‘Climate change’ crept into conversation

Now that President Barack Obama has provided climatechange marching orders and talking points to Big Media after last week’s unveiling of the National Climate Assessment, we no doubt will continue to see every naturally occurring event depicted as a crisis and attributed to this “non-debatable” science (“Obama links efficiency, new jobs,” Los Angeles Times article, May 10 Dispatch). Even if there is no evidence of a cause-and-effect relationship, a story will be perpetuated with terms of maybe or could be related to climate change, as if by sheer suggestion it is fact. A case in point is the recent Earthweek diary in the Sunday Dispatch.

In explaining the drop in population of the lobsters off the New England coast, the report included, “Although there has been no conclusive explanation for the crustacean crash, scientists think higher ocean temperatures, pollution and climate change all could be to blame.”

In the Reuters article “Diminishing baby lobsters unexplained” in the April 27 Dispatch, the following speculation was given: “Shifting ocean currents, wind and weather patterns possibly led drifting lobster larvae astray, experts said.”

Is it any wonder that there is cynicism when it comes to climate change? It is difficult to believe that politicization is not at the heart of this so-called settled science, and people are growing weary of a complacent media that are willing to present opinion as factual news. MELISSA STORER

Columbus