An effective challenge to the climate catastrophe narrative | Columns

Despite the desperate efforts of the climate catastrophe crowd, very good opinion pieces arguing against their narrative keep being released. Another one appeared in the Wall Street Journal, written by Steven E. Koonin. The article, titled, “At Long Last, Clarity on Climate,” began: “A recent Energy Department report challenged the widespread belief that greenhouse gas emissions pose a serious threat to the nation. It likely soothed Americans irked by forced energy transitions, but you would be wrong to assume it reassured many alarmed by hypothetical climate catastrophes.” Koonin, who is an author and a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, continued, writing that “There is a disconnect between public perceptions of climate change and climate science — and between past government reports and the science itself. Energy Secretary Chris Wright understands this. It’s why he commissioned an independent assessment by a team of five senior scientists, including me, to provide clearer insights into what’s known and not about the changing climate.” He noted that this group has more than 200 years of research experience collectively, most of which was closely related to climate studies. “The resulting peer-reviewed report is entirely our work, free from political influence — a departure from previous assessments,” he wrote. “It draws from United Nations and U.S. climate reports, peer-reviewed research, and primary observations to focus on important aspects of climate science that have been misrepresented to nonexperts.” Among the report’s key findings: • Elevated carbon-dioxide levels enhance plant growth, contributing to global greening and increased agricultural productivity. • Complex climate models provide limited guidance on the climate’s response to rising carbon-dioxide levels. Overly sensitive models, often using extreme scenarios, have exaggerated future warming projections and consequences. • Data aggregated over the continental U.S. show no significant long-term trends in most extreme weather events. Claims of more frequent or intense hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and dryness in America aren’t supported by historical records. • While global sea levels have risen about 8 inches since 1900, aggregate U.S. tide-gauge data don’t show the long-term acceleration expected from a warming globe. • Natural climate variability, data limitations and model deficiencies complicate efforts to attribute specific climate changes or extreme events to human CO2 emissions. • The use of the words “existential,” “crisis” and “emergency” to describe the projected effects of human-caused warming on the U.S. economy finds scant support in the data. • Overly aggressive policies aimed at reducing emissions could do more harm than good by hiking the cost of energy and degrading its reliability. Even the most ambitious reductions in U.S. emissions would have little direct effect on global emissions and an even smaller effect on climate trends. Koonin notes that this group’s report is the first in a good while that challenges the narrative of catastrophic climate change, and that many people are surprised by it because government has failed to accurately communicate climate science. What is commonly called “climate science” is often more like “climate crises.” The idea is to scare people about the climate so that they will comply with the narrative and the proposed actions to protect us from catastrophe. So many of the previous predictions of devastation have not been correct. Here are some of the many examples of false predictions and the year in which they were made: 1967: Dire Famine Forecast by 1975 1969: Everyone Will Disappear in a Cloud of Blue Steam by 1989 1970: Urban Citizens Will Require Gas Masks by 1985 1971: New Ice Age Coming by 2020 or 2030 1988: Maldive Islands will Be Underwater by 2018 1989: Rising Sea Levels Will Obliterate Nations if Nothing Done by 2000 1989: UN Warns Global Warming Will Wipe Nations Off the Face of the Earth by 2000 2000: Snowfalls Are Now a Thing of the Past 2002: Famine In 10 Years If We Don’t Give Up Eating Fish, Meat, and Dairy 2005: Manhattan Underwater by 2015 2008: Arctic will Be Ice Free by 2018 2008: Climate Genius Al Gore Predicts Ice-Free Arctic by 2013 2009: Climate Genius Prince Charles Says We Have 96 Months to Save the World In 2024 the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration website published the components of our atmosphere, and the dreaded CO2 (carbon-dioxide), the gas that is blamed for leading us to a catastrophic future, makes up just .04% of it. Some scientists say that we need twice as much CO2 to enhance plant growth, and more plants produce more oxygen. And they say that reducing the .04% level by half would seriously endanger plant and human life. Others who support the global warming theory, admit that lower CO2 levels would lead to lower — perhaps much cooler — temperatures, since CO2 is credited for raising temperatures. “Climate policies must balance the risks of climate change against a response’s costs, efficacy and collateral effects,” Koonin wrote. “Reports like ours may draw a lot of anger but our work accurately portrays important aspects of climate science. Acknowledging the facts is essential for informed policy decisions.” Given the large number of climate catastrophes that have been predicted, and that have not occurred, and given the relatively moderate current atmospheric conditions, perhaps we should relax on this topic.