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Green College Degrees and Phony Climate Calamities

This article was originally posted at American Thinker.

Last week an Associated Press headline declared, “Graduating seniors seek degrees in climate change and more US universities deliver.”   Keep in mind the AP, which feeds stories to news publications around the world, was given an $8 million grant in 2022 to promote the theory of human-caused climate change in its daily coverage. The media giant’s funding came from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Quadrivium, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Walton Family Foundation. In announcing the gift, the AP said it would be hiring twenty environmental reporters to “enhance the global understanding of climate change and its impact across the world.”

The AP’s climate desk isn’t staffed by journalists. These are activists bent on shaping opinions that are short on science and long on instilling fear.

The story includes an interview with Professor Megan Latshaw, who runs Johns Hopkins University’s Environmental Health and Engineering department.  “It’s the flooding. It’s the heat waves. It’s the wildfires,” she says. “It’s the air pollution that’s generated when we’re burning fossil fuels. It’s allergies. It’s water scarcity, and people who may have to flee where they’ve lived for their entire life.”

The professor provided the AP with a typical phony climate calamity talk track.

In my new book Climate Cult: Exposing and Defeating Their Was on Life, Liberty, and Property, I accurately address all of the phenomena highlighted by Latshaw.

First there has always been flooding. Traditional history from ancient Greece, China, Siberia, and even the Pawnee Tribe in Nebraska, all speak of a cataclysmic flood taking place about the same time as Noah’s deluge in the book of Genesis. In modern times, the worst flood on record occurred in 1931 in China, when torrential rains caused the Yangtze River to overflow, resulting in an estimated death toll of up to four million.

As for Latshaw’s heat waves, those too have always been. In fact, the decade of the 1930s was the hottest on record for many regions around the world, including China and the United States. In fact, record high temperatures for nineteen states were established in the Thirties, including 121ºF at Steele, North Dakota, on July 6, 1936.

You can’t blame the Yangtze flood and those temperature records on industrialization and carbon dioxide emissions.

Then there are the wildfires. They are more numerous than ever, but not because of fossil fuels and global warming. Fires have become frequent because of the predominant “earth first” attitude embraced by the federal government and most state agencies. No longer are our forests and wildlands provided with proper care and stewardship. Instead, a preservationist philosophy has been put in place allowing our natural habitat to grow wildly out of control, providing insane amounts of fuel when fires do occur.

Pollution from fossil fuels is troublesome, but not in the United States. We are the poster child for cleaning our skies. Was Latshaw implying carbon dioxide is a pollutant? Shame on her if she was, as CO2 is a necessary component for life on Earth.

Throwing allergies into the list of woes is a plain laugher. Will dry skin be next?

As for water scarcities, this too is the result of the preservationist mentality. Environmentalists despise dams and reservoirs because they are not natural. This is why so many dams are being torn down in the US. As a result, growing population centers have less water available for residents. These water shortages are the byproduct of environmental activists getting a seat at the municipal planning table.

As for the high school seniors looking to get degrees in climate change related fields, there actually is a growing job market for such academic diplomas. The federal government and the blue states employ thousands of well-indoctrinated green citizens for their climate offices, departments, and agencies, with much of the new funding coming from Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act which provides $250 billion greenbacks to deliver subversive propaganda.

Another Climate Scam Exposed, But Will California Fall For It?

This article was posted at American Thinker:

This past weekend, a news article in the San Francisco Bay Area’s Mercury News warned, “As summer approaches and temperatures soar, one of the most dangerous places for Bay Area students might actually be the playground.”

The reporter wasn’t concerned about school kids being confronted by criminal elements while on their summer break. Instead, the column served as a promotional pitch for the climate change agenda. A national non-profit is seeking $1 billion from the California legislature to construct “green playgrounds” on school campuses. The remodeled play areas are described as being essential in the fight against climate change, while simultaneously improving student achievement in the classroom.  This appeal for government funding comes from the Trust for Public Land, even though California is broke. Governor Gavin Newsom has gone from boasting of a $97 billion budget surplus two years ago, to confessing that his state now has a deficit of some $45 billion.

However, the Trust is not dissuaded by the financial shortfall. They know the Democrats who run the Golden State are beholden to a cause that defies logic, fiscal or otherwise: climate change. The California legislature has over $40 billion to spend on climate initiatives in the coming budgetary year and they are always on the hunt to support their green comrades.

One of the Trust’s specialties is retrofitting school playgrounds. Their literature claims doing so helps bridge the “nationwide gap in academic achievement between white and black students.” They also contend their work reduces the effects of “heat islands” on inner city schools.

I investigate unfounded claims like these in my new book, Climate Cult: Exposing and Defeating Their War on Life, Liberty, and Property. Besides planting flowers, trees, and often sod on the school grounds (all of which require costly and extensive ongoing maintenance), these play area transformations include pricy brightly colored rubber surfaces and artificial turf, which may not get quite as quite as hot as the asphalt and old thick dark rubber play surfaces but still significantly warms when exposed to direct sunlight. In addition, new playground structures are also constructed. Never mind that the slides, ramps, and steeples consist of dense plastic made from petrochemicals derived from fossil fuels.

Then there are the “heat islands” the Trust implies are somehow harmful to learning. It’s too bad these climate activists don’t care that a significant percentage of the earth’s temperature readings are recorded on comparable heat islands associated with airport tarmacs, firehouse parking lots, and other heat absorbing infrastructure. These anthropogenic microclimates produce wildly inflated temperature readings that are all thrown into the daily mix, causing Earth’s weather to appear hotter than ever.

You see, environmental non-profits like the Trust for Public Land really aren’t concerned about the climate. Instead, their first priority is taking care of their own, and very well I might add.  For example, the Trust’s 2023 annual financial statement reported total revenues of $294 million, while operating expenses (salaries, rent, insurance, etc.) totaled nearly $293 million. Meantime, they sit on a stock portfolio worth over $151 million. The Trust even provides a retirement plan available to employees who work more than 20-hours per week. Who knew that a degree in Social and Environmental Justice could pan out so well?

Second, these groups make sure construction work for their various projects is carried out by organized labor whenever possible; unions serve the climate agenda as key stakeholders to better secure government funding and thus redistribute wealth.

Third, these orgs appease individuals who have been drawn into the climate cult by providing a method to atone for their sinful carbon footprints with very green donations. Cash, real estate, and endowments are all eagerly accepted.