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A tropical disturbance in the force

How our polluted media is covering the Florida floods

Author

Brad Johnson
June 13, 2024

PRESENTED BY THE FLAMINGONE

As a result of the pollution from burning of hundreds of billions of tons of fossil fuels, southern Florida is being pounded by a biblical deluge of rain. And it’s not even a hurricane or tropical storm, just a “disturbance.” The disaster has forced climate-denier Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) to declare a state of emergency.1  

How did our corporate media, flooded by fossil-fuel advertising and pounded daily by the political pressure of Big Oil’s allies, report on the story?

CNN meteorologist Mary Gilbert cut through the paltering and deception with the stark and clear third paragraph of her story:

“Six to more than 20 inches of rain has deluged South Florida since Tuesday morning. While the state is no stranger to drenching rain, heavy rain events are getting even heavier as the world warms due to fossil fuel pollution.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Alas, this was the high-water mark.

The Associated Press’s Curt Anderson and Freida Frisaro get a somewhat honorable mention for noting “concerns that climate change is increasing storm intensity.”

Winning the Climate Silence award, New York Times meteorologist Judson Jones remarkably claimed the deluge was the “result of a cold front.”

In paragraph 19 of the Washington Post story by Nicolás Rivero, Matthew Cappucci, Amudalat Ajasa, and María Luisa Paúl was a note that “increased rainfall rates and more extreme flooding events are strongly linked to human-induced climate change.”

Which is pretty good, but the story is running with greenwashing ads from oil-pipeline company Enbridge, the American Petroleum Institute (“In the race for our future, America has an advantage: We lead the world in oil and gas production”), and the Partnership to Address Global Emissions, a fossil-fuel front group attacking the LNG export facility approval moratorium (“Natural gas = steady energy transition”).

I’m giving the Climate Dissonance Prize to Axios Generate today, however. In today’s newsletter, Andrew Freedman credited Florida’s “ominous deluge” to “the unusually hot waters of the Gulf of Mexico” due to a “warming climate.” Just below, a greenwashing ad from Chevron: “Our Gulf of Mexico operations are some of the world’s lowest carbon intensity-producing assets. Helping supply energy that’s affordable, reliable and ever-cleaner.”

The Miami Herald editorial board almost got it right when they concluded: “The real answer to South Florida’s predicament is to slow down the burning of fossil fuels that cause climate change.”

Close but no cigar: the real answer is to stop the burning. The planet will keep warming until we stop dumping greenhouse pollution into the atmosphere.

United Nations Secretary General António Guterres was on to something when he called for a global ban on advertising by the “godfathers of climate chaos.”

climatedefiance: "WE JUST RUSHED THE FIELD AT THE CONGRESSIONAL BASEBALL GAME! WE REFUSE TO SIT IDLY BY WHILE THESE "LEADERS" PLAY GAMES WITH OUR FUTURE....".

So it’s no surprise that Climate Defiance activists disrupted the Congressional Baseball Game, which was officially sponsored by Chevron and unofficially sponsored by all the climate polluters who finance Congressional electoral campaigns. The oil-backed Republicans dominated the Democrats 31-11, almost matching their 5-to-1 ratio of oil and gas money.

And in New York City, the blockade of Citibank, the world’s largest financier of fossil-fuel expansion, continued. This morning, elders with the Rocking Chair Rebellion were arrested after sitting in the way of Citibank’s dirty work.

scientistrebellionturtleisland Hey! @citibank open your eyes, you are threatening our children’s lives

Via Ken Bossong, a ray of sunshine: renewables provided 99 percent of new generating capacity in April. Solar and wind now provide more than one-fifth of the nation’s total generating capacity.

And now, no words from our sponsor:

flamingone

F L A M I N G O N E. Credit: Miles Astray

Today’s ecofascist Natural Resources subcommittee hearing on the use of Floyd Bennett Field in New York City for temporary migrant housing was rescheduled from 10:15 am to 11 am to accommodate House Republicans who attended a breakfast meeting with Donald Trump, the New York City felon whose campaign is predicated on the demonization of climate migrants.

Hearings on the Hill:

Climate Action Today:

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1  As the rains were drowning his state, DeSantis vetoed $205 million in stormwater, wastewater and sewer projects before signing the state’s budget yesterday. “As I’m sitting here stuck on a Brightline train because of flooding in my district, all those storm water projects he cut look pretty stupid right now,” state Sen. Jason Pizzo (D-Fla.) told the AP.

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