First, Maui, then Florida, and now Morroco disasters dominate the news. The media quickly linked the first two disasters to climate change. This analysis isn’t surprising; we link almost every crisis to climate change. However, connecting a 6.8 magnitude quake to climate change is a stretch.

Never fear; journalists can take courses and attend seminars at the “prestigious” Columbia Journalism School. According to the school’s website, “Columbia Journalism School has been training its students to become leading climate change reporters. With changes in the climate endangering lives, ecologies, and economies at global and local levels, the work of journalists is vital for effectively and accurately explaining the science and implications of climate change to the public.” 

If you are not enrolled, you can attend its seminars. A series is coming up, “Climate Changes Everything – Creating a Blueprint for Media Transformation,” to be held September 21 and 22, 2023. The tagline reads: “Join leading journalists from around the world for an unprecedented conversation about how to cover a world on fire.” With the proper training, almost anything can be tied to climate change. Maybe even earthquakes. If there is a way, they’ll find it.

 Have you wondered how the progressive media and politicians always seem on the same page? Academic and other elite gatherings are a great place to get everyone to align. They can discuss the latest scholarly papers at the gatherings, often appearing in prestigious journals. Of course, these have trained editors.

Those papers have to support your positions. No problem. Scientists and others know their papers have little or no chance of making it into “prestigious journals” unless they’re tailored to the views of progressive editors.

Patrick T. Brown tells us how he had to adjust his work to get it into a journal. Mr. Brown explains, “So why does the press focus so intently on climate change as the root cause? Perhaps for the same reasons I just did in an academic paper about wildfires in Nature, one of the world’s most prestigious journals: it fits a simple storyline that rewards the person telling it.” 

The problem with tailored Journal entries is they can be weaponized against opposing views. A classic example is the letter published in the Journal Lancet claiming Covid could not have come from the Wuhan Lab. Government medical authorities used it to pressure media platforms to suppress the Lab Leak Theory. Nothing could be less scientific.

Claiming you’re just using “the Science” to root out fake news seems benevolent, but as I pointed out in my last post, it can result in the wrong policy. Our reaction to Covid was disastrously wrong, but it wasn’t for lack of better information. Most people just heard about the alternatives when it was too late.

This suppression is most often done voluntarily by like-minded media outlets. No one had to lean on the New York Times or Washington Post to pooh-pooh the Hunter Biden Laptop Story and then bury it. It boggles the mind these two “pillars of journalism” finally conceded after two years the Laptop was genuine. Other platforms, mainly social media on the internet, had to be coerced to censor. The extent of the harm to election integrity is still being felt.

The quashing goes on. We are endlessly told that most “climate scientists” agree we are facing climate catastrophe. But climate science is a subset of people, by definition, who believe in the doomsday scenario. There is no funding for positions in the field for opposing points of view. The Brown exposure of Nature’s bias is dismissed. “This wasn’t actual climate change denial. Most “papers” by denialists are really just perfectly innocent applications to join QAnon, MAGA, the Flat Earth Society, or some other highbrow organization.”

Just as The Great Barrington Declaration (GBD) and its authors were dismissed and suppressed to our great detriment, the banishment of opposing ideas “climate” positions will result in disaster. Like GBD, most people are unaware of the “World Climate Declareation,” signed by 1600 leading scientists, including Nobel Prize Winners, who claim that the climate “emergency” is a myth. Hardly the “Flast earth Society.” 

Isn’t it simple prudence to hear all views before committing trillions of dollars and dislocating our whole economy while disrupting society? Yet here we are.

However, ever the optimist, I see reasons to hope there is growing awareness and pushback against progressive conformity. A federal judge enjoined many government entities from colluding with private media platforms to suppress information. The court action is based on the likelihood they coerced the platforms to censor things like the GBD and Hunter Biden Laptop Story in contravention of the First Amendment.

Supported by its allied media, the government appealed and obtained a stay of the judge’s order. The progressive left cheered, claiming it was an activist judge and would be overturned. However, the Fifth Circuit affirmed the lower court’s injunction because of likely Constitutional violations. While the government may appeal to the Supreme Court, given the lower courts’ opinions, it’s hard to see the conservative court overturning their orders. The Supreme Court might leave them to stand without hearing an appeal.

Such an outcome would stop government attempts to coerce media platforms to censor opinions it dislikes. The Internet platforms and others will now likely stay clear of the government and give wide latitude to opposing information.

Of course, most of the press doesn’t need coercion to follow the progressive narratives. In fact, they started many of them. The Washington Post, USA Today, the New York Times, and other legacy media aren’t about to change and return to journalism.

However, maybe these outlets are losing their clout. For instance, for all the suppression of the Biden Family’s influence-pedaling business, a recent CNN poll showed “A majority, 61%, say they think that Biden had at least some involvement in Hunter Biden’s business dealings, with 42% saying they think he acted illegally, and 18% saying that his actions were unethical but not illegal.”

People are getting information from somewhere else. While most still feature progressive news outlets, internet aggregators such as Apple, Google, and Smartnews present a broader range of news outlets and opinions. The Fifth Circuit’s action will only support the trend against censorship.

According to Gallup, most Americans in 1979 had a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in newspapers. This year it’s 18%. People are getting their news elsewhere, probably the internet. 

Nobody has all the answers, but more information allows us a better basis to make the right decisions or realize quicker when we need a course correction. We may be at a crossroads.