National Geographic’s Misinformation on Forests and Climate Change – Are You Floating With It?

Via Jim Steele

National Geographic reappears! Five years ago, National Geographic published a story and video about an emaciated polar bear they feared as a result of climate change. After heavy criticism, they admitted they didn’t really know what affected the bear and, in an effort to raise “concern” about climate change, they also omitted to say that “This is what climate change looks like. “But that is how the decoy press makes a profit.

Via Jim Steele

National Geographic reappears! Five years ago, National Geographic published a story and video about an emaciated polar bear they feared as a result of climate change. After heavy criticism, they admitted they didn’t really know what affected the bear and, in an effort to raise “concern” about climate change, they also omitted to say that “This is what climate change looks like. “But that is how the decoy press makes a profit.

They’ve now assembled cherry picking photos of dying forests that they also blame on climate change to form a propaganda article.”FUTURE OF FOREST“Under the headline” HOT AND DESTROY IS KILLING OUR FOREST… BUT WE CAN LIMIT THE DAMAGE… IF WE CHANGE THE COURSE NOW. ”

While the article acknowledges that “Trees are growing faster” due to increased CO2, it also acknowledges that “climate change is still less of a threat to forests than logging and land clearing”, the Their aim was to sell the skeptic that “the climate threat is big fast.” To make their readers believe their hype, they paraded countless unsupported claims that “climate change is going to happen.” are killing trees.” That, “forest scientists are increasingly concerned by the accelerating pace of extreme events – fires, stronger storms, insect infestation weather, and especially extreme heat and drought.” Throughout the article, National Geographic lays out the truth but then exposes its readers to misinformation about climate change.

National Geographic has mindlessly blamed the catastrophic wildfires on climate change – exacerbated by drought, despite all the scientific evidence pointing to the accumulation of forest fuels due to landscape management. least. In 2002-2004, about 350 million pigeons, trees in the state of New Mexico, died across the Southwest due to drought and fires. In recognition of National Geographic, they reported on wildfires in the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico that “From 1650 onwards, this aoerosa pine forest survived 15 fires – but in the 20th century, Most of the fires have been extinguished. Fuel accumulates in the forest and a long hot drought has arrived. A monster fire in 2011 devastated 45 square miles on its first night. “Unprecedented fires have consumed hundreds of thousands of acres of aoerosa pines.”

But then, bait and move on to fear of climate change longer. “The drought is hotter,” they claim. “The slight increase in temperature due to greenhouse gas emissions was enough to burn New Mexico’s trees to death.”

But it wasn’t a hotter drought. The Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) combines changes in both precipitation and temperature to estimate drought severity. According to data from NOAA and published on Website GlobalChange.gov, the PDSI for current drought conditions in New Mexico is now milder than it was during the Little Ice Age droughts, from 1200 to 1800 AD. (Red represents instrument data and blue represents data reconstructed from tree rings.)

Likewise, the PDSI data for the Utah and Colorado neighborhoods show that the western US is experiencing milder drought conditions over the past 1000 years, as does a similar change in the southeastern US.

However, eager to see more threatening effects from increasing heat and drought caused by climate change, National Geographic’s focus on recent wildfires in Yellowstone states, “Yellowstone is part of a trend global direction”. They reported that trees had not returned from fires in the area, citing one researcher that in Colorado, Idaho, Montana and Washington, the number of sites burned without recovery had increased from 19 percent before. in 2000 to 32% in the following years. But again, the data doesn’t point to climate change.

From estimates for the Northern Mountains and Plains (MT, ND, SD, WY and NE), the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) for July 1895–2020, shows a The Missouri River basin has been wetter in the last 15 years while the worst drought was in the 1930s. That PDSI also correlates with the EPA’s Heatwave Index, which shows the worst heatwaves in years. 1930, far exceeding any extreme heat in recent decades.

National Geographic’s misinformation is most shocking when it comes to dramatizing the fires in California’s Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. “If any species could withstand climate change, you might think it would be the giant sequoias, many of which have existed since the reign of Julius Caesar. Instead, change comes frighteningly fast.” National Geographic then came up with a little fact saying, “Sequoias need low-intensity earth fire to release seeds from their cones and clear the soil, so that the seeds can take root. Their tall branches make them unsuitable for canopy fires. But in 2020, our history of fire containment collided with a rapidly changing climate.” Yet again, the PDSI shows that the severity of California’s drought has been milder over the past 100 years. Extinguishing moderate fires that have maintained a consistently favorable environment for thousands of years is a dilemma.

According to National Park Service The 2020 Castle Fire “has consumed 12 giant sequoia groves in the park, with varying degrees of fire depending on their history and fire site. Scattered over south-facing slopes are warmer and drier, with no recent fires, the “continuous” mortality rates of large “giant sequoias,” such as Homer’s Nose grove, are shown here. Note that the dense forest consists of thinner trees that have encroached on the thicker Sequoia giants due to fire suppression, providing ladder fuel for reaching the Sequoia canopy. National Geographic introduced a similar photo to highlight “Climate change and fire suppression are driving larger wildfires”.

Unlike the National Park Service, National Geographic has not shown photos of how better forest fuel management has protected sequoias species. The NPS reports, “Other groves, growing on colder, wetter slopes facing north or with recent fire history have more mixed and moderate fire or limited fire spread. An example is this healthy Garfield Grove (below), where managers have a statutory burn in 1985“To mimic the natural burning frequency of the past. (Photo: NPS/Anthony Caprio (performed during the November 2, 2020 aerial survey by helicopter)

Similarly, National Geographic also blames a number of other global forest declines on climate change, though it willfully never understand their true causes. The problem is that we cannot quantify the extent of climate impacts across the planet. Satellite data shows a tree-covered area on Earth really expanded from 1982 to 2016 increased by 7%, an area larger than Mexico. But that doesn’t mean the forest is doing well: The data doesn’t distinguish between natural forests and industrial crops.” “No computer model can predict how climate will change forests globally — or how their carbon stocks will restore climate. Historically Earth system models have not done a good job of capturing this. “

It is clear that the authors of National Geographic never really understood the history of forestry and climate. Again, they are just pushing a bait to blame for climate change, “Now, fossil fuel emissions from coal plants and waste pipelines are rearranging forests in different ways. otherwise,” concluded, “Do we want more of this?” “Stabilizing emissions to near two degrees or less could limit deforestation in Yellowstone to 15 percent.” “Yellowstone’s forests, like many of the world’s forests, will never be the same. But they can be close.”

The real question is why do people trust National Geographic and their obsession with promoting misinformation about climate change?

Jim Steele is Director Emeritus of San Francisco State University’s Sierra Nevada Campus, author of Landscapes and Cycles: An Environmentalist’s Journey to Climate Skepticism, and Some climate science videos and is a proud member of the CO2 Alliance.