The federal government on Friday released a long-awaited
report with an unmistakable
message: The effects of climate change, including deadly wildfires,
increasingly debilitating hurricanes and heat waves, are already battering the
United States, and the danger of more such catastrophes is worsening.
The authors argue that global warming “is transforming where and
how we live and presents growing challenges to human health and quality of
life, the economy, and the natural systems that support us.” And they conclude
that humans must act aggressively to adapt to current impacts and mitigate
future catastrophes “to avoid substantial damages to the U.S. economy,
environment, and human health and well-being over the coming decades.”
“The impacts we’ve seen the last 15 years have continued to get
stronger, and that will only continue,” said Gary Yohe, a professor of
economics and environmental studies at Wesleyan University who served on a
National Academy of Sciences panel that reviewed the report.
Of course, these dangers have always existed.
What’s changed is that there is more development and thus more economic damage
by fires, heat waves, and hurricanes. Of course the impacts have gotten
stronger. And of course, humans have always had to adapt to the ongoing reality
of climate change. True, humans often contribute to climate change--but usually
in the process of improving the human condition, as has been the case over the
most recent Century or so.
The New Jersey Star-Ledger expressed surprise
that the Trump Administration released the report in unadulterated form, but
nonetheless lambasted Trump for relying on “climate change deniers” in his
policy decisions. In Now
Trump doesn't believe his own scientists on climate change, the Star-Ledger editorialized:
This is a report that the White House is required to put out every
four years, and the initial fear was that Trump officials would tamper with its
findings. Its data will certainly be an impediment in court, as they seek to
roll back environmental protections.
But apparently, the White House allowed it to be released as is,
because it believes that even in the face of dire warnings from Trump's own administration,
his fans will be undeterred.
A climate denier on Trump's transition team at the Environmental
Protection Agency, Steven J. Milloy, put it this way: "We
don't care."
He blamed this report on the "deep state," as if
thousands of scientists all over the globe, and in a consortium of 13 U.S.
federal agencies, are conspiring to hide the truth from the American public.
Yet we see the impact firsthand.
I left these comments:
Imagine you as a kid who loves weather and
climate. You are in school, but you get a one-sided view of anthropogenic
climate change as bad and the solution as banning of fossil fuels. You get to
college, and the one-sided view is intensified. But you keep your objectivity,
your “open mind.” Then you turn your attention to a career in climate science,
your first love. But you learn that funding for climate science research has
been hijacked by government, and that funding only goes to people who will
produce “research” that furthers the politicians’ climate catastrophist,
anti-fossil fuel, anti-nuclear, statist agenda. You find out that the climate
scientists with the best chance of getting funding for their work, or getting a
job in one of the government agencies, are the ones who swallowed the schools’
one sided view hook, line, and sinker.
Welcome to the politicized government climate
establishment.
It’s time for the climate catastrophist
establishment to be called out. There is a huge body of mostly private sector
work pointing to a completely different viewpoint that sees no impending
climate catastrophe; that there is no call for crippling forced government
curtailment of vital energy from fossil fuels, or of totalitarian, global
government-imposed "unprecedented transitions in all aspects of
society," as the
U.N. urged; or that humans can
flourish better by remaining free and adapting to climate change.
It’s time to stop denying the works of the
un-establishment, including energy expert Alex Epstein; Ron Bailey, expert on
science as it relates to human progress; and climate scientists like Patrick J. Michaels and Paul C. Knappenberger.
The real deniers are the
establishmentarians who ignore the opposing view. Kudos to Trump and his team
for ignoring the deniers.
----------------------------------------------------
In the end, it all comes down
to faith. Yes, faith. From the Washington Post article:
For many Americans, however, no simulations are necessary. The
effects of climate change are already playing out daily.
“We don’t debate who caused it. You go outside, the streets are
flooded. What are you going to do about it? It’s our reality nowadays,” said
Susanne Torriente, who also reviewed the report.
On the other side of the country from Washington, at least one
well-known atmospheric scientist this week was wrestling not with the contents
of a climate report but with the changing view from his window.
“Normally, I can see San Francisco Bay from my home,” said Ken
Caldeira, a senior researcher at the Carnegie Institution for Science. “Today
and for the past few days, I could not see the bay for all the smoke from the
Paradise fire. Fires that approach the size of the Paradise fire are most
common in the hot dry years — the kind of years that we are likely to see many
more of.”
“We are trained to be skeptical and resist jumping to quick
conclusions,” he said. “But looking at the smoke, I could not help but think:
‘This is climate change. This is what climate change looks like.’ ”
See a flooded roadway or smoke in the air or
(fill-in-the-blank) weather effect, and conclude climate change. Don’t think.
Don’t analyze. Don’t consider all facts and viewpoints. That’s the way the
establishment wants us to behave--blind belief in “the scientists” and blind
obedience to the Leftist political establishment’s “solutions.”
Related Reading:
Lukewarming: The New Climate Science that Changes Everything—Patrick J. Michaels and Paul C. Knappenberger
1 comment:
So, one who loved weather and climate as a kid takes it up as a career after college, and finds funding hijacked by the government. But there's a huge body of mostly private sector work manned by specified individuals among others. Epstein is getting private funding and is making his own money for more funding. Others might do the same thing. They might form alliances and not emphasize competition, toward common goals, in order to conserve and focus their resources. The kid who took up weather and climate as a career can join up with them to pursue his career and thumb his nose at the government. In time, he might form his own organization or think tank.
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