Democrats in the leftist arm of the mainstream media have been intoning the "fact" that the new norm in global warming disasters is that the weather will be even more severe and unforgiveable than in the past. They cite statistic after statistic, ranging from financial and economic impact on the country and the world, to the climate impact on every single region and sector on the globe. This idea of the new "normalcy" has been touted on every progressive outlet, from NPR to the network news to printed mediums to the internet blog sites. You cannot turn on a single program or read a single word about weather anymore without the addition of the words, "new norm."
The idea behind this push to normalize bad weather in epic-appearing waves of misery with ever-more dire consequences is simply that not enough people in the country believe that the end is near due to man-made global warming. In fact, the consensus for climate change insofar as the peoples' diehard belief is at an all-time low. On a scale of most to least importance, climate change rates near the bottom of the barrel.
As the announcements of global disaster increase and the revelations of more and more "changes" taking place in our environment become more insistent and shrill, with the accompanying necessary charges of "denier" in the mix, people have decided that they fail to see this evidence of the melting of the glaciers, the rising of the sea levels and the mass extinction of species around the planet.
Liberals have been scratching their heads in consternation about why it seems that people just vehemently disbelieve, or outright ignore, their warnings of the coming Apocalypse, but the answer is really quite simple. As the announcements of global disaster increase and the revelations of more and more "changes" taking place in our environment become more insistent and shrill, with the accompanying necessary charges of "denier" in the mix, people have decided that they fail to see this evidence of the melting of the glaciers, the rising of the sea levels and the mass extinction of species around the planet. They invariably change the channel and turn the page while shaking their heads and scoffing.
The new norm is not really new at all. The explanations of why hurricanes are causing more damage financially is really just a lesson in the advancements of technology, construction, and medicine. The United States spends a lot of money in keeping up with the newest, best, and most cost-efficient infrastructure. When that infrastructure is decimated, the expense is ever-greater. With the coming age of technology, while it is indeed easier to lay down the groundwork for more communications networks and utility grids, the unbelievable availability of such wonders has necessarily spread far beyond our initial dreams of expansion; so much so, that the expense of laying new infrastructure is more enormous than ever. Hence, the financial impact of a hurricane has the perception of being more cataclysmic than ever.
A reporter on CNN two weeks ago was heard to say that the "new norm" of hurricane devastation was upon us as Hurricane Florence ravaged North Carolina. The evidence? The last time a hurricane had this level of flooding was 100 years ago.
Hold on a moment...100 years ago? So, here, as you can see, evidence that the "new norm" of catastrophic flooding will be occurring storm after storm into the future is that it once happened 100 years ago! If ever there was a contradiction in terms to what the definition of "normalcy" is, this is certainly one.
It is a fact that the tides on the Hudson River between Manhattan and the New Jersey coast between the George Washington Bridge and the Lincoln Tunnel are a constant. In fact, if you go online, you can get a day-to-day hourly schedule of when the river's tide is at its ebb and when it is at its high-point. Since I was a little boy, there was a certain set of docks there whose plankings have long ago rotted away. However, the pylons that sit beneath the surface of the water and jut from the surface remain, covered with the blue muscles and green algae of more than a hundred years. Those very same pylons could easily be incorporated into a brand new set of fishing and mooring docks, many with the same American-made strength that was inherent in them when they were first pounded into place. Those docks could be reached by the same foot paths that existed then and are still used today by young boys and girls who hope to catch a tommy cod or bass.
In other words, not a single one of these docks would have to be raised above the waters any more than the days of 100 years ago simply because the sea levels have not risen, despite the vehement claims to the contrary.
Ted Danson, Woody Harrelson, Al Gore, and the entire celebrity and non-celebrity face of the progressive party have heralded the coming end of the world for thirty years.
The new norm that has grabbed the tongues of the anchors on the nightly news is nothing more than an improvised approach (or a sneak attack, if you prefer) to convince those of us who are too young or too foolish to realize that the promise that our world only has another ten years before implosion will only manifest itself in another decade...and another after that. Ted Danson, Woody Harrelson, Al Gore, and the entire celebrity and non-celebrity face of the progressive party have heralded the coming end of the world for thirty years. This tactic will continue on into the foreseeable future until the "new norm" reaches a point where only a tiny percentage of the world falls for this transparent attempt at thought, deed and mind control.
The great surgeon and author, Michael Crichton, who by some is considered the father of the techno-thriller, writer of "The Andromeda Strain" and "Jurassic Park," as well as creator of the long-running television series "ER," delivered a lecture at the Smithsonian Institution back in the early 2000s, wherein he described how the progressive media could be consistently so colossally wrong on their estimates in science and in disaster predictions, and yet return the next day, completely ignoring their previous erroneous estimates, only to continue on with their announcements of gloom and doom.
"All my life, I worried about the decay of the environment, the tragic loss of species, the collapse of ecosystems...poisoned by pesticides...falling sperm counts from endocrine disruptors, cancer from powerlines, cancer from saccharine, cancer from cell phones, cancer from computer screens, cancer from food coloring, hairspray, electric razors, electric blankets, coffee, chlorinated water, it never seemed to end. Only once, when on the same day, I read that beer was a preservative of heart muscle and also a carcinogen [laughter-applause] did I begin to realize the bind that I was in."
"...But as David Brinkley once said, "The one function that TV news performs very well is that, when there is no news, we give it to you with the same emphasis as if there were." [laughter] "The second thing I discovered was that attempts to evoke fear tended to employ a certain kind of stereotypic and very intense language. For example, here's a quote on climate: "We simply cannot afford to gamble...by ignoring it. We cannot risk inaction. Those scientists who say we are merely entering a period of climatic instability are acting irresponsibly. The indications that our climate can soon change for the worse are too strong to be reasonably ignored.""
After a few moments, he revealed that the quote had nothing to do, in fact, with global warming, but the exact opposite, global cooling, adding, "Does anybody here fear the coming ice age?"
The point is, of course, that while progressives can and will use every opportunity to create an air of abject terror, never allowing a "good crisis go to waste," they are, in fact, only recycling old fears in order to keep you in a perpetual state of fear; thus, maintaining complete control of your life.
Honestly, in my opinion, the only true "new norm" of the progressives is that, based on the latest performance at the Senate Judiciary Committee's Supreme Court hearings, the Democrats will henceforth accuse each and every conservative judge nominated, man or woman, as having been some sort of degenerate or sexual predator. Of that, at least, we can be sure.