My second column on Climate Change Denial ran in today’s Moscow-Pullman Daily News. Enjoy!
I appreciate the interaction concerning the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) hypothesis. This hypothesis assumes that human activity is completely responsible for all warming that we experience today. As with any scientific hypothesis, the burden lies with AGW proponents to demonstrate that their models fit reality, and I will demonstrate that they do not.
First, as I noted in my previous column (No one is a climate change denier), all agree that the climate has changed for millennia and is still changing. Around 1850, before the first drop of oil was pumped out of the ground, the 500-year Little Ice Age ended and the earth started another warming phase that continues today.
Second, modern climate scientists and their models cannot explain any climate shifts prior to 1950. How does natural climate variation affect the climate change we experience today? Climate alarmists say that starting in 1950, all climate change is man-made. That is an assertion without proof that strains credulity.
In 1988, NASA scientist James E. Hansen testified before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources and made dire predictions based on the AGW computer models. In 2018, The Wall Street Journal ran an article (Thirty Years On, How Well Do Global Warming Predictions Stand Up?) analyzing those predictions and concluding that the models do not work: “Surface temperatures are behaving as if we had capped 18 years ago the carbon-dioxide emissions responsible for the enhanced greenhouse effect. But we didn’t. And it isn’t just Mr. Hansen who got it wrong. Models devised by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have, on average, predicted about twice as much warming as has been observed since global satellite temperature monitoring began 40 years ago.”
Further untrustworthiness of climate models is seen in their absurd predictions:
- · By 2000: global warming would cause seas to rise, wiping nations off the map
- ·In 2007: global warming would cause fewer hurricanes and fewer tornadoes
- · By 2009: the Himalayan glaciers would be gone
- ·In 2012: global warming would cause more hurricanes and more tornadoes
- ·By 2013: the Arctic would be ice free
- ·By 2018: snow would be a thing of the past
- ·By 2020: the glaciers in Glacier National Park would be gone
These are just a few of the blatantly false and contradictory climate predictions offered by their computer models.
Over nine thousand PhD scientists have signed a petition disagreeing with the AGW hypothesis. Wikipedia lists the prominent ones. Some question the accuracy of the projections; some argue that natural processes primarily cause global warming; others argue that the cause of global warming is unknown; and finally, some say that global warming will have few negative consequences.
Third, one of my biggest gripes with the AGW crowd is that if you do not completely accept their theory, you are a “denier,” a word purposely chosen to equate us with Holocaust deniers. Here their claims shift from scientific to political. In 2016, the Democratic Party platform called for prosecuting climate skeptics. These are political ploys which shuts down scientific discussion and free speech, blatantly stifling the Scientific Method.
Fourth, they insist the effects will be catastrophic. Carbon Dioxide (CO2[DC1]) is plant food. Greenhouses have used it for years to enrich the growth of plants, and NASA acknowledged back in 2016 that increased CO2 levels are indeed making our world greener today[DC2].
AGW scientists assume that the earth has no natural negative feedback cycle, and if temperature and CO2 levels go up, there is nothing but human intervention to bring them back down. Yet thousands of years of human history have demonstrated just the opposite; temperatures and CO2 levels have oscillated back and forth.
There is no scientific evidence that a warmer earth will be bad. History demonstrates the opposite. The Minoan, the Roman, and the Medieval Warm Periods were prosperous times, and the cold periods of the Greek and European Dark Ages were times of starvation, plague, and the fall of empires.
Fifth, despite all this, the AGW’s solution is to send trillions of US dollars to the United Nations. Call me a cynic, given the UN’s history of abuse and mismanagement of funds, that they could police the world and manage the CO2 output of Russia, China, India, etc.
Finally, a new study from big-name economists including Laurence Kotlikoff and Jeffrey Sachs confirms my point: even a small carbon tax today will do just the opposite of what AGW’s claim, causing economic loss to at least two future generations, and possibly more.
Yet scratch any AGW proponent and you will find a redistributionist and a globalist lying beneath. This is why you find so much support for their position among Democrats. What would Governor Inslee’s proposed spending of $9 trillion or the Green New Deal’s proposed spending of $100 trillion mean for our prosperity? What would it mean for our nation’s sovereignty and our personal liberties to transfer authority and control of one third of our economy to the United Nations? They do not care. The AGW hypothesis is a means to their desired end.
So, while I do not deny climate change, I do deny the AGW hypothesis and their solution of throwing trillions of dollars at the problem. Their solutions would actually harm the environment and damage the health and welfare of mankind.