It’s been a bit warm lately in most of the U.S., and very hot in some places. Another climate crisis is upon us, and we are told to act soon.
Why is it that virtually each and every time an “out-of-the-ordinary” weather event occurs, the climate mania folks cry “It’s the end of humanity if we don’t do radical things immediately?” Too many hurricanes in a year: the end is nearing. Above normal heat and dry conditions: we must stop using fossil fuels.
However, if you look back at the history of catastrophic climate warnings over the last 50-plus years, they were embarrassingly wrong. In this space on June 28th, there were listed seven examples of incorrect predictions of climate doom dating from 1974 through 2018.
Yet, a couple of additional hurricanes, a dry spell, or today’s heat wave sends the eco-mania left into another round of catastrophic predictions of imminent doom
Last week, Fox Business Network’s Larry Kudlow featured theoretical physicist Dr. Steven E. Koonin on his 4:00 p.m. program. Koonin is the author of the bestselling book “Unsettled: What climate science tells us, what it doesn’t, and why it matters.” His credentials also include being former director of the Center for Urban Science and Progress at New York University, and he served as Undersecretary for Science in the US Department of Energy under President Barack Obama.
Koonin gets slammed by the pro-climate-catastrophe crowd due to his view that the world is not nearing its end because of CO2 and other climate threats.
Discussing an official government report from 2018 on the Kudlow program, Koonin said, “The graphs are there; they show warmest temperatures are not greater than they were in 1900, nor are the heatwaves more common than they were in 1900.”
“What we see with heat waves is weather. It happens on time scales or changes of a few days. Heat waves are not going to last more than a few days, either in the US or in Europe. Whereas climate is the many-decade average of weather: temperature, winds, humidity, extreme events, and so on,” he continued.
“And so, people have a tendency — the news media certainly does — to focus on what happens today. That’s news. But it’s kind of boring to say things have changed by x, y or z over the last 30 years.”
Kudlow asked, “so what’s the real story here on climate change?” Koonin’s response: “We’ve seen heat — warming — since the 1600s. We had what’s called ‘the Little Ice Age,’ and [Earth’s temperatures have] gone up in the last century, let’s say, by about 2-degrees Fahrenheit. That’s globally averaged. It’s gotten warmer more rapidly in some places, in the poles, for example, and it tends to get warmer in the evening, compared to getting warmer in the daytime. There are changes. Nevertheless, it’s gotten warmer.”
“Now the real question is, are humans going to be able to, or will humans influence the climate enough so that the warming accelerates?”
“I think we understand that greenhouse gases, mostly CO2, exert a warming influence on the climate. Some human activities … exert a cooling influence on the climate. But on balance, we expect human influences to warm the climate somewhat. And the real issue is, how much is it going to warm, and the best estimate now is that it might warm another 2- or 3-degrees Fahrenheit by 2100. And then, of course, what can we do about it?”
So, Koonin, Obama’s former Undersecretary for Science, agrees that warming has occurred, and that it likely will continue to occur, but does not believe that the end of life on Earth as we know it is in the foreseeable future. Therefore, radical alterations are not called for.
Given the catastrophic predictions over the last half-century that were catastrophically wrong, perhaps Koonin’s forecast of the future is more on target.
The U.S. should reduce its burning of fossil fuels as the development of sources that can equal the demand filled by fossil fuels occurs. The U.S. should not try to force ending fossil fuels that the country’s needs, but be sensible enough to recognize that such transitions take time, and rushing the change only hurts the people, with little or no benefit.
Currently, so-called green sources, such as wind and solar, are incapable of not only matching the level of electricity and vehicle fuel currently needed, but also to do that at a cost that is commensurate with the costs — not the current high level — to which American consumers are accustomed.
President Biden and the rest of his administration would be well advised to focus on the immediate serious problems his policies have brought upon the American people. He should undo the restrictions he placed on domestic energy production, address the sky-high inflation under which people are suffering, and stop the ridiculous levels of dangerous illegal entry into the country that his foolish policies have created, for starters.
It was not an accident that the country was in far better shape under the previous administration than now, even with the scourge of Covid. Biden’s focus must be to help the American people, not to help the political left.
2 comments:
You're forgetting one key thing in those 'failed' predictions... They were the case if nothing was done, but things were done and we bought more time. It doesn't mean they were wrong at all.
They predicted catastrophe if very radical changes were not made.
Radical changes were not made, and we are still here, listening to and reading more predictions of catastrophe if radical changes are not made by the U. S., regardless of what happens in the rest of the world.
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