isn't that they lie on purpose; it's just that the more you study a problem, the more you worry about it.

On top of that, a scientist who says it's not a problem, or it's a manageable problem, doesn't get attention. Or those big government grants.

If you want money and attention, you need to scare people.

COPYRIGHT 2025 BY JFS PRODUCTIONS INC.

Comments

[Stupid Government Tricks]

The coral reefs myth is the dumbest, to my thinking. They've survived hundreds of millions of years. They survived the comet which killed off dinosaurs. They survived the 500 foot sea level rise 10-15,000 years ago. They've survived A and H bomb tests. They'll survive just fine, but finer if environmentalists stop trying to help them, considering how well environmentalists are helping eagles and whales with wind turbines.

[Overt]

I went to the US Virgin Islands a couple years back 3 years after 3 cat 5s hit the island. Their reefs are utterly destroyed. In 20 years they will be back. But they will be in different places because our earth isn't a static entity- water levels, temperatures, everything is changing all the time. And reefs are some of the biggest adapters- moving to stay in those sweet spots of temperature and depth that are always changing.

[Zeb]

Too many people think everything is supposed to be static. As I understand it, coral bleaching events are also normal and common. But everyone freaks out as if they are a permanent change. Toxic pollution and mechanical damage are likely problems. But a small change in temps is not.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Among other self-centered and distorting traits, humans think only in their personal time scales. Most natural processes take much longer than the longest human lifetimes. 100 years is 0.000002% of earth history.

[Medulla Oblongata]

NY Times article "In California, a Wet Era May Be Ending" indicates that the last 150 years (i.e., since about California statehood) has been unusually wet, and that current conditions are essentially a reversion to the norm:

"Equally as important but much easier to forget is that we consider the last 150 years or so to be normal," he added. "But you don't have to go back very far at all to find much drier decades, and much drier centuries."

That raises the possibility that California has built its water infrastructure — indeed, its entire modern society — during a wet period.

But scientists say that in the more ancient past, California and the Southwest occasionally had even worse droughts — so-called megadroughts — that lasted decades. At least in parts of California, in two cases in the last 1,200 years, these dry spells lingered for up to two centuries.

The new normal, scientists say, may in fact be an old one.

A more comprehensive article is in the Mercury News:

https://www.mercurynews.com/2014/01/25/california-drought-past-dry-periods-have-lasted-more-than-200-years-scientists-say/

[VinniUSMC]

Too many people don't think. Too many people rely on memes and sound bites and appeals to authority. "The Science" is a big industry, but they don't actually trade in science. Like "fitness influencers" whose only "contributions" to fitness are carefully cultivated selfies.

[Overt]

That's The Science!™ to you, buddy. Careful or you get canceled!

[Rossami]

In fairness, the coral reefs are in grave danger - from the very people who research them. Those researchers (and other foreign visitors) all slather themselves up with sun screen to protect themselves from the sun. That sun screen comes off in the water and was only recently discovered to be astonishingly toxic to the coral they have been studying.

Coral-friendly sunscreens are now available (though expensive and often not used) but at least the effect is now known so the alarmist researchers went back and recalibrated their baseline data on coral growth and die-off trends, right? No, they didn't do that? That is ... utterly unsurprising.

[mad.casual]

This is even more retarded than the degree of warming.

It's the same idiotic, context-free overreaction as gluten-free, drinking 64 oz. of water a day, blue light from devices, and vaccines and autism... a potentially valid, very niche, and very addressable concern that gets blown out of context by "wet roads cause rain" idiots.

One of several compounds that are used in some sunscreens was found to be toxic to some coral... at levels that were effectively applying the sunscreen directly to the coral. Saying coral is in danger from divers and researchers who use sunscreen is very much akin to saying "Humans are in grave danger from all the people researching peanuts."

[SQRLSY]

https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/news/sunscreen-corals.html

I didn't know that, thanks!

[Homer Thompson]

remember when the government prevented a pandemic by investing in gain of function virus research

[TJJ2000]

^WINNER [phone].

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Perhaps some respected publication could give out annual Erhlich Awards.

[Sarah Palin's Buttplug - Jan 6 = 9/11 (same motive)]

What about the big kahuna of all the Apocolypse myths?

Dead Guy on a Stick comes back to life and sorts all the good-uns from the bad-uns after a battle with the Debil.

[VULGAR MADMAN]

That’s stunning and brave, pedo.

[Don't look at me! (Tariffs are killing the penguin industry!)]

Finally! After a couple thousand years and billions of believers, we found the guy with the true answers!

[Public Entelectual]

Leuken makes her living just as John does, one cracker at a time by parroting whatever their sponsors want to hear.
The tell is that Stossel has been continuously recycling the same cliches from the same ad campaign playbooks for the last two decades.

[Idaho-Bob]

Aww, did someone get his religion questioned?

I mean the sponsored climate people have been saying the same shit for over 30 years.

[VULGAR MADMAN]

Don’t worry, you can get into climate heaven if you buy an indulgence.

[Public Entelectual]

Absent heaven, indulgences are a grift not worth giving,
Climate OTOH is anything but metaphysical, and the world's PR flacks or manifesto writing classes , left right and center are powerless to alter the consequences of altering the physics of the atmosphere by design or misadventure.

I don't care whether you can't , don't , or won't read the science in question.

[Michael Ejercito]

You people just want to destroy the First World lifestyle.

[Think It Through]

The world is indeed physical. Where's that sea rise? Where's the cities and Florida disappearing?

[Medulla Oblongata]

Why did Obama buy property on Martha's Vineyard? Why do rich leftist billionaires continue to buy beachfront mansions?

[Stupid Government Tricks]

Sorta like you projecting your "reality" on to someone who understands actual reality. Is that the only kind of response you know, attacking the messenger?

Try an actual rebuttal next time.

[Bertram Guilfoyle]

Why did you quit linking to your totally legit, non-spoof website?

[Sevo, 5-30-24, embarrassment]

You make your living by maintaining a fake web site and lying about the climate, public imbecile.
Fuck off and die.

[Overt]

In the video, talking about forest fires, they make exactly the same point that I made to Bailey 5 years ago:

https://reason.com/2020/09/18/can-fire-insurance-manage-wildfire-risks-in-california/?comments=true#comments

Anyone telling you its the driest in CA since the 80s or the worst fires since the 80s is cherrypicking data- as the 80s were unusually wet for CA.

Stossel gets it. Unfortunately, Reason's resident "science expert" does not.

[Don't look at me! (Tariffs are killing the penguin industry!)]

More testing needed!

[Medulla Oblongata]

See my link above "NY Times article "In California, a Wet Era May Be Ending" indicates that the last 150 years (i.e., since about California statehood) has been unusually wet, and that current conditions are essentially a reversion to the norm:..."

[Cyrano]

Don't let Ron Bailey see this article!

[Doug Heffernan]

Let's remember stossel's words when he comes around to scare his readers/viewers about national debt or entitlement programs.

Many libertarian predictions in those realms have also failed to materialize. But I'd guess that stossel would say that these issues are objectively scary, so he's justified in scare style reporting about them. Whereas the North Carolina and Florida floodplains are just scary fake news designed to make money. And the reason that property insurance is almost impossible to obtain there is just because some liar wants to make more money by scaring everybody.

[TJJ2000]

Is the national debt going up $0.03 a decade?
The only thing funnier than the BS is the microscopic 'pebble' the BS is packing with it.

[TJJ2000]

The biggest 'pebble' (climate-difference) ever found was during WWII temperature drops when more CO2 than ever was being emitted. It's like they manufactured counterfeit-evidence to their own historical evidence.

[Sevo, 5-30-24, embarrassment]

"Let's remember stossel's words when he comes around to scare his readers/viewers about national debt or entitlement programs.

Let's remember Heffernan's attempt at false equivalence.

[Zeb]

You know, they do call them "flood plains" for a reason.

[TJJ2000]

It's a sun-god mixed with gov-gun-god religion.
That's it.

A lot of religions use the same scare tactics but most religions don't get legislated and certainly none have been legislated even close to the depths of the climate religion nay-Sayers.

[charliehall]

You flunked world history. Many countries have have had legislated oppressive religious persecution.

[TJJ2000]

...in the USA which isn't and has no desire to be just like any other of "many countries".

[Medulla Oblongata]

Indeed, try being a Christian or Jew in Gaza Palestine.

[TJJ2000]

The BIG elephant in the weather-changes alarm room is.....
[Na]tional So[zi]alist Gov-Gun "central planning" of the energy sector.

It's one of the known Marxism requirements.
If the people have an abundance of energy resources; 'King' DICTATION struggles.

[charliehall]

Many countries with centrally planned energy have lower electric rates and more reliable service.

[TJJ2000]

There you go again with "many countries".
Once again ... the USA has no desire to be just another of "many countries".

Don't like the Individual Liberty and Justice for all model of the USA?
There's "many countries" you can MOVE too.

[Medulla Oblongata]

Not a lot of them in Socialist Democrat Europe, though...maybe we can aspire to low electricity costs like Libya and Sudan and Iran have! Or at least like Russia and China!

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/cost-of-electricity-by-country

Top 10 Countries With the Highest Electricity Costs
Bermuda $0.46
Italy $0.46
Ireland $0.44
Cayman Islands $0.43
Liechtenstein $0.41
Switzerland $0.40
Denmark $0.38
Barbados $0.37
United Kingdom $0.37
Germany $0.36

Denmark
Electricity costs more in Denmark than in most other countries in Europe. For one kilowatt-hour, Denmark pays about $0.384 USD as of 2024. Several factors, including infrastructure, geography, and taxes, primarily affect the price. Denmark has some of the highest tax rates on electricity. About half of the electricity price in Denmark is attributed to an additional tax.

Germany
Not far behind Denmark, Germany has the second-highest electricity cost in the world, according to most sources. On average, Germans pay approximately $0.365 (USD) per kilowatt-hour for electricity. As in Denmark, about half of Germany’s per-kilowatt-hour rate can be attributed to high taxes on electricity production. Germany saw a spike in the cost of electricity following 2012. After the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, Germany closed many nuclear reactors, creating a much greater demand for electricity from traditional sources. Before 2012, electricity prices in Germany were more closely aligned with the costs of electricity in the United States (which are markedly lower).

United Kingdom
Residents of the UK pay $0.368 per kilowatt-hour of electricity consumed, on average. The UK’s high prices can be largely attributed to the island nation’s location. Heavy reliance on traditional fossil fuels for electricity production can also make the cost of electricity prone to extreme fluctuations as the oil market changes over time.

Austria
Austria’s average price for electricity is $0.360. In 2022, the Austrian government experimented with a per-household price cap on electricity, but the plan proved controversial.

Italy
Italians pay an average of $0.457 per kilowatt hour for electricity. Italy generates roughly 50% of its electricity from the burning of natural gas. Because of this, the price of electricity can be quite volatile, impacted greatly by fluctuations in the price of natural gas. For example, even the government-regulated price of electricity, which impacts 41% of the country’s households, fell by 19% in Q1 2022 and rose by 58% in Q4 2022.

Belgium
Belgians pay just over $0.365 USD for every kilowatt-hour of electricity they consume, as of 2024. While a good portion of this cost is related to taxes, Belgium’s geographical location makes it reliant on neighboring countries for much of its electricity production, which amplifies the cost of electricity.

[Brian]

Myth 1: It's worsening droughts.

I have not figured out how climate change causes BOTH droughts AND floods. It causes hot and it causes cold. It causes wind and it causes calm. It's very convenient to have one thing to blame for any weather that comes along. It makes it a lot easier to justify all sorts of government intervention to save the planet.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Like most religions there is no figuring out. In fact, that suggests heresy. True Belief is based on faith. And most doctrines are filled with logical contradictions, which to the faithful are wondrous mysteries.

And yes, religion always ends up telling us what to do.

[charliehall]

Warm air can hold more water thus creating greater flood potential.

[Michael Ejercito]

Which also reduces drought potential.

[sarcasmic]

The same way Trump's tariffs are protectionist and revenue generating at the same time. Magic.

[Set Us Up The Chipper]

The term Climate Change that was inserted to replace Global Warming was done so as to intentionally make the whole enterprise unfalsifiable. Now they can procedurally conjure up drought and floods, too hot and too cold, etc. It's anti-Science on the face of it.

[TJJ2000]

^BINGO [phone]

[charliehall]

There are streets in Norfolk VA that are underwater every high tide. The federal government has been quietly spending a fortune to shore up the Norfolk naval base.

Florida residents are finally being forced to pay the real costs of insuring their properties. Ditto California. Texas will be next.

The effects of climate change are real, and expensive. But not apocalyptic. Yet.

[TJJ2000]

Better dump a whole lot of CO2 again then like during WWII.
Even if you want to believe the BS. The narrative has no logic.

[Idaho-Bob]

The average elevation of the city of Norfolk, Virginia is seven feet above sea level, which is approximately two meters above sea level. However, this also means that several areas of the city have a lower elevation.

So some of Norfolk is BSL, and you cry about tidal flooding

Florida and Texas insurance is hurricane related, while California insurance is fire and earthquake driven.

Fucking doom criers.

[MWAocdoc]

You are generally correct and completely right in your critique of the media. However, there is at least one exception: although not a human catastrophe, it will be sad to lose Venice.

[Medulla Oblongata]

It was sad to lose Lake Agassiz, too. It was sad to lose the Hindu city of Dwarka Sri Krishna, too.

[Medulla Oblongata]

"If the good news is so obvious, why would they keep reporting bad news?" I ask.

Alarming headlines sell papers... Alarming study results secure funding...there's political power involved (especially for leftist policies of redistribution of wealth)...

Researcher Robert Phalen's 2010 testimony to the California Air Resources Board: "It benefits us personally to have the public be afraid, even if these risks are trivial."

Monika Kopacz, atmospheric scientist: "It is no secret that a lot of climate-change research is subject to opinion, that climate models sometimes disagree even on the signs of the future changes (e.g. drier vs. wetter future climate). The problem is, only sensational exaggeration makes the kind of story that will get politicians’ — and readers’ — attention. So, yes, climate scientists might exaggerate, but in today’s world, this is the only way to assure any political action and thus more federal financing to reduce the scientific uncertainty."

Former U.S. Senator Timothy Wirth (D-CO), then representing the Clinton-Gore administration as U.S undersecretary of state for global issues, addressing the same Rio Climate Summit audience, agreed: “We have got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic policy and environmental policy.”

Christine Stewart, former Canadian Environment Minister: “No matter if the science is all phoney, there are collateral environmental benefits.... climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world.”

[Medulla Oblongata]

moved