Ida, the Catastrophist’s Latest Stopped-Clock ‘Prediction’

We asked climate and weather experts what the hell is happening in N.J. Here’s what they said.

This was the headline of a New Jersey Star-Ledger article following the walloping of NJ (and other Northeastern states) delivered by a tropical rainstorm formed of the remnants of Hurricane Ida.

But if your looking for an actual explanation for Ida’s extreme severity in the Northeast, you won't get it in this article by NJ.com’s Payton Guion. Payton delivers just more climate change (i.e., political) propaganda, catastrophe predictions, and references to falsehoods like “We have a society we’ve built around a really stable climate, and we’re entering a period where the climate is changing really rapidly.” But no real explanation.

When has the climate ever been "stable?" When has it ever been unchanging, or not full of danger for man? 

Never.

When, in response to a mayor's assertion that “No one could predict" this storm, Guion noted, "In fact, it was predicted," I got ready for some interesting reading. But, no. All we got was a rehash of catastrophe predictions. 

Short-term forecasts this week called for several inches of rain from Ida and heavy flooding in the Passaic and Raritan river basins. And scientists have been warning for years that a warming planet will produce more devastating storms.

Well, climate catastrophe has been predicted for decades. So, the catastrophists have set themselves up a nice little rationalization game: Predict “more devastating storms.” Then, when the inevitable next devastating storm hits, trot out your global warming (or climate change) prediction as proof that you predicted it. Well, I can predict that a stopped clock will be right twice a day. Every storm becomes proof of the rightness of their predictions. But weather extremes have always happened and always will. The "In fact, it was predicted" strikes me more like a stopped-clock prediction -- just another in a long line of them. 

In fact, the article provides no meteorological explanation for IDA's unusual intensity. But others did. While Ida was still in Mississippi, Accuweather’s Bernie Rayno warned of a secondary storm or “piece of energy” that would drop down from the North and merge with Ida’s remnants, strengthening it. And a Weather Channel reporter noted the non-tropical storm front that settled across the area just as Ida was approaching, contributing to the storm’s strength. Both spoke of a third factor—the U-shaped jet stream dip that established itself. All of these factors combined to strengthen the storm further, enhancing and concentrating much more energy over the area, causing more intense rainfall than otherwise would have been the case. Said Accuweather three days before Ida really ramped up:

"There is going to be some interaction with Ida and an approaching dip in the jet stream in the northeastern United States," AccuWeather Chief On-Air Meteorologist Bernie Rayno said, adding that this could cause the air pressure at the center of Ida to drop. The intensification could lead to even heavier rainfall across parts of the area.

Yes,  "In fact, it was predicted" -- really predicted. And for reasons that are not just the stale old stopped-clock climate change mantras.

To make matters worse, the jet stream set-up created the atmospheric conditions that greatly enhanced the odds for the formation of tornadoes, which became reality. All of these factors—a secondary storm, a stationary storm front, a dip (or trough) in the jet stream, are not uncommon events in the Northeast. All went into predicting and explaining -- genuinely predicting and explaining -- Ida’s Northeast rampage. None of this was mentioned in Guion’s article. 

Could human-caused climate warming have contributed to the intensity? Of course. As Guion reported:

“Basic physics says that when air warms up, it can hold more water,” Marvel said. “The Earth right now is about 1.2 degrees Celsius warmer than before the Industrial Revolution. As a result, we’ve seen an increase in very heavy rainfalls, especially in the Midwest and on the East Coast.

“Rising temperatures means air holds more water, so more gets dumped on us.” 

Maybe a bit less rain would have fallen. But would a quarter or half inch lower totals have mattered that much? Extreme weather is extreme weather, climate change or not. But the fact is, the confluence of atmospheric phenomena that caused Ida’s exceptional strength has nothing to do with climate. It has everything to do with weather.

“Human-caused global warming from burning of fossil fuels also likely made Ida's far-reaching impacts a bit worse, experts said,” according to News 4 NY’s much more accurately reported. Yes, a bit worse -- maybe. But bad luck also played a part, as 4 reported:

“Some of this is just bad luck too. If Ida had tracked just 100 miles farther east, that heaviest swath of rainfall would have been over the ocean and no one would care,” said University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy.

News 4 NY also observed:

“This [atmospheric setup] is not rare," Emanuel added. “For example, it happened with Hurricane Camille of 1969, which took a similar path.” Camille killed more than 100 people in Virginia from flooding after making landfall as a Category 5 hurricane in Mississippi.

“Not rare.” Are you listening, Payton Guion of NJ Advance Media for NJ.com? When you say you’re going to explain a weather event, explain it. Your article is very misleading. It’s no help to people seeking useful explanations to trot out vague generalized predictions as to the why or how. Next time, maybe you can actually report something useful and interesting, rather than the same old climate mantras of the politically motivated.

There is no way to connect this weather event to climate. Climate is not weather. Nor does climate cause weather, any more than my bowling average causes my game score. Yet NJ Governor Phil Murphy wasted no time in coldly and brazenly exploiting this tragedy for his political agenda. As NJ Spotlight News reported by e-mail newsletter on 9/2/21:

Murphy and other officials tied the storm and its severity to climate change, saying it presented definitive proof that more must be done to wean the nation from carbon-based fuels.

Shame on Murphy. What storms like Ida tell us is that they will happen, and that the best way to react is to build protection, not strip us of the reliable energy we’ll need to build that protection and live our lives. Simply weaning the nation from carbon-based fuels won’t cut it.

Murphy failed to call a State of Emergency until the storm was well under way and people were already drowning in their cars. Disingenuous voices from Murphy on down are shamefully politicizing, blaming man-made climate change. Don't believe the bullshit. According to Seth Borenstein of AP, How Ida Can Be So Deadly 1000 Miles From Landfall, Global warming may have made it "a bit worse." But the atmospheric conditions that caused Ida's intensity over NJ "is not rare," has happened before, and was well predicted by meteorologists days in advance.

Related Reading:

EXPLAINER: How Ida Can Be So Deadly 1000 Miles From Landfall by Seth Borenstein for AP

A Humanist Approach To Environmental Issues—Alex Epstein @ Forbes

Fossil Fuels and Climate Change: Remember Life Before Them

The Suicidal Demonization of Fossil Fuels

The End of Doom: Environmental Renewal in the 21st Century—Ronald Bailey

QUORA: ‘What is, in your opinion, the best solution to climate change without destroying the economy?’

Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All by Michael Shellenberger  

Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters by Steven E. Koonin 

Fake Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom by Patrick Moore

Still Peddling the “97%” Myth

Shortly after Trump took office, an op-ed appeared in the NJ Star-Ledger offering Advice for Trump from N.J.'s former EPA chief: Phone a scientist. The op-ed equated Trump’s intention to roll back Obama’s so-called “Clean Power Plan”—which is really a war on reliable energy more drastic than Germany's failed energy poverty scheme—with the rollback of “environmental policies that keep our air and water safe.”

Obamacare isn't the only major health reform on the chopping block under President Donald Trump. So are the environmental policies that keep our air and water safe.

The Clean Power Plan to limit the smog and soot flowing into New Jersey from other states, the Paris climate pact to help contain global warming, the hard-fought settlement with polluting companies to clean up the Passaic River -- all could become casualties of Trump.

The equation of policies to reduce harmless greenhouse gas emissions like carbon dioxide in order to “contain global warming” with actual pollution that is harmful to human life is a common trick of environmentalists.

But the goal of Obama’s Clean Power Plan is to drastically roll back co2 emissions by restricting and ultimately outlawing fossil fuels, not contain pollution. The purpose of embedding global warming into a paragraph about pollution is to sneak in the real motive of the anti-reliable energy crowd by equating them. They do not equate.

Environmentalists claim to have science on their side. But if so, why the deceitfulness? Perhaps because the science doesn’t support them. So, they deceitfully distort the science, as well. In a section asking former Obama Northeast EPA administrator Judith Enck if she has “Any advice for the Trump administration?,” she answered

I think the best thing is for them to get briefed by scientists. If they objectively listen to the science, they will understand how serious a threat climate change is.

I often cite a peer-reviewed scientific paper in which the author surveyed about 13,000 scientists, and asked them, “Do you believe that climate change is real and is primarily caused by human activities, such as burning fossil fuels and burning forests?”

Ninety-seven percent of the scientists said yes. What we need the Trump administration to do is listen to the science. The leadership, including the president himself, should randomly call up any credible scientist and have a conversation about climate change.

My emphasis. I left these comments:

Notice the bait and switch under the question “Any advice for the Trump administration?” [Former EPA Regional Administrator Judith] Enck first asserts that “science” will tell you “how serious a threat climate change is” if we will only “listen” to them.

But the actual question that 97% of scientists supposedly agree on says nothing about any threat, serious or not, posed by climate change. The question she cites asks, ““Do you believe that climate change is real and is primarily caused by human activities, such as burning fossil fuels and burning forests?” The “97%” merely agrees that climate change is real and that human activity is a factor.

Climate change is real and humans are partly responsible? Even if "primarily" responsible—i.e., more than 50% responsible—so what? It doesn't say they agree there is a threat of catastrophe. It doesn’t say they agree that fossil fuels and other life-giving activities should be curtailed or eliminated. The question implies no moral evaluation at all. So why do environmentalists and their political allies keep regurgitating the 97% statistic? Because they want to establish the "big lie" that climate change in and of itself is bad if caused by human activity. They are anti-human race.

Environmentalists believe that human-caused environmental change—not negative change, but change as such—is bad and thus human impact must be curtailed at all costs. But non-impact is an anti-human flourishing standard, and we should reject it. Humans survive and thrive by changing the Earth from a danger-filled environment to a place hospitable to human life and flourishing. Life is better with climate change and fossil fuels than without either. Humans don’t need a stable climate. We need plentiful reliable energy and the freedom to produce it, in order to drive all of the industries that improve our lives. Climate change is not the threat. The Environmentalists’ war on energy and industrial development is the real threat.

I’m surprised that anyone still peddles the “97% of scientists agree” myth. That statistic has been debunked as meaningless ad nauseam. The truth is that, on proper analysis, only about 2-4% actually agree that catastrophic climate change is imminent and humans are the primary cause. Catastrophic climate change is pure speculation. What is scientifically demonstrated is that climate change is mild and is partly natural and partly human-caused, and has not led to more dangerous weather extremes despite decades of increasingly hysterical and failed predictions of disaster.

But even if global warming causes weather extremes to become a little more extreme, so what? The fundamental issue is not whether or not we should clean up actual pollution whose harm to humans is greater than the benefits. The fundamental issue is human non-impact on nature versus human well-being. The truth is life keeps getting better and safer for more and more people as fossil fuel energy usage increases. Someday, viable replacements for fossil fuels will become technologically and economically feasible, provided the energy free market that enables energy entrepreneurs to flourish is not totally crushed. That would not make environmentalists happy, but it would be great for humanity. In any event, rolling back reliable, industrial-scale energy production would cause a real catastrophe—for human life.

Trump should pay attention to the big picture, rather than be swayed by scientists who simply claim that “climate change is real and is primarily caused by human activities” and blindly accept that that is a bad thing.

Related Reading:

Unreliable Energy, Not ‘Dirty’ Energy, Threatens New Jersey

World’s CEOs are Right to Demote Climate Concerns, Worry About “Over-Regulation”

Obama's War on Energy Producers and Consumers by Ari Armstrong

King Obama's Carbon Emission Mandate

The 2017-18 Cold Snap vs. Global Warming

The 2017-18 cold wave invading the Eastern United States is, historically, among the longest and bitterest. That was the subject of a Washington Post report front-paged in the New Jersey Star-Ledger on December 30, 2017 under the title The last time it was so frigid for a ball drop in NYC was 1962. (The story appeared elsewhere under various titles.)

Jason Samenow, the reporter, talks of all of the record low daily temperatures, including low daily maximums. It’s a report on weather, and the atmospheric conditions, such as the positioning of the jet stream, that make these intense, long cold waves happen. Typically, winters in the Northern United States are marked by occasional cold waves that last a few days, then retreat, followed by a return to average or above average temperatures. But occasionally, these cold waves line up in such a way that one after another plunges South from the arctic, often piercing all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico and Florida. These conditions happen from time to time, and can last weeks. They’re nothing new. The winters of 2013-14 and 2014-15 gave us this pattern.

Yet, right smack in the middle of the article, Samenow finds it necessary to say this:

Although it may be tempting to question global warming when temperatures are so frigid, the abnormally cold weather over the eastern U.S. and parts of Canada is an anomaly compared to conditions over the rest of the world. Most locations are presently experiencing weather that is considerably warmer than normal. 

It is also worth remembering the following: The three warmest years on record globally, since records began in the late 1800s, are 2014, 2015 and 2016. 

2017 is expected to rank among the top five warmest years on record. 

So far this year, warm weather records have outpaced cold by a factor of 3 in the United States.

Now, this may all be true. But why change the subject? Is the press so obsessed with the Left’s climate change agenda that they have to sneak it in even as 200 million Americans shiver in record cold?

It’s irrelevant and misleading. The facts cited are a statistical illusion, even if true. It sounds dramatic, right? The warmest years globally, measured as the average temperature, are all recent. More record highs than record lows. More areas globally experiencing above average temperatures. It sounds downright startling—or is at least intended to.

But think about it. The Earth, globally, has warmed by about one-two degrees Fahrenheit since about 1880. It stands to reason that the warmest years, on average, would have occurred toward the end of the 1880-2017 period. It stands to reason also that we’d get more record highs than record lows.

But keep in mind that the temperature differences are matters of fractions of a degree. For example, the average temperature for the 1880-89 decade is 1.42 degree F. cooler than the 2000-09 decade. Not that much. If you transported an 1880 resident to 2017, he wouldn’t notice a difference in the weather. (He would, however, notice how much longer, healthier, cleaner, and more prosperous the average person’s life had become. But that’s another issue.) Just the mere fact that record lows and record cold waves still occur is proof that the Al Gore-like hysteria over some speculated global warming catastrophe is so overstated as to be laughable—if not for the human catastrophe that awaits us if the Environmentalist Left’s anti-energy “solution” to climate change is actually implemented. Note that New Year's Eve 2017 is being hearkened back to 1962. That late December 1962 cold wave heralded the arrival of the 1962-63 winter, which Life Magazine front-paged in it's 2/8/63 issue as “The Most Savage Winter of the Century” up to that time—it, too, being the result of the same jet stream pattern.

Now, weather interests me. It always has. The climate change issue also interests me. But why do I have to have politics rubbed in my face when the issue is a weather phenomenon that happens from time to time, and has always happened from time to time? (Yes, the once mundane issue of climate change is mostly a political issue these days.) Cold is cold, even if the projected 5º low for New York City would have hypothetically been 3º in 1880 (not accounting for the “heat island” effect).

This is why people say that the media is biased toward the Left-statist agenda.

Perhaps I’m being a little hard on Samenow. Perhaps he (or his Washington Post editors) felt compelled to counter President Donald Trump’s seeming ridiculing of climate change. He joked about needing some “good old Global Warming” to deal with the cold wave (If it even was an innocent joke. With Trump, you never know. He so often shoots from the hip regardless of facts, it’s hard to tell. See Trump mocks ‘good old Global Warming’ as cold spell hits US.)

Anyway, here in Readington, New Jersey, I’m dealing with the cold. As of this writing, the cold wave is expected to last at least through this upcoming weekend, with the coldest blast yet to arrive by Friday, with highs Friday and Saturday forecast at 13º and 10º and lows of -1º and -2º. That would make it a solid two weeks since it set in—an unusually long period without a break. I’m hoping for a good old-fashioned East Coast blizzard. Why let a good cold wave go to waste? But nothing yet. I expect always to be dealing with cold waves, regardless of mild and gradual fluctuations in climate. And I hope that industrial progress and the freedom it is built on is allowed to continue apace so people 137 years from now can live as improved a life then as I do now compared to that guy from 1880—even if the cold wave of 2154-55 results in an NYC low of a balmy 7º instead of 5º.

Related Reading:

Sierra Club's Jeff Tittel Smears Star-Ledger Article and its Contributors for Excluding Climate Religion from Hurricane Analysis

Who is the Real ‘Science Denier’?

Another New Jersey Star-Ledger editorial (This man hopes you'd vote for a candidate who believes climate change is fake), plus an article by Andrew Bernstein published in Capitalism Magazine (The Truth About Climate Change) got me thinking in a new direction.

In a section of his excellent article, Bernstein addresses “The Necessity to Affirm, Not Deny Climate Change.” Bernstein documents the dynamic history of Earth’s climate, including several episodes of catastrophic climate change, and contrasts this history with the current warming period, which is mild and much less disruptive than past episodes. After documenting Earth’s climate history, Bernstein writes:

It is precisely this context, an appropriate timescale, that many (if not all) AGW [anthropogenic, or man-made, global warming) theorists ignore. A stockbroker, who tried to convince investors to buy a stock based on its performance in the last sixty seconds, while blanking out decades of data, would be ignoring vastly less relevant information than do the majority of today’s supporters of man-made global warming.

The accusation of “climate change denier” is, consequently, egregiously inaccurate when hurled at persons who examine this context and recognize the reality of natural, cyclical, and likely incessant climate change.

The accusation is accurate, however, when leveled against some leading supporters of the AGW hypothesis. Dr. Michael Mann, for example,  a respected climate scientist and lead author for the IPCC, developed the infamous “hockey stick” graph, purporting to show that, for roughly 1,000 years prior to the 20th century, Northern Hemisphere temperatures had been relatively stable, perhaps even declining slightly, then sharply rising after 1900 (hence the hockey stick shape of the graph). In effect, Mann’s methodology “air-brushed” out of existence the Medieval Warm Period; if accurate, Mann’s findings would show a strong and unique correlation between human emissions of carbon dioxide and rising temperatures. However, Mann’s methodology was seriously flawed and exposed as such by Dr. Edward Wegman, a leading statistician. The hockey stick graph, a featured aspect of the IPCC’s 2001 report, was subsequently dropped by the IPCC. The Medieval Warm Period had to be acknowledged as real.[37]

But Mann, some of his IPCC colleagues, and the environmentalist movement more broadly continue to support the hockey stick hypothesis.

According to Mann and his supporters, Northern Hemisphere temperatures were relatively flat for roughly 1,000 years, and the natural climate cycles from the Dark Age Cold Period to the Medieval Warm Period to the Little Ice Age were non-existent (or, at most, greatly over-exaggerated).

Who, then, is actually guilty of denying climate change?[38] [my emphasis]

Keeping Bernstein’s perspective in mind, the Star-Ledger Editorial Board opens its editorial hit piece on a NJ Republican politician:

Hurricane Harvey is another wake-up call, a reminder that we can no longer ignore man's contribution to the warming of the planet and how it increases our vulnerability to devastating weather events. To deny that only that invites more catastrophes like the one that has ravaged our nation's fourth largest city.

It is also a reminder that we need leaders who tell the truth, not people whose careers were advanced on fossil fuel money and climate denialism - yet right on cue, here comes Steve Lonegan, pursuing another office that should make New Jersey's collective gut seize.

The former Bogota mayor is running for the 5th District congressional seat currently held by Rep. Josh Gottheimer. Lonegan has the intellect, geniality and name recognition he'll need to compete, not to mention the money: For six years, he was the New Jersey director for Americans for Prosperity, which means his depraved indifference toward climate change echoes that of fossil fuel barons Charles and David Koch, who have given $100 million to 84 groups that deny climate science since 1997.

And in the wake of Harvey, it needs to be asked:

Would New Jerseyans vote for a candidate who believes that "the science stating that humans are responsible for climate change is highly questionable - there's also a massive amount of science that refutes that," and that this will all be followed by a cooling trend?

I left these comments:

The Star-Ledger states that Lonegan is in with “84 groups that deny climate science.” There's that simple-minded smear again; “science denier”. But in the very next paragraph, the S-L quotes Lonegan as stating that “there’s also a massive amount of science that refutes” anthropogenic climate change. What are these 84 groups saying? What science is Lonegan citing? A lot of important work regarding climate change history by a lot of knowledgable people has been done by people outside the alleged “consensus.” This well-documented work considers natural causes like the overlapping long-term, medium-term, and short-term climate trends, and multiple interlocking causes. The weight of the evidence indicates mild and manageable climate change. Much of this work tackles head-on the case for climate catastrophe. Do the climate catastrophists meet the dissenters head-on? No. The Star-Ledger brushes this science off. Who is the real science denier? Who is the real climate denier?

The Star-Ledger accuses Lonegan of “depraved indifference toward climate change.” But the “practical” solutions proposed to “combat climate change” could have devastating consequences for human well-being in the U.S. and globally. Reliable energy drives industrial and agricultural progress, and effects the cost of everything. Drastically raising the cost of energy, not to mention making energy unreliable through “renewables,” would drastically lower our standard of living, especially for the lower income folks. Given the vital importance of reliable energy to human well-being and survival, the vital importance of economic freedom, and the depraved indifference to human well-being of climate catastrophists’, shouldn’t we at least give a hearing to the other side of the climate debate?

In truth, there’s a lot more to climate change than is simplistically indicated here, or that can be addressed in a comment. There are pros and cons over federal flood insurance, sea level rise, storm intensity, the effects of climate change, economics, energy science, the actual greenhouse effect of co2, and political science, to name a few. But let me say this: It does not follow that, because humans may be contributing to climate change, drastic life-altering political (i.e., coercive) steps, like outlawing fossil fuels, must be immediately implemented to curb it. In truth, the climate catastrophists like the Star-Ledger are objectivity deniers. Their views and conclusions are biased and one-sided in favor of the Left’s agenda to increase government control of private life and industry in the name of fighting climate change. But the alternative view calls for adaptation to climate change coupled with continued freedom and human progress, a much less disruptive “solution” and fundamentally better for human flourishing.

I think Lonegan deserves to be respected and taken seriously, not smeared and dismissed out-of-hand by fear-mongering statists. He has something important to contribute to the debate. In any event, I wish he were running in my district. He’d have my vote.

-----------------------------------------------------

Maybe the Star-Ledger is an energy denier, freedom denier, and industrial progress denier.

What about the federal flood insurance program? The S-L states that “there is little evidence that the private market has the capacity to underwrite the growing risk[.]” That’s the point! No private insurer would be stupid enough to provide broad flood insurance coverage for areas that are certain to flood. Federal underwriting with tax dollars overrode the private market, leading to decades of massive development that wouldn’t have taken place, massively inflating damage from readily predictable storms like Sandy and Harvey. Maybe we should label the Star-Ledger and “basic economics denier”.

The Star-Ledger labels Harvey “another wake-up call.” To what? To the fact that devastating storms have always occurred? To climate change, which has always occurred on our meteorologically dynamic planet? It’s pretty certain that humans are contributing also. Climate catastrophists argue that consequences for humans of not eliminating those contributions will be devastating. But what are the costs to human well-being of eliminating the human contributions, such as by outlawing fossil fuels? Where’s the cost-benefit analysis of the “practical solutions” advocated by the political Left. Should we trade human well-being for marginally less severe Harveys and Sandys (both of which had more to do with unusual weather patterns than slightly warmer oceans)? Maybe we should label the Star-Ledger a “consequence denier”.

The Star-Ledger cites a prediction by the Union of Concerned Scientists, “which states that sea level rise over the next two decades will bring ‘chronic disruptive inundation to Seaside Park and 14 more towns along the Jersey Shore that today rarely feel the effects of tidal flooding’." Well, what about the long line of failed environmentalist catastrophe predictions going back decades? Shouldn’t the UCS prediction be at least taken with a grain of salt, given the uniformly exaggerated historical record of such predictions. And what about the fact that sea level rise has been going on all throughout the current interglacial period of about 15,000 or so years, to the tune of about 400 feet? Why panic over the two inches hypothesized to have been caused by AGW? Maybe the Star-Ledger should be labeled a “history denier”.

Denier, denier, denier. I’ve been ridiculing that childish, false smear for years. Maybe, though, there’s some validity to the charge—but the opposite of how the climate catastrophists mean it.

How Earth Day Anti-Industrialists Hijack ‘Science’ to Deny Humans the Benefits of Science

Earth Day, established in 1970, is the leading symbol of the movement that began with the 1960s New Left “back-to-nature” ecology movement. Under its more sophisticated ideological Environmentalism incarnation, Earth Day works from the premise that holds “pristine”—i.e., humanly unaltered—nature as its standard of value and moral ideal.

Though spearheaded by anti-industrialism, Earth Day also drew in many people concerned about some very real problems with pollution. Since 1970, anti-pollution efforts have made our industrial society cleaner even as industrial progress continued apace—so much cleaner, in fact, that by 2000 environmentalist ideologues didn’t have much to complain about in the way of pollution control. Instead of industrial stagnation and decline—“back to nature”—we got cleaner industrial progress and growth. Air and water pollution declined steadily even as industrialism progressed. This was not the result the Earth Day fundamentalists wanted. So in order to keep its anti-industrial campaign alive, the focus was switched to global warming—the alleged environmental disaster of disasters—and a consequent war on fossil fuels.

Think of what this means in the context of Earth Day’s new March for Science project.

Scientific knowledge is the starting point for the productive process that ends in nature-altering, human life-enhancing material products made from Earth’s raw materials. Everything from transportation, agriculture, building materials, medical industry, indoor plumbing, central heating and air conditioning to electrification, high tech communications, space travel, movies, the printing press, and the energy that drives it all—the list is endless—is the result of science leading to invention leading to investment leading to the entrepreneurial business corporation that transforms it all into useful, mass market products for the betterment of the “common” people.

This role of science as man’s benefactor clashes diametrically with the fundamental meaning of Earth Day. Don’t forget, this is the movement that tells us that carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas without which life as we know it couldn’t exist on Earth, is a pollutant, because it is a factor in climate change (which, they claim, is bad only to the extent human activity is a factor). The declaration of CO2 as a pollutant is a direct attack on human life, because humans are by nature “CO2 machines.” As Princeton physics professor William Happer observed, "If you want to get rid of CO2, you want to get rid of people.”

Foremost in the environmentalists’ crosshairs is reliable, affordable, progressive, industrial scale energy—hydro, nuclear, and especially fossil fuels, all of which are derived from the science-led productive process cited above. Why focus their hostility on fossil fuels? Because energy is the industry that makes all of the rest possible—the industry of industry—and fossil fuels at this time are the most used and most practical of the three reliables. In particular, the environmentalists target fracking, an amazing leading edge technology derived from scientific knowledge that has unlocked vast new heretofore unreachable shale oil and gas energy sources; and coal, the most plentiful fossil fuel, for abolition. All of these energy technologies are vital to human progress. All are targeted for outlawing. (Never mind solar and wind. These so-called “renewables” are scientifically proven to be incapable of powering industrial civilization, which is precisely why environmentalists champion them. You can bet that if science ever discovers the knowledge needed to make solar and wind superior economically and technologically and in reliability to fossil fuels, the environmentalists would turn against them, too.)

It follows from the logic of their premises that environmentalists oppose capitalism, the only social system that delivers the human freedom necessary to transform science into practicality. What is the leading economic achievement of capitalism? The institution that forms the last vital link in the productive chain that starts with science and ends with general material abundance and prosperity—business. The businessman organizes all of the factors of product toward a productive goal that betters people lives. Steve Jobs got to the heart of the virtue of the business corporation:

The only purpose, for me, in building a company is so that that company can make products. One is a means to the other. Over a period of time you realize that building a very strong company and a very strong foundation of talent and culture in a company is essential to keep making great products.

The company is one of the most amazing inventions of humans, this abstract construct that’s incredibly powerful. Even so, for me, it’s about the products. It’s about working together with really fun, smart. Creative people and making wonderful things. It’s not about the money. What a company is, then, is a group of people who can make more than just the next big thing. It’s a talent, it’s a capability, it’s a culture, it’s a point of view, and it’s a way of working together to make the next thing, and the next thing, and the next one. [P. 232]

Notice how much the Environmentalists hate business, railing against it as “greedy corporate polluters” and such. They promote business-hobbling statism at every turn, through a growing labyrinth of stifling environmental and other regulations in its path. Is it any wonder? The business corporation is the indispensable link between the knowledge of the scientist and the fulfillment of human needs and desires—i.e., industrial progress. Why would Environmentalists want to hobble or break business? For the same reason Steve Jobs loves it.

It seems outrageously hypocritical. You can’t love science and hate business. Otherwise, what’s the purpose of science? What is the role of science? It is to discover new knowledge of the natural world we live in. To what purpose? To give humans the tools of technological industrial development. Why? To reshape the danger-filled, hostile environment nature gives us into a safe, clean environment for humans to live and flourish in. It is this very human reshaping—the reshaping that science makes possible—that environmentalists want to “protect” nature from.

Yet environmentalism extolls science and hates business and capitalism. This only seems like a paradox. Environmentalists don’t really love science. The environmentalism that is manifested as Earth Day seeks to use science to deny humans the practical benefits of science—on principle.

Don’t fall for the new “science” aspect of Earth Day. Science is too important to human progress. Man cannot live and flourish without impacting nature in a big way. This is not to say all human impact is good. The value of science is as a means to maximize human flourishing on Earth—good impact—while minimizing the negative side effects—the bad impacts. The role of ideological Environmentalism is to minimize human impact on his Earth, whatever the cost to human well-being, for the sake of their moral ideal—not human flourishing, but non-impact as an end in itself. The two premises are diametrically opposed.

So why bring science into Earth Day?

Science—the physical sciences—will give you the knowledge. It will not tell you what to do with it or about it. That’s up to human judgement. For that, you need a moral standard of value. Only the science of ethics can give you that. That’s the science that environmentalists ignore. Hence, what is good or bad for humans does not enter their evaluations. They tell you climate is changing because of human activity. That, by their standard of value, is by that very fact bad. If you disagree with their nihilistic anti-humanist solutions, based on an ethical evaluation that answers “good or bad for humans,” they smear you as anti-science or a climate denier.

Environmentalists seek to exploit science for the purpose of “proving” that man is ruining the planet—or, as Pope Francis asserts, is turning the Earth into “an immense pile of filth”—in order to stop the maximization of human impact and flourishing. If science demonstrates that human activity is altering the natural world in some way—whether it’s affecting climate or the polar bear population or a coral reef, or whatever—then that very fact warrants stopping the human activity, regardless of the impact on human flourishing. That’s what it means to intersect science with the anti-humanist premise of non-impact as the moral ideal. Others have used science in equally destructive ways. The Marxian communists declared for ‘scientific’ socialism as their goal, and built a totalitarian death machine. The Nazis exploited the ‘science’ of eugenics to construct their racist, murderous fascist state. The ideological Environmentalists exploit science to deny humans the benefits of science, and reduce man’s life to a living hell status of harmony with unaltered nature. Science, then, becomes not a guide to reasoned, evaluative action, but a final authority not to be questioned, as determined by those who claim to speak for science. Science, in effect, is turned into a secular version of God.

In the end, it may backfire on the Environmentalist movement. As long as respect for science is alive and well in the culture, entrepreneurial individuals will seek to apply the science to the practical concerns of human beings, including to mitigate legitimate negative side effects of industrial progress—as long as humans are individually free to do so. It all comes down to freedom and individual rights. Bringing science into Earth Day may signal the death knell for anti-humanist environmentalism, because the science of ethics tells us that science should benefit, not harm, humans. Let those of us who value freedom and progress promote the true role of science as human benefactor, not a tool of human impoverishment and slavery. Let us promote the freedom that applied science requires.

Related Reading:

Earth Day: The Anti-Industrial Revolution

The Church Of Climate Scientology: How Climate Science Became A Religion—Alex Epstein

Temporary, Natural Sea Level Rise and Global Warming Alarmism Don’t Mix

A two-year sea level rise along the North American coast stretching from the mid-Atlantic coast of the United States up to Newfoundland has been called an “extreme event.” As Tim Darragh, NJ Advance Media for NJ.com reports:

[A] new study published this week shows that sea levels along the east coast jumped up to four inches and stayed that way for two years in 2009-2010.

To ocean-watchers, the rise in sea levels, particularly from Newfoundland to New York, constituted an "extreme sea level rise event," according to Paul Goddard, a geosciences doctoral candidate at the University of Arizona and lead author of the paper published in the journal Nature Communications.

Statistical analysis suggests how extreme the sea level rise was: a 1-in-850 year event, the study said. It is "unprecedented during the past century," he said.

Darragh reports that . . .

The one bit of good news is that the forces driving the change are not permanent, said [coastal specialist Jon] Miller, who was not on the research team. “It goes up, but it does come down,” he said.

The causes behind this water level rise involve ocean circulation and the atmosphere, the study says. Specifically, the study said a circulation pattern known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation showed a marked decline in strength at that time.

While this was happening, a second phenomenon was occurring. A climate pattern called the North American Oscillation took shape such that winds would push water onto the northeast coast, the study said.

So the sea level rise is a natural, recurring—albeit rare—phenomena. But that didn’t stop the “experts” quoted in the article from dragging man-made global warming into the equation. As Darragh reports:

The findings in the report do nothing to diminish the impact global warming is having on coastal communities, Goddard said. If anything, the study says extreme sea level events may be linked to "human-induced climate change" and may worsen the impact of major storms.

Adding melting Artic (sic) and Antarctic ice will likely add to a future of higher sea levels along the North American coast, especially the northeast, the study said.

"For the 21st century, modeling results suggest that the increase in the greenhouse gas concentrations is likely to cause more extreme sea level rise events ... along this densely populated coast," it says. "Once coastal storms compound high sea levels, more damages will result."

Of course, it’s all supposition. Antarctic ice is growing, not shrinking. And melting Arctic sea ice woukd tend to lower sea levels, because liquid water takes up less space than frozen water. The rest has nothing to do with what’s actually happening. It’s all about what might happen, based on “modeling.” That’s why mushy words like “may,” “suggest,” and “likely” are used.

Catastrophic climate change predictions have been completely wrong for decades. But that doesn’t stop the climate ideologues from demanding a statist political agenda to deal with a threat of catastrophe for which it has no evidence.

The New Jersey Star-Ledger is guilty of employing this non sequitur. In Sea levels are rising. How much longer will Christie ignore it?, the Star-Ledger makes a sensible case for adjusting building standards to adapt to rising sea levels, specifically calling for elevating structures. But then:

New Jersey seems to have learned very little from [Superstorm] Sandy. Do we really want the Jersey Shore to end up like Miami? The city is literally drowning because it is run by Republicans who refuse to act on climate change. It is immersed in new construction and oblivious to scientific warnings.

Who does that sound like? [N.J. Governor Chris] Christie.

Consider this recent episode a harbinger -- and by the time we pay the price for our government's climate denial, Christie will be long gone.

“Act on climate change” means adopting the Left’s statist “solution” to climate change. “Climate denial” means objecting to the Left’s statism.

I left these comments:

It makes perfect sense, in principle if not in method suggested here, to adapt building standards to take into account sea level rise. But opposing the Left’s statist “solution” to climate change—such as a carbon tax, a cap-and-trade system, more subsidies (corporate welfare) for clean energy, government-forced conservation, and general hostility to fossil fuels—does not make one a “climate denier.” It makes one a common sense proponent of liberty and prosperity.

All around the world, people’s lives are getting easier and more prosperous, with better access to clean water, food, sanitation, increasing life expectancies, modern transportation and healthcare, a cleaner living environment, electrification, and dramatically lower susceptibility to extreme weather dangers—all 87% powered by fossil fuel energy. If the current modest level of climate change is the “price” of a better life for Earth’s billions of people—if it even is a price—then so be it.

Climate change, to the extent it is caused by human activity, is a global phenomenon and a side effect of rising world-wide energy-fueled industrial prosperity. To saddle New Jerseyans with higher energy prices and/or more energy regulations in a vain and delusional quest to “do something” about global climate change is absolutely senseless and immoral—especially since adapting to changing climate conditions requires large amounts of affordable, reliable energy to accomplish.

Acknowledge climate change? Yes. Acknowledge that industrial prosperity contributes to climate change? Yes. Adapt to climate change? Yes. Leave the energy market free and open, without government interference, to innovative “clean energy” technologies? Absolutely. More taxes, subsidies, regulations, and generally more government power over our lives? No way!

Related Reading:

Lima Climate Convention Disappoints FOE—and That’s Great News for Rich and Poor People Alike

Global Warming Brings 'Record' U.S. Crop Yields