Tag: Climate Change

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Twelve Inconvenient Truths

George Noga

Twelve Inconvenient Truths

Top 12 Truths about Climate Change

GEORGE NOGA

Feb 11, 2024

Climate change is one of my signature issues; I have written about it more than any other topic. Recently, I updated my prior work and ranked the inconvenient (for climate alarmists) truths in ascending order, with #1 being the most profound.

polar bear on snow covered ground during daytime

#12 Polar Bears are Thriving

Far from being threatened, polar bears are thriving. Climate alarmists predicted 67% of them would disappear due to warming. Instead, the polar bear population is now over 30,000, up 600% from the 1950s and up 400% from 1960-1980 period.

#11 Voters are Balking

Voters in Europe and the US are pumping the brakes on climate spending and mandates which have doubled their energy bills and degraded their quality of life with no measurable climate benefit. EVs are stacking up on dealer lots in the US. The political consensus necessary for climate spending and mandates is evaporating.

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#10 There is No Existential Threat

There is not now and there never was an existential threat from climate change. Neither the UN-IPCC nor any other recognized authority has ever asserted the threat from warming rises to the level of being existential. The worst possible outcome for humanity does not come even close to threatening mankind’s existence.

#9 Population Collapse Will Solve the Problem

The global population collapse, already underway, will lower CO2 emissions below today’s level and realize climate alarmists’ fondest dreams and without spending any money. Population in 100 years will be less and collapsing rapidly. World population will peak in the 2060s and could be as low as 6.3 billion by 2100. Demographics is destiny. A population collapse, once underway, is nearly impossible to reverse.

#8 China, India, Africa and Developing Countries Dissent

Without buy-in from the countries named above, any actions taken to reduce CO2 are doomed. Not only are developing nations not going along with the climate change narrative, they are aggressively pushing back. Whatever the US and Europe may do is irrelevant. The energy minister of India, Raj Singh, called net zero “pie-in-the-sky” and said, “You can’t stop developing countries from using more and more fossil fuel.”

#7 Moderate Warming is a Net Benefit to Humanity

Twenty times more deaths are caused by cold as opposed to heat; consequently, higher temperatures save far more people than are harmed. Also, warmer temperatures are a boon to agriculture and help feed humanity.

#6 Trillions Are Wasted While Potential Solutions Are Ignored

If the US achieved net zero emissions tomorrow, there would be no discernable temperature impact. Nor would there be any impact on future GDP. A CBO report revealed future GDP would be infinitesimally less in many years if there was a 2 degree rise in temperature. While we waste trillions on feel-good solutions, we ignore those that could have a positive impact such as a carbon tax or atmospheric seeding.

#5 There Has Been No Extreme Weather

Weather,, including hurricanes, is no more extreme, severe or frequent; floods have not increased; Greenland’s ice sheet is not shrinking more rapidly; heat waves are not more common and wildfires actually decreased – all compared to past periods.

#4 Climate Activism Causes More Harm Than Climate Change

Utopian green energy fiascos are causing great damage to our economy and to our national security. We are wasting trillions on programs that, even if successful, have no measurable climate benefit. Such spending has made electricity less reliable, jacked up energy prices, created shortages and empowered dictators.

#3 Correlation is Not Causation

Inevitably, it always comes down to climate alarmists brandishing a graph showing temperature moving up in lockstep with CO2 – with the starting point cherry picked to achieve maximum impact. Different plot points such as during the dust bowl years, when temperatures were high and CO2 emissions low, would make the graph show the opposite. I could replace CO2 on the graph with women’s hemlines to definitively “prove” hemlines caused warming. That one graph is all climate alarmists have.

#2 Science Tells us Little About Climate Change

The earth is warming and mankind exerts a warming influence. That’s all science can tell us; anything beyond those ten words is not science – it’s climate religion. Earth has been warming for 160 years. Although humans exert a warming influence, it is impossible to know how much is attributable to mankind. Observed warming throughout our solar system closely parallels warming on Earth leading to the conclusion that very little, if any, of Earth’s warming is anthropogenic.

#1 It’s Not About the Climate; it Never Was

Communists, socialists, progressives and the media – along with their acolytes who guzzle the cool aid – have hijacked the climate change movement to achieve their unrelated goals. They are following the same playbook they used when they hijacked the environmental movement, and now the transgender movement. They cloak their anti-capitalist agenda in green language; truth is irrelevant because the ends justify the means. They know their ideas are politically toxic, so they search for another way. It’s not about the climate; it never was!

© 2024 George Noga
More Liberty – Less Government, Post Office Box 916381
Longwood, FL 32791-6381, Email: mllg@cfl.rr.com

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Continuing Coverage of Climate Change. . .  The Cure Is Worse Than the Disease

George Noga

Climate activists are like Dr. Kevorkian; western nations are his willing victims.

Continuing Coverage of Climate Change. . .

The Cure Is Worse Than the Disease

By: George Noga – November 27, 2022

Climate change is a signature issue, but this is our first climate post since July 2021. This post updates our position about man-made warming. The big news is that we now conclude that climate activism will cause greater harm to humanity than climate change – and by a wide margin. Following is what the science tells us.

The earth is warming, and mankind exerts a warming influence.

Anything beyond the above sentence is not science; it’s that simple. The earth has been warming for 160 years. Although humans exert a warming influence, it is not possible to know how much warming is attributable to mankind. We believe anthropogenic causes are an inconsequential part of overall warming, but it is impossible to be sure. We also believe many anti-science myths that have gained currency are not true:

  • Hurricanes are not more frequent or severe than 100 years ago.
  • Floods have not increased over the past 70 years.
  • Greenland’s ice sheet is shrinking no more rapidly than 80 years ago.
  • Heat waves in the US are no more common than they were in 1900.
  • The amount of land burned each year by wildfires is less than 120 years ago.
  • Warming has many benefits; global greening has vastly improved agriculture.
  • Deaths from heat have increased, but there are 20 times less deaths from cold.
  • There is no increase in severe weather events compared to 100 years ago.
  • Climate change does not pose an existential threat to humanity.
  • The Paris climate accord will have zero climate effect even if targets are met.
  • The recent climate legislation will lower temperature .0009 degrees by 2100.

It has become apparent that so-called solutions being proffered for climate change, a/k/a warming, will cause far more harm to humanity than the perceived problem. Following are some of the ways climate activists’ policies harm mankind.

Climate is a common global resource. It matters not what the US and western nations do if China, India, Africa and developing nations don’t join in. We are unilaterally squandering precious economic resources for a chimera. This is a classic “tragedy of the commons” scenario which we fail to grasp. There are 3.5 billion people without reliable sources of electricity. While climate alarmists consternate over a phony existential crisis 100 years from now, poor people face a real existential crisis today.

We are squandering trillions today on green pork to (maybe) achieve

infinitesimal reductions in temperature 100 years in the future. 

Even the middle class is forced to make tough economic tradeoffs due to skyrocketing energy prices. Costs surge, while economic growth declines. Emissions is increasingly an issue concerning only the elite. As demonstrated by the war in Ukraine, failure to produce energy in the west poses geopolitical risks, puts us at the mercy of dictators and heightens the risk of WMD use. Climate activists’ obsession with EVs makes us dependent on extractive minerals (lithium, cobalt) found mostly in unfriendly climes and mined by child and slave labor while wreaking grave environmental harm.

Climate monomania already causes energy nightmares. Reliable electric power no longer can be taken for granted. Green regulations, subsidies and mandates are causing shortages and driving up prices – by more than 100% in much of the US. Our living standards are endangered, while we are empowering Putin, Maduro and the ayatollahs.

The greatest damage is to western economies which are being savaged by wasteful spending on green energy in a quixotic attempt to cut emissions. Billions of people are being harmed today in pursuit of a wrongheaded and impossible dream. The trillions wasted on green pork come at the expense of food security, clean water, disease control, and electricity for billions of people. People in poverty in Africa do not need solar panels made with slave labor; they need food, water and health care now.

Last, to the limited extent warming is anthropogenic, it will be solved within 100 years via population decline, and without spending any money. Demographics is destiny.

Correlation is not Causation – Women’s Hemlines

The go-to argument for climate activists always is a graph showing temperature and CO2 rising in lockstep, with starting and ending points carefully selected for maximum impact. That’s all they have. If we could choose the starting and ending points, we could make the graph show anything. It is not reasonable that an established 160-year secular warming trend abruptly ended and was replaced by an identical anthropogenic warming trend. Correlation is not causation. We could replace the CO2 data on the graph with women’s hemlines to “prove” hemlines are the true cause of warming.

As Toynbee stated, “Civilizations die from suicide, not murder“. Climate activists are like Dr. Kevorkian, and western societies are his willing – make that eager – victims.

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Next on December 4th is our special Christmas posting; don’t miss it! 

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MLLG Special: The Camouflaged Nexus Of . . . Climate Change, Critical Race Theory and the Spending Crisis

George Noga

There is a hidden connection among climate change, race and the spending crisis.

MLLG Special: The Camouflaged Nexus Of . . .

Climate Change, Critical Race Theory and the Spending Crisis

By: George Noga – July 18, 2021

Three mega-issues changing America are linked in ways not well understood. Climate change is regarded, including by President Biden, as an existential issue in the literal sense and not the philosophical sense of mankind’s search for meaning. The spending crisis will change America forever and Critical Race Theory has become an accepted part of pedagogy in schools, universities and workplaces throughout America.

The common denominator of these three issues is socialism along with its misanthropic stepchildren: communism, progressivism, and liberalism. In each case, unreconstructed socialists are the driving force behind the cause. They are working in tandem toward the same goal – whether or not they coordinate their efforts. They receive financing and succor from a coterie of camp followers and useful idiots including progressive groups, academia, public sector labor unions, teachers, media, government bureaucrats, NGOs, entertainment, organized religion, social media – and even sports and business.

Climate Change and Socialism

After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism, die-hard Marxists were homeless. They decided to pursue their goals via a back door by taking over the environmental (and later, climate change) movement. They simply cloaked their anti-capitalist agenda in green language and became watermelon environmentalists, i.e. green on the outside but red on the inside. Patrick Moore, a founder of Greenpeace, said, “Following the collapse of communism, Marxists hijacked the (climate change) movement. Their far left agenda is about socialism, not ecology or (climate).”

Critical Race Theory (“CRT”) and Socialism

Marxism is based on class conflict and the belief that workers would seize the means of production and create a utopian socialist society. However, socialist-style regimes proved dismal failures, murdering over 100 million of their own people. The human carnage and economic toll were so great even die-hard Marxists couldn’t hide from it. Moreover, Marxists came to understand workers in the USA, Western Europe, Japan and many other places never would buy into the notion of class struggle.

Just as Marxists knew they needed a back door (environmentalism and climate change) to achieve their goal, they also recognized they needed an alternative to class struggle. They decided to substitute race (and ethnic) struggle for class struggle and BINGO, Critical Race Theory was created. Masters of maskirovka, commies decided on the euphemism “equity” as their mantra. By equity they mean an end to private property and redistribution of everything according to race. There would be no individual rights, only group rights. At its core, Critical Race Theory is virulent socialism.

Spending Crisis, Modern Monetary Theory (“MMT”) and Socialism

Most groups pushing for MMT and massive spending, debt and deficits are socialist. Once again, they are seeking a back door to socialism. Progressives understand Americans will not accept socialism under normal circumstances; therefore, they must create an emergency serious enough to beguile Americans into accepting the hitherto unacceptable. Thus, we have a spending crisis that will result in horrors so frightening people will accept anything – especially if they are promised it is only temporary. The spending crisis is yet another back door to a socialist United States of America.

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There you have it – the nexus of climate change, CRT and spending; they all represent back doors to socialism. The leaders of these movements know full well what they are doing but are few in number. They must rely on camp followers and useful idiots, i.e. clueless liberals besotted with feel-good progressive bromides and good intentions.

We must stand up to these assaults on our liberty and way of life. That requires the courage to speak the truth and to withstand the slings and arrows directed at you by elitist mobs. But courage begets courage and a majority is one person with courage.

Next on July 25th – The school choice movement in America.
More Liberty Less Government – mllg@cfl.rr.com – www.mllg.us

MLLG Book Review: Unsettled by Steven Koonin – The Science of Climate Change is Unsettled

George Noga

“Earth is warming and humans exert a warming influence; beyond that, nothing is settled.”

MLLG Book Review: Unsettled by Steven Koonin

The Science of Climate Change is Unsettled

By: George Noga – July 11, 2021

The May 2021 publication of Steven Koonin’s book “Unsettled” is the latest salvo from a distinguished mainstream scientist to debunk the so-called climate consensus and to expose the truth about manmade climate change. The climate alarmist dam cracked with Michael Shellenberger’s 2020 book “Apocalypse Never“, which was reviewed by MLLG on 8/16/20; read it on our website: www.mllg.us. If Shellenberger, a Time magazine “Hero of the Environment“, cracked the dam, Koonin blows it to bits.

Shellenberger refutes the fear mongering about climate change and the environment, concluding there is more reason for optimism than pessimism. He calls climate change the secular religion of rich educated elites, replacing God with nature. Apocalyptic environmentalism meets the same psychological and spiritual needs as religion and provides its acolytes a purpose and storyline that casts them as heroes, while retaining the illusion they are people of science and reason, not superstition and fantasy.

Unsettled: By Steven Koonin

Dr. Koonin, one of America’s most distinguished scientists, got his Ph.D. in theoretical physics from MIT and was a professor of theoretical physics at Caltech for 30 years including serving as VP and Provost. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a governor of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He published over 200 peer-reviewed papers. Recently, Koonin served as Undersecretary for Science at the Department of Energy in the Obama Administration where his portfolio included climate research. We could fill this entire post listing Dr. Koonin’s credentials.

Dr. Koonin goes directly for the jugular in the opening pages by proving:

  • Heat waves in the USA are no more common today than in 1900 and the warmest temperatures have not risen during the past 50 years.

  • Humans have no detectable impact on hurricanes in the past century.

  • Greenland’s ice sheet is not shrinking more rapidly than 80 years ago.

  • The net economic impact of humans on the climate is minimal.

The above is just to whet readers’ appetites. Koonin goes on to disprove most of the climate alarmist narrative including: (1) the climate is broken; (2) temperatures are rising; (3) sea level is surging; (4) ice is disappearing; (5) extreme weather is more frequent and more severe; (6) greenhouse gas emissions are causing all the preceding; (7) radical changes in human behavior are needed; (8) Earth is doomed; (9) global CO2 is at a high level; and the biggest whopper of all, (10) the science is settled.

In the few months since Unsettled was published, Dr. Koonin has been attacked by all the usual climate alarmist suspects – particularly those in the media. It is notable that not one critic has taken issue with any of the sources, data or logic used by Koonin.

If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. (Crichton)

Only when the miasma of anthropological climate change finally is in humanity’s rear view mirror, may we begin to understand how so many people were hoodwinked so completely and for so long. Eventually, we may even fathom why Time magazine named a know-nothing Swedish teenager its 2019 person of the year despite her pallid screeds directly contradicting Time magazine’s own hero of the environment.

Dr. Koonin’s book will hasten the end of the manmade climate change madness that has held our planet in its vise-like grip and terrorized our children for decades.

Next: We reveal an occult nexus among three of the biggest issues of our time.

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MLLG State of the Union Address

George Noga

Biden’s SOTU address is this Tuesday. Following is MLLG’s SOTU speech.

MLLG State of the Union Address

By: George Noga – February 21, 2021

My fellow Americans:

I begin with first principles. Governments are instituted among men to protect their rights, which include life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. This is its only legitimate purpose. Experience shows legally sanctioned force, i.e. government is necessary to secure our rights and to protect us from foreign and domestic violence. Government is a dangerous, albeit necessary, force but is preferable to the alternative, i.e. anarchy.

All human history demonstrates that free people, free trade and free markets result in the greatest prosperity for everyone. Civil society and markets are 100% voluntary and non-coercive. No corporation, no matter how powerful, can compel you to buy its product. A consumer armed with a free choice is the most powerful force on earth.

In contrast, government is inherently coercive; it is not about reason, persuasion or logic. It is about brute force. If you run afoul of a government diktat, ultimately men with guns will come and take away your property, liberty or even your life. Because government is such a powerful and malevolent force, it must be limited, controlled, confined to its constitutional box and used only when absolutely necessary.

Ours is a government of laws and not men. Who holds executive, legislative, or judicial offices should be of little import to citizens, provided they remain inside the constitutional box. We must gradually shrink a severely bloated government back to its core responsibilities; this means we scale the government back to 15% of GDP, a level which empirically has been shown to maximize the well-being of all Americans.

The few legitimate functions of government should be vigorously carried out. Of these, none is more important than protection from foreign threats to our liberty; hence, we must make our military so strong no adversary would even contemplate challenging us. This means that we will spend whatever is required to defend our liberty.

We must begin to restore our constitutional republic back to first principles. Following are some of the other main goals and policies we will pursue in the time ahead.

– Free Trade: Prosperity is created by trade among people. The USA unilaterally will eliminate all tariffs and trade barriers – even if no other countries reciprocate.

– Sound Money: The Federal Reserve will have only one mission: sound money. It will be audited regularly and will take a hard look at returning to a gold standard.

– Taxation: As we scale government back to 15%, taxes can be reduced. All present taxes (income, payroll, etc.) will be repealed and replaced by a consumption tax.

– War on Drugs: The war is over; drugs won. Drugs will be legal, taxed, regulated and discouraged. Taxes from drugs will be spent on rehabilitation, not incarceration.

– Education: We will implement universal school choice and thereby solve the greatest civil rights issue of our time. Great God almighty – free at last!

– Regulation: All regulations automatically sunset after 10 years. Any regulations promulgated by bureaucrats and having an economic impact of more than $25 million must be approved by a vote of Congress before they become effective.

– Climate Change: Open scientific debate is encouraged. All climate spending will be subject to strict cost/benefit analysis. More funds will be allocated to mitigation.

– Entitlements: Social Security will be voluntarily privatized. All entitlements will be placed on the budget. Medicare will be converted to a premium support system.

– War on Poverty: This war also is over; this time we won. Americans living in poverty (by their own account) are down to 2-3% and consist nearly entirely of those with very low mental acuity, untreated mental illness and drug addiction. We will not abandon these people but will structure solutions better tailored to their problems.

There is more – much more. But the policy initiatives outlined above should provide a good idea of the direction we are leading America. Thank you very much. Good night and may God bless you, your family and these United States of America.

Next up on February 28th: Real doctors versus witch doctors.
More Liberty Less Government – mllg@cfl.rr.com – www.mllg.us

The Global Population Collapse

George Noga

If climate change is manmade, then the population bust resolves it and at no cost.

The Global Population Collapse

By: George Noga – February 14, 2021

Very few, if anyone, reading this will be alive when the population collapse hits in full force early in the next century. Although that is a long way off, there are significant impacts in the shorter term. The biggest is that the population bust presents a solution to climate change; see our related 1/31/21 posting on our website at: www.mllg.us.

Population 100 years from now will be less than today and collapsing rapidly. Humans have not experienced a population bust since the Black Death 700 years ago. I spent hours researching what happened after the plague to see what lessons I could glean for today. Other than the fact that labor (due to scarcity) became far more valuable, and hastened the end of serfdom, I found nothing that resonates today.

Back to climate change. If indeed there are fewer of us in the future, that means CO2 emissions also are less, assuming they remain constant per capita. But what happens if everyone is much better off and has the same CO2 footprint as people in advanced countries today? If everyone is well off, they also will reduce their energy footprint just as wealthy nations are doing today. Moreover, global population will plunge far below that of today. The lesson is clear: we should not waste trillions on ineffective feel-good measures when a solution to climate change is staring us in the face. If climate change is manmade, as its proponents assert, then a smaller population solves the problem.

Let’s look at some numbers. World population today is 7.8 billion. Per a University of Washington study published in the Lancet, population is projected to peak in 2064 at 9.7 billion and decrease to 8.8 billion by 2100. However, if current trends accelerate, as is happening, they forecast population as low as 6.3 billion by 2100. At low fertility rates, population halves every generation. Within a century or so, population could plunge from say 10 billion to 5 billion to 2.5 billion to 1.25 billion – a drop of 87.5%.

Even today, most wealthy countries have a fertility rate between 1.0 and 1.5 – far below the 2.1 required for a stable population. The USA is at 1.7 but population is stable due to immigration. By 2100 every country on Earth will be under 2.1. China’s population (fertility rate 1.0) is expected to drop 50%, by .75 billion people. In many countries population will fall over 50%, including Japan, South Korea, Italy, Portugal and Spain. It already has begun, as deaths today exceed births in Japan and South Korea.

Once fertility drops below 2.1, population recovery becomes impossible.

The population collapse is worse – far worse – than it appears. As population plunges, it also ages rapidly. Once population collapses, reversing it becomes nearly impossible; it is so difficult some demographers believe Earth’s population never again will increase. Increasing fertility with an elderly population is daunting for obvious reasons. No country in history has recovered its population once its fertility rate fell below 2.1.

Progressives still are flogging the politically correct narrative that overpopulation is the problem. They were wrong in Malthus’ time and they are wrong today. Prince Harry and Megan, who vowed not to have children, are comically wrong. Paul Erlich’s population bomb not only has failed to explode, it actually is imploding.

The implosion of the population bomb comes with serendipitous benefits such as described supra about climate change. Also, much of the planet’s surface will be rewilded and the environment will return to a pristine state. That’s the good news.

On the other side of the ledger are too few workers to provide health care for a huge cohort of elderly, only two workers to support each retiree and failure of many pension plans. When the elderly start cashing out their IRAs, who will be the ones buying? Who will buy all the cars, houses, refrigerators, or anything for that matter, in a depopulating world? From where will governments derive their funding?

At least population collapse will solve climate change. But don’t expect to see progressives jumping for joy. It is not about the climate; it never was.

Next up on February 21st: MLLG State of the Union Address

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The State of the World is Better Than You Think

George Noga

Human nature causes us to measure progress against utopia rather than against the past.

The State of the World is Better Than You Think

By: George Noga – January 17, 2021

This is our first post of 2021 and we are starting out on a positive note. Most people believe the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Recent polls show only 6% of Americans think the world is getting better. Many tacitly assume that for humanity to be better off, everything must be getting better for everyone everywhere. Reality never works that way; some unfavorable trends coexist with many more positive ones. Moreover, many people tend to measure progress against utopia rather than the past.

Humans are hard wired to be pessimistic as we evolved from risk-averse ancestors. When our Paleolithic forebears heard a noise in the bushes, it could be caused by either the wind or a predator. Those who assumed it was the wind did not live to be our ancestors. We therefore are descended from people who tended to worry a lot.

We worry about, inter alia, the Covid pandemic, climate change, politics, civil unrest, the environment, crime and terrorism. Following are some key megatrends showing that Homo sapiens, far from perdition, really is getting better and better all the time. Note: much of the data used herein are from a Cato Institute book: Ten Global Trends.

Eradication of extreme poverty: In the past 200 years the world economy grew 100 fold, while population grew only 18 fold. If the same growth rate is maintained, the economy will grow 10 fold by 2100, while population will be about the same as today.

Natural resources are plentiful and becoming more so: Over the last 40 years, out of 50 commodities studied, 45 of them are less expensive (adjusted for inflation) meaning they are more plentiful relative to demand for them. The average price for all 50 commodities fell 35%, while during that same period wages grew 80%. We have never run out, or are in any danger of running out, of any nonrenewable resource!

Population soon will peak and then decline: Several demographic studies agree that human population will peak soon after mid century and then begin to decline such that in 2100 population will be close to its present level and continue to decrease thereafter. This should go a very long way toward a solution for climate change.

Abundance of food with less land: The world food supply is now 3,000 calories per day per person, an increase of 36% in 60 years despite a burgeoning population. This level exceeds the USDA’s recommended daily caloric intake. Except in war zones, famines are ancient history. More and more land (1 million square miles) has been reclaimed for nature due to use of GMOs and more efficient farming practices.

End of wars between countries: In the past 50 years, wars between nations have been rare and those that did occur resulted in much fewer casualties; this is true even though we went from 50 countries in 1946 to about 200 today. This trend is attributable to increases in democracy, greater wealth and intertwined trading patterns.

All around better world: In recent years democracies increased from 31% to 49%, while autocracies fell from 39% to 11%. In the past 100 years the chances of someone dying from a natural disaster have declined by 99%. Virtually every metric extant evidences that we live in a far safer world and it is getting better all the time.

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As this year progresses, MLLG will address many of the problems America and the world face. It is wise however to begin 2021 with some perspective, so that our problems do not cause us to lose sight of the big picture, i.e. the enormous progress humanity has made and continues to make – contrary to the beliefs of 94% of Americans. Whenever you hear a rustling in the bushes, it is not always a lion.

Our January 24th post deals with the integrity of elections in the USA.

More Liberty Less Government – mllg@cfl.rr.com – www.mllg.us

The Real Climate Science Deniers Are Not Who You Think

George Noga

Climate change alarmists believe many things directly contradicted by science.

MLLG Continuing Analysis of Climate Change . . . .

The Real Climate Science Deniers Are Not Who You Think

By: George Noga – November 29, 2020

It is an immutable fact that progressives always do what they accuse their opponents of doing; this is especially true of climate change. Climate alarmists accuse so-called deniers of ignoring the science, but they are the true science deniers. See see our recent post of 10/18/20 “Covid and Climate Change”; it is on our website: www.mllg.us.

The most consequential lie climate alarmists promulgate is that there are actions the USA and the developed world can take that will meaningfully reduce temperature rise. This claim is contradicted by science. If the entire developed world stopped all emissions and fossil fuel use immediately, and continued doing so for the rest of the century, it would devastate the economy and impoverish billions. However, per the UN-IPCC, the impact on temperature in the year 2100 would be 1/2 of one degree Celsius. If just the USA stopped all emissions, the effect is 2/10ths of one degree.

There are no actions the USA and the developed world can take that will reduce temperature rise to any meaningful extent.

There are many other anti-science myths promoted by climate alarmists; the principal ones are described below; they are not listed in any particular order.

 Extreme weather: It is contrary to science to assert extreme weather has increased. From 1900-1958 Florida had 18 major hurricanes; from 1959 to today there were 11. Again per the UN, the same is true of cyclones, floods, tornadoes, storms and droughts throughout the entire world. Weather related insurance claims, adjusted for inflation, also have not increased. In fact, not only has there not been an increase in either the number or severity of extreme weather events, there has been a significant decrease!

  • Rising temperature kills: While true that increased heat results in added deaths, such an increase is dwarfed by the vastly fewer deaths resulting from less cold.

  • Fires in California and Australia: CA and AUS have a long, predictable history of cyclical droughts. This has been exacerbated by Byzantine environmental regulations and government mismanagement. Climate alarmists in AUS blame the conservative Morrison government, but AUS emits only 1.3% of the planet’s carbon. If Australia went to zero carbon emissions, it would not even budge the global thermostat.

  • Nuclear energy: Nuclearphobia is worse than a lie; it is a damned anti-science lie. Nuclear is, by far, the single best way for humanity to reduce carbon. It is a damned lie because it reveals climate alarmists really have other agendas. But instead of building more nuclear plants, we are tearing them down in a gross overreaction to Fukushima by nuclearphobes. One of my favorite mantras is: more people died at Chappaquiddick than at Three Mile Island and Fukushima (from radiation) combined.

  • It is an existential crisis: This is another outright lie contradicted by the UN-IPCC. Nowhere does any reputable scientific body assert that the existence of humanity is threatened. To the contrary, many scientists believe adaptation is the best response; if it truly were an existential crisis, adaptation would not be a rational response.

  • Green pork: Climate alarmists tout electric vehicles, windmills, bio-fuels and solar panels. These all are ineffective, feel-good, symbolic and pork-laden projects that waste many trillions while beguiling people into believing they make a difference.

  • Paris Accord: The Paris Accord on Climate Change also is maskirovka, intended to hoodwink people into believing it matters. It is a hollow symbol signifying nothing.

  • Population growth: Greens scaremonger about population growth, but the science is that population decrease is the most positive factor to arrest temperature increase. Current trends are for global population to peak around 2065 and then to decrease close to today’s level by 2100 – and then continue to plummet after that. A smaller and declining population should stabilize carbon emissions close to today’s level.

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So, who are the true science deniers when it comes to climate change? This should not come as a surprise because progressives are truth challenged and anti-science about many other things including: when life begins, organic foods, school choice, guns and crime, GMOs and socialism. Most recently, they reject the science about Covid-19 and economic lockdowns and school openings. Progressivism itself is an anti-science lie.

Next on December 6th, we take on Black Lives Matter
More Liberty Less Government – mllg@cfl.rr.com – www.mllg.us

50th Anniversary of Earth Day – The Environmentalist Playbook

George Noga

The ersatz existential environmental crisis that led to the original Earth Day

 

50th Anniversary of Earth Day

The Environmentalist Playbook

By: George Noga – April 19, 2020

        The incredible, but 100% true, story described in this post is about the advent of the environmental movement and how it led to the first Earth Day; moreover, it resulted in a playbook environmentalists have used over and over ever since that time. This is the fourth in our series on the 50th anniversary of Earth Day; the previous parts are on our website: www.mllg.us. The final part is next week.

 

        In the mid 1960s an existential environmental crisis threatened Earth; lakes, rivers and forests were dying. Scientists were certain they identified the cause and that it was man-made. Nascent environmentalists became alarmed and organized for action. Politicians quickly fell into line. International conferences, including at the United Nations, were convened and a war on coal (the putative cause) was declared.

       Public alarm was intense; in Sweden and Germany hysteria reached fever pitch. The media outdid themselves with hyperbole, sensationally asserting that the planet was dying. The National Academy of Sciences and the EPA said that the evidence of its cause was overwhelming. The President of the United States formed a blue-ribbon scientific working group to study the problem. International protocols were signed. When the next US president expressed skepticism, 3,000 scientists protested. Cap and trade legislation was pending in Congress. Then came a huge bombshell!

Every environmental scare since 1970 followed the same playbook.

       The blue-ribbon scientific working group (National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program or NAPAP) found that the science was mostly wrong. The principal cause of the problem was changes in land use which resulted in calcium depletion in the soil which, in turn, vastly reduced the acidity of forest floors. The emissions from burning coal in power plants was not the principal cause. Based on the NAPAP report, the problem was rectified and the planet saved. To this day, the EPA never has admitted it was wrong and it still clings to the discredited zombie science of coal emissions.

       As you undoubtedly have discerned by now, the preceding story was about acid rain. Although coal emissions as a principal cause of acid rain has been debunked, it provided a dress rehearsal and a template that environmentalists would use over and over again. They used it for global cooling and the coming of the new ice age in the 1970s. This was followed by global warming in the 1980s which morphed into today’s climate change. But it all began with the environmentalists’ acid rain dry run.

The Environmentalist Playbook

        Every environmental scare since the 1960s has used the same playbook. First, an existential threat to the planet is conjured. Scientists, funded by government, study the problem and claim to be absolutely certain they identified the cause; anyone who disagrees is branded a denier or even a heretic. International organizations jump onto the bandwagon and issue politically motivated studies and protocols. The media then glom onto the crisis and sensationalize it with apocalyptic headlines.

     The public, especially impressionable school children, panics. Politicians, not wanting to allow any crisis go to waste, use it as a pretext to demand more power and money and to further their other not-so-hidden agendas. And, of course, so-called environmentalists never will admit of having doubt or entertain the notion that they might be wrong and if proven wrong they continue to deny the facts.

      There is one other common feature of the environmentalist playbook: they are proven wrong. They were wrong about the cause of acid rain. They were spectacularly wrong about global cooling and the coming of a new ice age. The final story is not yet written about climate change but, at a minimum, the environmentalists have grossly exaggerated the significance of the anthropogenic component.

        On this golden anniversary of the environmental movement, take a few moments to reflect on the playbook environmental alarmists first learned with acid rain and have used for the last 50 years. Now that you understand their game plan, you shouldn’t be vulnerable to manipulation by pseudo environmentalists peddling junk science.

Next on April 26th, we present our plan for the environment for the next 50 years.  
More Liberty Less Government  –  mllg@mllg.us  –  www.mllg.us

Climate of Confusion – Part VII It’s Not About Climate; It Never Was

George Noga
Manmade warming is nothing but a phantasmagoria, i.e. a sequence of imagined horrors.
Climate of Confusion – Part VII
It’s Not About Climate; It Never Was
By: George Noga – November 10, 2019

         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.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

        We tried hard to be objective and presented every known argument for manmade warming, but the facts and logic overwhelmingly are aligned on the opposite side. In the end, manmade warming is nothing more than a phantasmagoria, i.e. a sequence of imagined horrors. Future generations will judge climate change as an historic mass delusion, rivaling tulip mania, the South Sea Bubble and the Salem witch trials.

        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!

Next on November 17th – The  government is coming for your IRAs.
More Liberty Less Government  –  mllg@mllg.us  –  www.mllg.us