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The new National Climate Assessment claims that the worst scenario could cost the US 10% of our GDP in coming years.
The Leftist press is breathlessly reporting, while incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is promising to spend billions to save our nation.
But when you learn who helped fund the report, and get a sense of how the assessment actually squares with real science---the fog clears.
This will be in the news most of this week. Don't be fooled.
Let's take a closer look.
Be informed.
The National Climate Assessment claims that the worst scenario could cost the United States 10% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2100.
If that were to happen, the US would, for all intents and purposes, be significantly diminished as a nation.
The response to the "Assessment" has been shrill voices, including incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her Democratic Party, climate activists who have made millions if not billions of dollars off the "global warming/climate change crises," and scientists who are trying to repair their reputation, damaged by missed climate predictions of the past.
The dissent is a chorus of reasoned conservative fact-based scientific voices that range from crass to more refined---all noting why the report is more fake than fact.
The Crass
James Delingpole, a recognized scientific analyst voice, says, "Who wants to rummage through Michael 'Hockey Stick' Mann's dirty laundry."
In his article, Delingpole is addressing the efforts of the discredited "climate scientist" Michael Mann, who recently, in an effort to restore his reputation of predicting events that don't happen, released a number of emails from the past.
Mann, who is behind much of the "research" related to "climate change," says by releasing his emails he hopes to "show how scientists are making an honest and diligent effort to understand the science underlying Earth's climate system, and showing how scientists are engaged in good faith give and take..."
Delingpole says it's none of those things. Energy and Environment Legal Institute has been trying for years to get the University of Virginia to release Mann's old emails because EE believes that the emails may shed more light on the nefarious activities of the activist scientists at the heart of "Climate Industrial Complex."
Rather than science, Delingpole calls much of the "evidence" for causes of warming, "crap."
One email shows a colleague of Mann's starting to panic that maybe "the evidence for man-made global warming theory is already shakier than they'd like."
This article identifies, in raw form, some of the concerns being discussed by the scientific community who are pushing the warming agenda.
More reasoned, less crass concerns.
Cal Thomas, the most widely syndicated columnist in the country, an evangelical---not a scientist, wrote last week,
"Each time an end of the world prophecy is delivered---whether by a self-deluded preacher, a group of politicians or scientists---we are told that we must believe. Never mind how many of the prophecies have been wrong in the past, this time they mean it."
He says,
"The latest prophecy of doom and gloom and planetary extinction comes from a government report authored by people appointed during the Obama administration. This report [National Climate Assessment] and others before it, concluded that Earth is warming, humans are responsible, and that we have only 10 years to fix it."
He notes that Paul Krugman, "the notoriously wrong columnist for the New York Times (who predicted a global recession with no end in sight if Donald Trump became president) has gone beyond science, labeling those who disagree with global warmists, 'depraved'."
Thomas says, "The media and much of political Washington, including even a few Republicans, have accepted the flawed doctrine as truth. They claim climate change is 'settled science'."
He quotes Climatologist Pat Michaels, who is calling the government report "systematically flawed" and quotes John P. Dunne, head of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton University, saying the report "should be shelved."
He wrote in Climate Depot, "Two years into the Trump administration, it is sad to see this 400-page pile of crap."
In fact, Thomas highly recommends "Climate Depot" as a reliable, accurate source on scientific research information. I agree and also recommend it.
Climate Depot founder Marc Morano says of the government report, "It's a political report masquerading as science."---And, "The National Climate Assessment report reads like a press release from environmental pressure groups---because it is."
The sole editor of the most important and critical data in the report was an alum of the Center for American Progress, which is funded by Tom Steyer---the far Left, climate activist billionaire.
Cal says,
"If these scare tactics by leftists who want even more government control over our lives were to be accepted as fact, our economy would crumble and the outcome would produce little if any change in global temperatures."
Heritage Foundation weighs in on the Assessment.
Nicolas Loris is an economist who focuses on energy, environmental, and regulatory issues.
Writing for the Heritage Foundation, he gives 4 reasons why the Assessment is "Fake."
I encourage you to read the entire article. This is an overview:
1. It wildly exaggerates economic costs.
One statistic that media outlets have seized upon is that the worst climate scenario could cost the US 10 percent of its gross domestic product by 2100. The 10 percent loss projection is more than twice the percentage that was lost during the Great Recession.
The study, funded in part by climate warrior Tom Steyer’s organization, calculates these costs on the assumption that the world will be 15 degrees Fahrenheit warmer. That temperature projection is even higher than the worst-case scenario predicted by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In other words, it is completely unrealistic.
2. It assumes the most extreme (and least likely) climate scenario.
The scary projections in the National Climate Assessment rely on a theoretical climate trajectory that is known as Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5. In estimating impacts on climate change, climatologists use four representative such trajectories to project different greenhouse gas concentrations.
3. It cherry-picks science on extreme weather and misrepresents timelines and causality.
A central feature of the National Climate Assessment is that the costs of climate are here now, and they are only going to get worse. We’re going to see more hurricanes and floods. Global warming has worsened heat waves and wildfires.
4. Energy taxes are a costly non-solution.
The National Climate Assessment stresses that this report “was created to inform policy-makers and makes no specific recommendations on how to remedy the problem.” Yet the takeaway was clear: The costs of action (10 percent of America’s GDP) dwarf the costs of any climate policy.
The reality, however, is that policies endorsed to combat climate change would carry significant costs and would do nothing to mitigate warming, even if there were a looming catastrophe like the National Climate Association says.
Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Prayerful.