Shark Attacks and Climate Change

Contrary to NBC Nightly News, there is no scientific basis for the claim that climate change is causing shark attacks.Show more

SOURCES:

In a July 2022 episode of NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt, Kerry Sanders reported on “the concern” that “climate change means warmer waters, which brings sharks closer to shore.” https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/17-year-old-attacked-by-shark-after-sharks-were-spotted-near-the-shore-days-before/ar-AAZ5V9l

A 2019 paper in the journal PLoS One measured shark attacks per million people in the nations with the most shark attacks and found that “the majority of countries saw no perceptible trend or change” since 1960. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0211049

With regard to the few countries with more shark attacks, a 2011 paper in the journal Marine and Freshwater Research found that the rise in Australia is due to people spending more time in the ocean and “there is no evidence of increasing shark numbers that would influence the rise of attacks in Australian waters.” https://www.publish.csiro.au/mf/Fulltext/MF10181

Beyond shark attacks, journalists, activists, politicians, and educators have fabricated or exaggerated threats from climate change with matters like:

• animal extinctions: https://www.justfacts.com/globalwarming#assertions_extinctions
• deforestation: https://www.justfacts.com/globalwarming#assertions_forests
• flooding: https://www.justfactsdaily.com/the-nation-of-kiribati-is-growing-not-sinking
• agricultural decline: https://www.justfacts.com/globalwarming#assertions-famine
• insect-borne diseases: https://www.justfactsdaily.com/ddt-ban-not-global-warming-outbreak-disease-carrying-insects
• rainfall: https://www.justfactsdaily.com/has-global-warming-made-rainstorms-more-intense
• sea ice: https://www.justfactsdaily.com/has-global-warming-turned-the-north-pole-into-a-lake

Climatologist Stephen Schneider was a founding member of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Stephen-Henry-Schneider

In 1989, Schneider told Discover magazine that in order to “reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climate change,” “we have to get some broad-based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have.” He also said, “Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.” https://www.justfacts.com/document/global_warming_stephen_schneider_discover_magazine_october_1989.pdf

NBC News footage reproduced under the “fair use” provision of U.S. copyright law for “purposes such as criticism” and “comment” (17 U.S.C. §107). https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/107