New fuel is stoking the flames of that pernicious myth that climate change is causing our weather to worsen. This time in the form of a National Academy of Science (NAS) publication entitled Attribution of Extreme Weather and Climate Events and Their Impacts 2026. There is the echo of Rousseau in the report’s 253 pages. Its purpose is to construct in the mind of the reader an Edenic paradise before “extreme weather” became the norm. The adjective “extreme” in front of weather has come to imply both severe and man-made. It entered the popular lexicon recently over the relatively short period of a couple decades. A search with Google Books Ngram Viewer of “extreme weather” provides a chart of its growing popularity.
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Prior to 2000, weathermen would refer to meteorological events as being severe. Afterwards, they dropped the term “severe” in favor of “extreme.” It coincided with a rebranding push by climate activists to bring “extreme weather” into popular usage and use it as a more menacing image of climate change. It was a big PR campaign with climate scientists doing their part in concocting something called “attribution science.” It is not worth refuting their claims being that their intent was so transparently dishonest.
Unfortunately, the public still attaches some importance to what NAS has to say, not knowing how its ranks have been so thoroughly infiltrated by activists. However, I think the public gets the idea that extreme weather and climate change have been over-hyped. Measures to combat climate change, as enshrined in net zero legislation, are losing popular support as the price tag for them come due. Thanks to the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress, efforts have been made to dismantle the whole regulatory superstructure that impeded our energy sector under previous administrations.
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That is why the NAS report (Chapter 5) has calculated real-world damages supposedly caused by climate change and discusses the legal implications. With it the authors think they might be able to derail the efforts of the administration in the courts. By attaching the National Academies’ name to damage estimates, climate litigators hope to impress jurists and juries who are unaware that NAS has become hopelessly corrupted.
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