I'm just relieved it wasn't racism this time.

Tax season is getting longer. Blame climate change.

I do wonder sometimes if they're just trolling us.

It's that, or they think we're that dumb.

Or they are.

Probably both.

Hurricane and tornado seasons are getting longer because of climate change. So is tax season.

What's the connection?

That is basically Washington business reporter Jacob Bogage's position, given he doesn't even bother to link to anything supporting the claim that "hurricane and tornado seasons are getting longer because of climate change," thus resulting in more natural disasters (many of which he eagerly details). I mean, would we expect him to provide a link to Newton's Third Law of Motion when describing an automobile accident?

Of course not, in part because he probably has never heard of Newton's Third Law of Motion, but also because as far as Bogage is concerned, just like the laws of motion, climate-induced increases in hazardous weather is settled science.

There are a couple of problems with these claims. Okay, one problem.

They're not true.

With regards to the official hurricane season, it remains June 1 through November 30. It is true that in 2021 the National Hurricane Center was encouraged to push back the date at which it starts issuing routine tropical weather outlooks to May 15, but that's about it.

And it's not as if hurricanes never formed outside of this range before you purchased your F-150. In 1938, the hurricane "season" started January 3!

As for the official tornado season, there isn't one. The below is from the National Severe Storms Laboratory, a part of the federal government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Even they put the notion of a tornado season in scare quotes.

Tornado season usually refers to the time of year the U.S. sees the most tornadoes. The peak "tornado season" for the southern Plains (e.g., Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas) is from May into early June. On the Gulf coast, it is earlier in the spring. In the northern Plains and upper Midwest (North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota), tornado season is in June or July. But, remember, tornadoes can happen at any time of year. Tornadoes can also happen at any time of day or night, but most tornadoes occur between 4 – 9 p.m.

Okay, so we've barely started the piece and the entire argument has already unraveled. How much worse can it get?

"There's this migration of fiscal deadlines occurring in the United States," said Rob Moore, senior policy analyst for climate adaptation at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Oh, no, fiscal deadlines are migrating! You know what else is migrating?

Animals! Due to climate change!!

Seriously, that's the metaphor they're going with.

This is what happens when accountants try to be cool.

The Earth's warming climate is altering everything from animal migration patterns to when plants bloom. It's also changing when Americans file taxes: As severe storms and natural disasters worsened by climate change afflict broader swaths of the country, the IRS is issuing more extensions for individuals and businesses to cope with the fallout sooner and pay taxes later.

Our latest national crisis:

Tax filing extensions.

"I think about that every time a tornado rips through Mississippi when it shouldn't," said Caroline Bruckner, managing director of American University's Kogod Tax Policy Center.

If you're ever at a dinner party and they seat you next to Caroline Bruckner, run.

"The risks are increasing no matter where we live," said Katharine Hayhoe, chief scientist at the Nature Conservancy, a leading global environmental advocacy group.

The same goes for Katherine Hayhoe, too.

But is what she says true?

Are the risks increasing?

Back to NOAA's National Severe Storms Laboratory:

About 1,200 tornadoes hit the U.S. yearly. Since official tornado records only date back to 1950, we do not know the actual average number of tornadoes that occur each year. Plus, tornado spotting and reporting methods have changed a lot over the last several decades, which means that we are observing more tornadoes that actually happen.

Yeah, they don't know.

But, but, look at the climate disasters, The Washington Post shrieks!

The areas of the country that could be facing such a scenario are increasing rapidly, according to the latest climate research. More than 40 percent of Americans live in counties hit by climate disasters in 2021, The Washington Post found in an analysis of federal disaster declarations.

Let's take a look at that analysis of federal disaster declarations the article links to.

While the Federal Emergency Management Agency identified fewer climate-related disasters in individual counties last year,...

Not to worry, they found a data point to panic over.

...it declared eight of these emergencies statewide — the most since 1998 — encompassing 135 million people overall.

Wow, the most state emergencies since... people knew who Monica Lewinsky was.

The rest of this piece reads like a high school sophomore creative writing assignment.

2021 ended as it began: with disaster. Twelve months after an atmospheric river deluged California, triggering mudslides in burned landscapes and leaving a half-million people without power, a late-season wildfire destroyed hundreds of homes in the suburbs of Denver. In between, Americans suffered blistering heat waves, merciless droughts and monstrous hurricanes. People collapsed in farm fields and drowned in basement apartments; entire communities were obliterated by surging seas and encroaching flames.

Oh my!

Bad things happen all the time, of course, but if they had real news, they wouldn't have to lean so heavily on statistics like this.

The Post also analyzed heat wave data from roughly 7,500 NOAA temperature monitors across the nation, finding that 80 percent of Americans live in a county that experienced at least one day of abnormally high temperatures last year.

Wow. It was a hot for a day.

It's like 9/11, Pearl Harbor, and the 1991 Superbowl halftime show all over again.

Sure, heat can kill, but know what kills more? A lot more?

Cold.

I know that because I read The Washington Post.

Back to the hysterics:

These questions loom over Louisville, Colo., Mayor Ashley Stolzmann, who lost much of her town to wildfire on Thursday.

"When I lay awake the first night, not able to sleep from the fire, when I was evacuated from my house," she said, "the first thing I thought of is: I need everyone to reduce their carbon emissions."

My don't-sit-next-to-at-dinner list is getting longer.

Like so much of what appears in The Post these days, it becomes unintentionally comical. This is literally a line from the article:

We have to talk about how climate change is affecting our taxes...

At The Washington Post, democracy doesn't die in darkness.

It dies of embarrassment.