The CNN homepage today teased an article on the drought in West Timor with the following:
Climate change makes island kids bony, stunted.
Actually, it’s food shortages that are causing these maladies, and the linked article has little or nothing to say about “climate change.” The article offers many causes of why these shortages exist, and the drought is just one of them. But it’s “climate change” that gets you the clicks.
Going back to last year, the severe drought in West Timor was being blamed on a climate-change fueled El Nino. Maybe.
But they’re certainly not predicting an El Nino event this year, and the Timorese will no doubt still be enduring suffering and hunger from the more traditional causes of bad government, corruption, and the world-wide sham of growing food to power automobiles. But of course, that’s not CNN front-page material.