Fake climate marketing

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Der Spiegel 15/02/2018 article titled "Climate Change Disinformation. Catastrophe Business"

Desinformation zum Klimawandel; Das Geschäft mit der Katastrophe. Axel Bojanowski

English translations of the article quotes and comments are reposted after this blog:

Surprise! Spiegel Online Slams Profiteering From Climate Alarmism… Munich Re Admits: “No Climate Signal”

All have been playing it loose with the data on weather events and exaggerating (at times grossly) and with the aim of deriving profit, Spiegel reports.

German Railway: climate change as a cover for poor management

Bojanowski begins by describing how today the German Railway (Deutsche Bundesbahn) – once heralded for its outstanding punctuality and overall efficiency – has discovered how to use climate change to deflect blame away from its recent poor management, which over the years has often led to lousy service.

Over the years, the Bundesbahn has made the maintenance of its tracks a victim to cost cutting. Trees and vegetation along the tracks no longer get sufficiently cut back, and so it is common for routes to get blocked during stormy weather. What better excuse than climate change could the Deutsche Bahn have to explain all the disruptions?

Data in fact show no increasing trend in extreme weather

All the cancellations, service shutdowns and delays are of course due to ever increasing storm intensity and frequency, the Deutsche Bahn management likes to claim, and they get the full backing of the media, policymakers and alarmist climate scientists. Yet Bojanowski calls out these claims by the Bundesbahn for what they are: lame excuses based on hyped up science.

The Spiegel journalist writes that a number of scientists have shown that there has in fact been no increase in storm intensity and frequency in Europe, commenting:
That’s amazing, as many scientists anticipate fewer storms in Central Europe as a consequence of climate change.”


Munich Re bilking the public with climate hype?

Another industry caught hyping up extreme weather activity is the reinsurance industry, which insures regular insurance companies against major claims events. The reason for the added hype: justification for hefty premium increases, Bojanowski suggests.

Munich Re admits no real climate signal

One company Bojanowski cites is the world’s largest reinsurer, Munich Re, which annually publishes a report on “natural catastrophes”, in which the company likes to blame climate change, cite alarmist experts and claim there is today a “new normal”. When asked by Spiegel to comment concerning data showing that it isn’t really so, a climate expert from Munch Re was forced to admit:

The blanket statement that weather-dependent damages worldwide show a climate signal cannot be supported.”

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Environmental companies spreading climate hype
Recently there was a panel of climate experts at the IFAT industrial trade fair for wastewater technology, which saw 3000 environmental companies participating. The panel held a “future dialog” dubbed: “Weather extremes – are we defenseless?” Bojanowski reports that the panel spoke of which weather extremes have been on the increase, but how they kept silent about this still being very much in dispute among climate scientists.
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Unmentioned by the panel, Bojanowski writes, was the fact that the UN “could not detect any relationship between floods and storms and global warming“.

and the last but not least comment from the blog itself:

Shameless exploitation/hypocrisy

Unfortunately Spiegel — in its otherwise praiseworthy article — failed to mention two other parties who have a major stake in climate hype: the media (like Spiegel itself), who have profited immensely from spectacular climate claims, and politicians, who unabashedly exploit climate catastrophism to try to gain more control over society.

Data graphs from the article.