[Updated January 2023]
A new United Nations paper reported that the year 2020 is shaping up to be “one of the three hottest on record for the globe,” the Washington Post reported on 12/3/20.
This prompted this amazing statement from the top U.N official:
To mark the report's release and to build momentum toward new climate action under the Paris accord, U.N. Secretary General António Guterres summarized the findings in unusually stark terms.
"To put it simply," he said in a speech at Columbia University, "the state of the planet is broken."
"Dear friends, humanity is waging war on nature. This is suicidal," Guterres said. "Nature always strikes back, and it is already doing so with growing
force and fury."
Mind you, the average global temperature stands at 1.2 degrees Celsius (about 2° Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, defined as the base period 1850-1900. According to Guterres, because of this gentile warming, the world is “already witnessing unprecedented climate extremes and volatility, in every region and on every continent." This, he says, of climate extremes that have always plagued mankind.
Guterres sounds like a frightened child awakening from a nightmare. He, and his ilk, need an adult to reassure them. So, let me play the role of that adult: Don’t be afraid, António. It’s only a nightmare. There is no boogeyman under the bed. There is no monster in the closet. And there is no climate crisis. The planet is not broken. Nature is not coming to get you.
The post continues:
Petteri Taalas, the secretary general of the WMO, said in a news release that there is at least a one-in-five chance of the global average temperature temporarily exceeding 2.4 Fahrenheit by 2024.
This would be significant because that is a guardrail established under the Paris agreement, and residents of many low-lying small island states regard it as the threshold beyond which they face an existential risk from sea-level rise.
So, because of a “guardrail” established by a bunch of politicians in Paris, and because some islanders “regard” 2.4° Fahrenheit as a “threshold,” we will have a catastrophe on our hands if we don’t stop the next 0.3° Celsius of temperature rise!
This is witch doctory. Many people are duped by this nonsense. But I don’t think Guterres believes it. I don’t think the Paris Climate political class believes it. I think they salivate over the power over our lives they would garner to implement the draconian tyrannical policies that would be needed to strangle the economy enough to stop this warming.
And for what? Some “nurturing mother” fantasy of Nature? The idea that nature was perfect and benevolent before man started industrializing? No, and I am indebted to Alex Epstein for identifying this tactic of the political climate catastrophists. Nature is and always was brutal. Humans have not been “waging war on nature.” Humans have been learning about nature so as to tame and master the ever-present climate dangers thrown at us by nature, even as he has mitigated the inevitable negative effects of industry. The result? Unprecedented progress across the human spectrum, continuing right up to 2020!
Don’t buy the climate witch doctors’ scare tactics. Climate problems are minor compared to the life-giving benefits of our reliable energy-driven, freedom-driven industrial progress. 0.3° Celsius will not destroy us. Fear-driven, crisis-mongering attacks on energy and capitalist freedom will. The article concludes:
Guterres said nations need to slash greenhouse gas emissions by at least 6% per year through 2030 to have a chance at holding warming to 1.5 degrees above preindustrial levels, but, instead, "we're headed in the opposite direction," with increasing global emissions each year. "Now we must use 2021 to address our planetary emergency," he said.
Those “increasing global emissions” coincide with human flourishing. “The opposite direction” is good. We need more of it. To do as Guterres demands—“slash greenhouse gas emissions by at least 6% per year through 2030”—to meet some arbitrary political goal of “holding warming to 1.5 degrees above preindustrial levels” would genuinely be suicidal . . . and genocidal, given the vital importance of reliable energy to human wellbeing and ability to protect ourselves from nature’s climate dangers. The “planetary emergency” that man has always lived with is now at its lowest point ever, in terms of human climate livability. That’s a good thing.
Related Reading:
Exhibit A here is the increasingly deranged rhetoric of United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, who recently claimed that “The number of weather, climate and water-related disasters has increased by a factor of five over the past 50 years.” Climate scientist Roger Pielke Jr. has meticulously debunked this claim in a new Substack post that reviews 2022 in context of global climate disaster trends.
Don't Believe the Hype: Global Disasters in 2022, a Preliminary Assessment by Roger Pielke Jr.
Ten Global Trends Every Smart Person Should Know: And Many Others You Will Find Interesting by Ronald Bailey and Marian L. Tupy
The Anti-human Tyrade of an Ungrateful 16-Year-old
New U.N. Study Shows Climate Catastrophists Getting More Open About their Totalitarian Designs
We Owe Our Children a More Technologically Advanced Society, Not 'Preserved' Nature
Think Globally, Shame Constantly: The Rise of Greta Thunberg Environmentalism--NICK GILLESPIE
It’s Time to Listen to the ‘Climate Denialists’
The Rightful Place of Science: Disasters & Climate Change, second edition--Roger Pielke Jr.
The 'Watermelon' Analogy is Real, and it is Dangerous
‘Climate Crisis’: The Dem’s Path to Totalitarian Socialism
The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels—Alex Epstein
The End of Doom: Environmental Renewal in the 21st Century—Ronald Bailey
Fossil Fuels and Climate Change: Remember Life Before Them
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