Some Climate Change Advocates Glom Onto Tsunami to Advance Arguments

It was probably bound to happen. Some climate change advocates already are attributing Japan’s deadly earthquake and killer tsunami to global warming — no matter how scant the evidence.

Staffan Nilsson, president of the European Economic and Social Committee, released a statement calling for global cooperation to fight global warming, The Daily Caller reports.

“Some islands affected by climate change have been hit,” he said. “Has not the time come to demonstrate solidarity — not least solidarity in combating and adapting to climate change and global warming? Mother Nature has again given us a sign that that is what we need to do.”

But many are skeptical that there is any connection between global warming and Japan’s misfortune. “Global warming alarmists will exploit any natural disaster to promote their anti-fossil fuel agenda,” Tom Borelli of the Free Enterprise Project told the Caller.

All the heated talk stems from the “global warming spin machine,” he said. “First it’s global warming, then it’s climate change, now it’s probably tectonic instability — no doubt all caused by man.”

Dan Weiss, director of Climate Strategy at the Center for American Progress, was skeptical, too. “I am not a scientist, “but I have never heard of a link between global warming and earthquakes,” he told the Caller.

Many climate-change activists took to Twitter to voice their thoughts. The Competitive Enterprise Institute put together some egregious examples.

• “I’m worried that Japan earthquake, on top of other recent natural ‘disasters’, is a sign we’ve passed point of no return for climate change,” Arbiterofwords wrote.
• “An earthquake with an 8.9 magnitude struck Japan. And some say climate change isn’t real?!” fumed Tayyclayy.
• “Never really believed all this global warming talk, but after the earthquake in NZ and today in Japan, Maybe we’ve ruined the world,” wrote DanFranklin.

Christopher Mims, a writer for grist.org, revised a blog he wrote on the issue to make clear that there’s no proven connection between global warming and what happened in Japan.

His original headline read “Today’s tsunami: This is what climate change looks like.” He changed it to “Does Climate Change Mean More Tsunamis?”


He also offered the following explanation. “The intent of this piece isn’t to attribute [the] tragedy to climate change. Apologies to those whom I misled with the headline.”