February 7, 2024

Category 6 Climate Alarmism

In a naked effort to push the alarmist claim that climate change is making common weather events worse, a couple of scientists want to change the hurricane scale.

Few people deny that the climate is and has been changing. Yet the exact reason, cause, and degree to which mankind may be affecting this change are very much up for debate. However, for the climate cultists, there is only one acceptable answer to the question of what is causing climate change. And that answer is human activity linked directly to the use of fossil fuels. Indeed, a failure to fully embrace this unassailable climate dogma will get one labeled a “climate denier.”

However, the trouble with any cult is that when its prophecies fail to materialize, its adherents begin to lose faith, and skeptics eagerly step forward to expose the failures and errors in those dogmatically held beliefs.

This is much of the reason why the Leftmedia, which has long held that anthropogenic climate change is “settled science,” must continuously prop up the climate narrative, or else people might not believe it and in turn might fail to vote for the media’s preferred leftist political party.

Therefore, the solution to this conundrum of keeping the faith despite repeated instances of climate alarmists’ dire warnings failing to materialize is to spin normal climatic weather events as abnormal and getting worse.

Are storms really getting worse? It has been a repeated refrain almost every time a significant weather event affects the U.S., be it hurricanes, wildfires, tornadoes, heat waves, or snow storms. The reporting on these seasonal and common weather events increasingly frames them as “more severe,” “more extreme,” “more costly,” “more frequent,” or “more deadly” than ever before.

The trouble is the historical scientific record fails to uphold that alarmist narrative.

The alarmists’ solution, then, is to continue to assert that climate change is making common weather events like hurricanes worse and then drive home the issue by making proposals like adding a “Category 6” to the hurricane power scale.

That’s right. An example of this not-so-subtle attempt at climate spin comes courtesy of two scientists, Michael Wehner and James Kossin. The two are promoting the idea, which is not necessarily a new idea, that a Category 6 designation should be added to the five-step Saffir-Simpson measurement scale of a hurricane’s intensity. The reason? Well, climate change, of course.

As Wehner asserts, “Climate change has demonstrably made the strongest storms stronger.” This is how it works: Simply declare it as an undeniable reality and then move on to a proposed policy solution. Wehner then argues, “Introduction of this hypothetical Category 6 would raise awareness of that.”

And there it is. Not enough people have bought into climate alarmism, so by adding a new “extreme” “Category 6” to the hurricane scale, the alarmist narrative can be further pressed home.

The trouble is that from a practical standpoint, adding a sixth level to the well-understood hurricane scale would likely add confusion or even blunt the public’s perception of the danger associated with lower-category storms. Furthermore, while the hurricane categories measure a storm’s maximum sustained wind speed, they don’t account for the other often more damaging aspects of a hurricane, like water or storm surge.

Everyone who lives in a hurricane-affected area already knows that a Category 5 storm is a monster to be avoided at all costs. Who needs to turn the volume up to 11?

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.