Author: George Noga

         This is the seventh and final post in this series; all prior posts are available on our website: www.mllg.us. The following summarizes our beliefs about climate change.

        Climate always is changing; climate change is a tautological phrase intended by proponents of manmade warming to weaponize every weather event. Earth has been warming for nearly 200 years in fits and starts, with pauses and even intervals of cooling. We are in a 20-year pause, with no warming since 1998 other than El Nino years. This warming is a normal part of climate cycles caused by changes in solar irradiance, eccentricity of Earth’s orbit, obliquity (axial tilt) and position at perihelion. Humanity’s contribution, if any, to warming is minor and inconsequential.

        The highly touted 97% scientific consensus that mankind is responsible for most warming originated with John Cook, whose work has been discredited. All other sources, including NASA, alleging a scientific consensus are equally spurious. If, a arguendo, a consensus existed, it would be limited to man causing most warming and nothing more. Other scientific groups, including 31,487 physicists, have reached an opposite consensus. The 2018 Nobel Prize in Economics went to an economist whose work proved that mitigating warming causes humanity more harm than good.

        Data showing rising temperatures result from human adjustments to terrestrial data, nearly all of which lowered temperatures in earlier years to create a misleading impression of a warming trend. Satellite data, which have no human adjustments, show no significant recent warming pattern. Other credible data show no recent increase in record temperatures, extreme weather or net melting of icecaps. Even if all these things were happening, it would be evidence only of secular – and not manmade – warming.

       Other convincing arguments against man’s role include, inter alia, warming throughout the solar system, argument from authority, Occam’s Razor, history of junk science, failure of all climate scares to materialize, meltdown of computer models, refusal to debate, outright (hockey stick) frauds, politicization and political correctness of science and media, science is never settled, Singapore and changes in CO2 sensitivity. There also are powerful economic, political and religious arguments.

        A potent argument against government action to reduce emissions is its global scope. If the USA reduced carbon emissions to zero, it would cut greenhouse gasses by 29 ppm in 80 years with no effect on temperature. Unilateral climate actions wreck our economy, harm ordinary people and achieve no benefit. When developed nations seek to reduce greenhouse gasses, they export pollution to dirtier undeveloped nations.

        The Green New Deal doesn’t protect against an existential threat, it is one. Green energy is a dead end, a reality obvious to Warren Buffet and many western nations that are quietly expanding fossil fuel resources. Renewables are running into immutable physical limits of energy density and economic limits of cost. Wind and solar must be 100% backed by fossil fuels. Humanity should adapt to any future climate-caused dislocations instead of impoverishing ourselves in a futile attempt at mitigation.

        All progressive movements consist of two groups. There are a few leaders, who either know or who are agnostic that manmade warming is a giant hoax. Then there is a large cohort of acolytes and media who guzzle the cool aid. To progressives, truth is irrelevant because the ends justify the means. They know that their ideas are so toxic they can’t ever get what they want at the ballot box. So they search for another way, i.e. manmade climate change. It is not about climate; it never was!

        This is part six of seven parts; all prior parts are on our website: www.mllg.us.  The global nature of climate is of supreme importance and is where we begin.

Global Scope of Greenhouse Gas Emissions  

        Climate intrinsically is global. Unilateral actions by the USA, and even by the entire western world, are insignificant because the west already has taken stringent measures vis-a-vis the rest of the world. If the USA went totally carbonless, the effect would be 29 parts per million in emissions by 2100 and would result in no discernible difference in temperature. A billion people still are without electricity and population will grow 3.6 billion by 2100 – nearly all outside the west. This moots any climate actions that exclude China, India, Africa and the rest of the non-western world.

          A closely related issue is carbon dioxide leakage. When western nations impose unilateral measures to reduce CO2, it usually “leaks” or shifts to less developed nations resulting in no net reduction. Emissions often increase because less developed nations are energy inefficient. When economic activity shifts from the USA to say Bangladesh, our emissions go down but global emissions increase. Earth would be much better off if manufacturing remained in the USA, even if our own emissions stayed higher.

The Green New Deal (“GND”)

       The environmental movement took a sharp left turn after the fall of the USSR. Former commies, with nowhere to go, infiltrated the green movement becoming watermelon environmentalists, i.e. green on the outside and red on the inside. But their goals never changed; now they are trying to achieve them by hijacking climate change.

        Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, said: “The interesting thing about GND is that it wasn’t originally a climate thing at all . . . we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing.” The GND is like a progressive wish list; it includes: (1) family sustaining wage; (2) medical leave; (3) family leave; (4) paid vacations; (5) retirement security; (6) health care; (7) affordable housing; (8) anti-discrimination measures; and (9) pro union provisions. The GND opposes every reliable, affordable and abundant form of energy and costs up to $100 trillion. The Green New Deal doesn’t protect America against an existential threat; it is one!

Why Green Energy (Renewals) is Not the Future

        Green energy is not our future. No one says it out loud because they are too busy virtue signaling; but their actions speak. Across the world, nations (including Sweden, Germany and the USA) have concluded green energy can’t ever supply their needs and are busy adding massive amounts of fossil fuels to the grid. Warren Buffet just invested an additional $10 billion in oil and gas resources. Despite massive subsidies, green energy remains too expensive and nations cannot risk running out of electricity.

        It all comes down to the physics of energy. Technical innovations cannot solve the fundamental problems of green energy; they are inherent in nature. We can make more and bigger solar panels and wind turbines, but we can’t make the sun shine or the wind blow more often. Also, wind and solar must be 100% backed by fossil fuel capacity.

       The cost of wind and solar has deceased but there is little room for further savings. Battery technology has run up against immutable natural limits. Wind and solar are not energy dense, require lots of land and are not economically competitive even with huge subsidies. Fossil fuels are not an existential threat, they are an existential resource.

Adaptation is Preferable to Mitigation

       Mitigation means lowering temperature via human action and is wrongheaded because: (1) Nobel Laureate William Nordhaus demonstrated the best policy is to do nothing; (2) there is a significant chance mankind is not causing warming and mitigation would be wasted; (3) the world will be much richer  in many decades when potential warming problems may surface; (4) mankind always has been adapting to  climate; (5) spending a dollar today costs much more (present value) than spending a dollar in the distant future; and (6) adaptation can much more precisely target spending to specific identifiable problems instead of indiscriminate spending on mitigation.

         Adaptation is safer and more cost-effective. Mankind, as it has since time immemorial, will adapt to whatever curve balls climate may throw at us. Besides, market economies work incredibly well to solve any challenges facing humanity.

         This is the fourth of seven parts; prior parts are on our website: www.mllg.us.  We begin by summarizing the case against manmade warming made in prior posts.

        This is the third of seven parts; you can read the first two parts on our website: www.mllg.us. In this part we address the UN-IPCC, US National Climate Assessment, rising temperatures, extreme weather, rising sea level and melting icecaps and glaciers.

           UN-IPCC: Other than the putative 97% scientific consensus described in Part II, the IPCC is the most frequently cited authority for anthropogenic warming. The IPCC has made many alarming, dire and even apocalyptic pronouncements; but they also have stated that “Moderate warming is a net benefit to humanity“. The IPCC, in its most recent report, simply states: “Human interference with the climate system is occurring and climate change poses risks for human and natural systems.” This hardly rises to the level of a clarion call for drastic action to fight an existential threat.

         IPCC reports, glommed onto by the media, are summaries of thousands of pages of raw data; they are written by politicians (not scientists) and often are at variance with the underlying data. As a governmental body, the IPCC is inherently political and its scientists are compromised by lucrative grants and cowed by political correctness. A recent IPCC report described a worst case scenario in which manmade warming would lower global GDP by only 14 one-hundredths of one percent per year to 2100.

        US National Climate Assessment: The most recent assessment stated that in the worst case, the GDP of the US would be 4% greater in 2090 if there were no human effect on climate. This is a nothing burger.

         Rising Temperatures: Frenzied media reporting of high temperatures makes this the third biggest reason people believe in manmade warming. But there are numerous and serious flaws with reported temperature data; the top ten are listed below.