If you’ve ever fallen for the “Heads I win, tails you lose” trick, the mainstream media’s climate change reporting might strike you as familiar. Whatever the latest news might be, the spin is in just one direction: the planet is in crisis. It happened again, just recently, with what should have been good news for all.
Based on data from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center, Arctic ice decreased to 4.602 million square kilometers on September 10th, the low point for the year, corresponding with the warmer temperatures of summer. The number is 1.2 million square kilometers greater than where it was at in 2012, and close to half a million more than 2007 levels. In general, the ice trend has been close to flat over the past two decades.
Hurrah, right?
Where the mainstream media did cover the story, the data didn’t change their long-standing climate alarmism. As EuroNews.com reported it:
“Scientists say this is a temporary slowdown that may continue for a further five to 10 years. When it ends, it is likely to be followed by faster-than-average sea ice decline.”
The spin goes beyond the media. “While this year’s Arctic sea ice area did not set a record low, it’s consistent with the downward trend” reported NASA. And the World Wildlife Federation still warns:
“Polar ice caps are melting as global warming causes climate change. We lose Arctic sea ice at a rate of almost 13% per decade…. If emissions continue to rise unchecked, the Arctic could be ice-free in the summer by 2040.”
What isn’t being publicly acknowledged is that the projections of the leading scientists and their spokesmen have often been wrong. One example: the former US vice president Al Gore, while accepting a Nobel Prize for his climate advocacy back in 2007, spoke of a study saying the North Polar ice cap could be gone during summer months just 22 years from then (or 2029). He went on to add, “Another new study, to be presented by U.S. Navy researchers later this week, warns it could happen in as little as 7 years” (i.e., 2014).
This doesn’t mean that the Arctic ice won’t decrease further, or that the climate isn’t changing (it has been changing since creation). But it does mean that we need to humbly acknowledge our finite and limited understanding of this world, in contrast to God’s sovereign hand over His creation, including Arctic sea ice.