This is not helpful:
As the investigation continues as to what brought down the French airliner over the Atlantic Ocean with 228 people on board, a Russian climatologist believes global warming played a significant part.
Russia Today offers this steaming pile of reportage under the disingenuous headline, “Did global warming help bring down Air France flight 447?“
Although the exact cause of the tragedy may never be fully known, most investigators already agree on one thing: severe weather conditions played an important part. And that conclusion is leading some climatologists to wonder if the airlines are properly prepared for a world of higher temperatures, and therefore more stressful flight conditions in the future.
“A consequence of global warming is that the frequency and severity of such events (severe weather conditions) is higher,” Alexei Kokorin, head of Russia’s World Wildlife Fund’s Climate Program, told RT. “Unfortunately, the risk for airplanes, especially in tropical areas above water, will be higher. This could be difficult for pilots to understand.”
Will climate change lead to fiercer storms? Sure. Can any particular storm be linked to climate change with any legitimate certainty? No. The Yale Forum on Climate Change and the Media has a timely piece on this very subject.
This sort of framing—note the headline in the form of a question, note that the evidence is “leading” some climatologists to “wonder”—is made-to-order fodder for deniers like the Business & Media Institute. The free-market group (“Advancing the Culture of Free Enterprise in America”) already pounced on the story: “Climatologist Blames Global Warming for Air France Crash.”
They’ve got the gall to call out “warming alarmists” for advancing this fictitious link to the Air France crash. Alarmist?! Why…that’s just…OK, this pretty much fits the definition of alarmist. We can agree on that one.
And, to jab back at the climate skeptics, the Russia Today stinker of a headline was the equivalent of the gleeful right-wing bloviating about the “myth” of climate change every time the temperature drops below 40 degrees F in Miami.
