A sign of decay

Vincent J. Curtis

29 Aug 23

RE: B.C. farmers at forefront of climate change reality.  CP story by Amanda Stephenson.  The Hamilton Spectator 29 Aug 23.

One of the signs of decay in today’s media is the prevalence of editorials passed off as news items.  These require little investigative work, and a few quotes suffice to pass off the article as “news.”  The CP story “B.C. farmers at forefront of climate change reality” is one example of this abomination of news reporting.

The purpose of the story is, in the face of growing skepticism, to exemplify and endorse the fashionable “climate change” by the use of quotes from farmers to portray the disasters of today as the reality of tomorrow.  One problem in the story is that the farmers are complaining about the weather, as farmers often do; and weather isn’t climate.  Another problem is that you’d think forest fires and other natural disasters had never occurred before; or, if they had, were of a different order from those today and those expected in future.

Through a tone of panic, the reader isn’t supposed to notice this philosophical abomination contained in ‘climate change reality.’  If it’s reality, then the change is over, the potentiality of change is complete, and nothing but actuality, i.e. the real, is left.

Climate is always changing; next near may bring rains instead of drought: we don’t know.  The reality of climate change is that we don’t know with exactitude what weather next year will bring; but the farmers will still be farming.

-30-