RUTHFULLY YOURS

Despite alarmist media claims, there is no evidence that a climate “crisis” looms in our future, let alone imminent danger of a climate catastrophe. Nevertheless, we are now witnessing decisions by the Biden administration and other countries that could endanger lives around the world this winter.

In an effort to reduce GHG emissions, the administration has taken actions resulting in a sharp decline in current and prospective investment in U.S. oil and natural gas production, raising prices for fossil fuels both in the U.S. and globally. This means that U.S. policies alone will cause severe increases in the price of fossil fuels used for heating homes, schools and businesses in Europe and elsewhere, risking serious illness and death for large portions of the world’s population, especially the poor. The Russian cut in deliveries of natural gas to Europe have exacerbated that effect. The New York Times (NYT) recently reported that people were cutting Europe’s forests for firewood because fossil fuels were too costly or unavailable. This reflects the desperation that unnecessary and shortsighted U.S. and European policies have created.

Yet, ignoring this reality and looking for alarming headlines, most daily media reports about climate change repeat the false claim that increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs) will cause a climate catastrophe in the near future. With this as a foundation, it seems that every policy must be directed to preventing this “disaster.”

A recent article in the NYT, quoting a UN report, could be labelled Exhibit A. Titled “Climate Pledges Fizzle as Havoc Looms for Globe,” the opening paragraph, “Countries around the world are failing to live up to their commitments to fight climate change, pointing the Earth toward a future with more intense flooding, wildfires, drought, heatwaves and species extinction,” uncritically accepts the UN’s unfounded alarmism. By ignoring the readily available relevant science summarized below, the NYT and others seem to be trying to scare the public into supporting desperate actions in America and abroad that ostensibly will prevent catastrophic global climate change.

Such flawed reporting is not limited to the NYT, but is so ubiquitous that even someone as intelligent and informed as a Supreme Court Justice sees a serious danger ahead if the Environmental Protection Agency is not provided with the power it seeks.

At the outset of her dissent in West Virginia v Environmental Protection Agency, Justice Elena Kagan wrote: “Climate change’s causes and dangers are no longer subject to serious doubt… If the current rate of emissions continues, children born this year could live to see parts of the Eastern seaboard swallowed by the ocean.” One can hardly blame a Supreme Court justice for accepting this blitzkrieg of false science. Yet sadly, Justice Kagan has been misinformed.

Temperatures clearly are rising, but a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reconstruction of global temperatures over the past one million years, using data from ice cores, shows both warming and cooling periods. One of those cooling periods, known as the Little Ice Age ended around 1850. In order to identify human-caused effects, we must then separate natural warming from anthropogenic effects. The latest research in the peer-reviewed literature suggests that human-caused warming is responsible for about half of the 1.1 degree centigrade approximate temperature increase since 1880.

There is little trend in the number of “hot” days for the period 1895–2017; 11 of the 12 years with the highest number of such days occurred before 1960. The U.S. Climate Reference Network shows no trend during the 2005–20 reporting period.

Global mean sea level has been increasing at about 3.3 mm per year since satellite measurements began in 1992. Over the course of a century, that works out to about 13 inches, hardly a crisis, and even if it continues, adaptation would be straightforward. Moreover, because recent temperature increases have resulted from both natural and anthropogenic causes, it is difficult to separate out the human-caused component of the sea level increase. Arctic sea ice has been declining, while the Antarctic sea ice has been stable or growing.

U.S. tornado activity shows either no trend or a downward trend since 1954. Tropical storms, hurricanes, and accumulated cyclone energy show little trend since satellite measurements began in the early 1970s. The number of U.S. wildfires shows no trend since 1985, and global acreage burned has declined over past decades. The Palmer Drought Severity index shows no trend since 1895. U.S. flooding over the past century is uncorrelated with increasing GHG concentrations.

The available data do not support assertions that declining pH levels in the oceans are dangerous. Global food availability and production have increased over the past two decades on a per capita basis, in substantial part because of increasing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide.

In sum, science shows that the earth’s warming over the last century is not dangerous in itself or catastrophic in its pace. Endangering the lives of people to address this modest change is the definition of irresponsible public policy, for which much of the media bear almost as much responsibility as the current administration.

Peter J. Wallison is a senior fellow emeritus at the American Enterprise Institute where Benjamin Zycher is a senior fellow.