5 Disasters the Environmentalist Left Blamed on American Industry

With the Biblical epic Noah slated to hit theaters this, the left is stoked about apocalyptic disaster springing from misuse of nature. The movie itself reportedly blames God’s wrath on a combination of overpopulation and environmental degradation; it’s a perverse environmental take on the sin that led God to destroy humanity through the flood. This neo-pagan worldview – the belief that nature is a deity to be worshipped, and capable of avenging itself on its arrogant human taskmasters – now finds itself mirrored in pseudo-scientific discussion of virtually every disaster of the last year.

Here, then, are the top five disasters leftists have blamed on environmental degradation in the last three months alone:

The Inability To Find MH370. Climate change advocates have blamed the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 on global warming, according to Mother Jones, which reported this week, “Scientists say man-made climate change has fundamentally altered the currents of the vast, deep oceans where investigators are currently scouring for the missing Malaysian Airlines flight, setting a complex stage for the ongoing search for MH370.” Wind patterns and tide patterns have been shifted, climate change scientists say, making it more difficult to find and identify debris from the tragic flight.

The Washington Mudslide. Salon.com is already making the case that this week’s tragic mudslide in Washington state, in which 176 are reported missing and 14 have been confirmed dead, could become the first in a pattern thanks to global warming. “A terrible tragedy on its own, it’s also a reminder of yet another hazard that could increase as global warming intensifies,” writes Lindsay Abrams. Carol Lee Roalkvam, environmental policy analyst with the Washington State Department of Transportation, says, “More extreme rain events — the sudden and intense rain that we’ve been experiencing more frequently so a lot of the state routes are vulnerable to landslides today and the projections are that those will be worse.” That means, according to Salon.com, that global warming will cause more rain, which will cause more mudslides.

The Los Angeles Earthquake. After last week’s 4.4 earthquake in Los Angeles, many on the left speculated that fracking in the area could have ticked off the tectonic plates, leading to the shake. Three members of the Los Angeles City Council, which has been seeking to ban fracking, called for an investigation into whether fracking could have been the secret factor behind the earthquake. The proposed motion read, “It is crucial to the health and safety of the City’s residents to understand the seismic impacts of oil and gas extraction activities in the City.”

The National Cold Snap. After widespread reports of record cold temperatures across the nation, members of the media began positing that climate change could be behind it all. Bryan Walsh, senior editor at Time, wrote that the so-called Polar Vortex (of Doom!) was the moving factor behind the cold weather: “this is where I would usually point to the fact that the occasional cold snap–even one as extreme as much of the U.S. is experiencing now–doesn’t change the overall trajectory of a warming planet…. But not only does the cold spell not disprove climate change, it may well be that global warming could be making the occasional bout of extreme cold weather in the U.S. even more likely.” In other words, anecdotal evidence is bad methodology…except when Bryan Walsh is using it.

The California Drought. California, which is experiencing record droughts, has now become the case-in-point for the left of global warming. Denis McDonough, Obama’s chief of staff, stated on Face the Nation that he was perturbed by the “very chilling story in the New York Times today about the impact of climate change on droughts in the West – California, which is now seeing some pretty serious developments as a result of climate change.” McDonough added, “we’ll be looking at that.” Researchers, however, are actually “scratching their heads” according to the San Jose Mercury News.

For the environmentalist left, any anecdotal evidence of climate change is wonderful evidence; any systemic evidence to the contrary flies in the face of the “consensus.”

Ben Shapiro is Senior Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the New York Times bestseller “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America” (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013). He is also Editor-in-Chief of TruthRevolt.org. Follow Ben Shapiro on Twitter @benshapiro.