Tag: Climate Report

‘National Embarrassment’: Key Stat Used In Biden Admin’s Landmark Climate Report Is Misleading

From The Daily Caller

NICK POPE

CONTRIBUTOR

A key top-line statistic featured in the Biden administration’s latest report on the state of climate change in the U.S. is misleading in several ways.

The Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA 5) features numerous analyses and graphics that purport to highlight extreme weather events that result in at least $1 billion of damage, as well as using monetary losses from events like hurricanes and floods as a de facto proxy for climate change intensity. Critics of the metric assert that its use obscures key context, namely the growth of population, asset density and asset values in coastal regions that inflate the prevalence of billion-dollar damage events.

“There is no peer reviewed science that attributes any part of increasing disaster losses to changes in climate,” Roger Pielke, Jr., a professor at the University of Colorado who has extensively studied and written about the politicization of science, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “To see evidence of changes in climate, look at climate data, not economic data.”

Pielke, Jr. has harshly criticized the billion-dollar damages metric in the recent past, writing in January that its use by supposedly authoritative scientific bodies amounts to a “national embarrassment,” pointing out that “an identical hurricane making landfall in Florida in 1980 versus 2023 would result in vastly different loss totals, because today there are simply more people in more homes with more stuff than 43 years ago.”

Criticisms of the metric did not stop the Biden administration from relying on it in the NCA 5, specifically with regard to some of its analysis of the American Southeast. The region’s coastal states are the nation’s most prone to hurricanes, the frequency and intensity of which are frequently highlighted by climate alarmists and activists as a concrete example of the threat that climate change poses to American society. (RELATED: BASTASCH: The UN’s Newest Climate Report Is A Woke Dumpster Fire Masquerading As Science)

A graphic from NCA 5 showing National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) billion-dollar disasters by state from 1980–2022 in the Southeast. The map adds up billion-dollar events for each state affected (i.e., it does not mean that each state shown suffered at least $1 billion in losses for each event), according to its caption in the NCA 5 report. (Screenshot / Public via NCA 5 report)

The NCA 5 graphic would lead the unscrupulous viewer to believe upon first glance that there have been more than 900 billion-dollar loss events between 1980 and 2022.

However, data published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows that the actual number for that time period is 373. The reason for the discrepancy between NOAA’s data and the NCA 5 graphic is that billion-dollar damage events typically impact more than just one state; accordingly, the NCA 5 graphic adds to the count for each state affected by the same billion-dollar damage event, regardless of whether or not each state impacted suffered a billion dollars of losses on its own in such a scenario, according to the graphic’s caption.

“The increase in population and material wealth over the last several decades are an important cause for the rising costs,” according to NOAA’s website. “These trends are further complicated by the fact that much of the growth has taken place in vulnerable areas like coasts, the wildland-urban interface and river floodplains.”

Additionally, weather events that did not meet the billion-dollar threshold when they occurred in the past are retroactively classified as such once their costs are adjusted for inflation, meaning that a $900 million dollar event in 1985 would be classified as a billion-dollar event when adjusted for today’s inflation, according to NOAA.

Pielke, Jr. ran his own analysis in his January piece, putting North American catastrophe losses in terms of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP). He found that “North American catastrophe losses as a proportion of U.S. GDP clearly show no upwards trend.”

This crucial context complicating the statistic’s validity as a de facto proxy for the intensity of climate change has not stopped the White House from using it as such anyways.

“Climate change is a major driver for the increased frequency, duration, and severity of extreme weather and climate-related disasters,” according to a 2021 fact sheet published by the White House. “Millions of Americans feel the effects of these extreme events when their roads and schools flood, and hospitals lose power. Over the past few years, the frequency of extreme weather and climate-related disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion has skyrocketed.”

In addition to the content focusing on billion-dollar damage events, the report also touts its use of “indigenous knowledge” to arrive at its findings. The report also includes a section linking climate change to pandemics and an entire section on the intersections of climate change and social justice.

“The NCA should never have been placed under the White House. It is too tempting for both Republicans and Democrats to use it for politics,” Pielke, Jr. told the DCNF.

Neither NOAA nor the White House responded immediately to requests for comment.

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You Are the Carbon They Want to Reduce

The latest edition of the State of the Climate Report is only communist propaganda. These messages are most prevalent in the part of the report titled “Scientists’ warning recommendations,” which includes “coordinated efforts” intended to “support a broader agenda focused on holistic and equitable climate policy.” You cannot immediately eliminate CO2 and let the human population survive. It can’t be done.

From Science Matters

By Ron Clutz

Chris Talgo writes at American Thinker The actual ‘climate change’ agenda.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

The latest edition of the State of the Climate Report, published this week in the journal BioScience, begins rather ominously: “Life on planet Earth is under siege. We are now in an uncharted territory.” These sentences are meant to instill abject fear and evoke a sense of doom in the general public. However, they are patently absurd and ought to be disregarded outright.

Like almost every climate change report I’ve come across, the 2023 State of the Climate Report is full of red herrings and bombastic assertions that are intended to alarm the public into believing that climate change is an existential threat that must be stopped at all costs, regardless of the collateral damage and unintended consequences that their so-called solutions would inevitably bring to bear.

But what I find most alarming about this particular report, which 15,000 scientists signed, is the anti-human and anti-progress message that lies at the heart of it.

These messages are most prevalent in the part of the report titled “Scientists’ warning recommendations,” which includes “coordinated efforts” intended to “support a broader agenda focused on holistic and equitable climate policy.”

The authors erroneously claim that “economic growth” is the driver of the climate crisis and that it prevents them from achieving their “social, climate, and biodiversity goals.” Unsurprisingly, they lay the blame on the world’s most prosperous nations, particularly those located in the “global north,” which they argue are preventing the need for “decoupling economic growth from harmful environmental impacts.” As such, they suggest we “change our economy to a system that supports meeting basic needs for all people instead of excessive consumption by the wealthy.”

As it turns out, this type of economic system has been implemented
many times over, most notably in the Soviet Union.
The results, in every single case, were downright dreadful.

In other words, these scientists dismiss the fact that economic growth under a free-market capitalist system, which has produced myriad technological advancements and innovations that have significantly improved the human experience in recent centuries, is a net positive. Casting economic growth and free enterprise in a mostly negative light is ludicrous. Thanks to economic growth over the past few decades alone, humans are living longer than ever before, in less poverty than ever before, are able to communicate across the world in the blink of an eye, and live more comfortably than ever before.

In their misguided worldview, economic growth is a net harm because it does not automatically allocate resources in an equitable manner. Spoiler alert: neither does socialism. Apparently, these scientists are unaware that as President John F. Kennedy famously put it, “a rising tide lifts all boats.”

Aside from their anti-economic growth stance, the authors also recommend “eliminating” “fossil fuels” and “transitioning away from coal” while calling for “funding to build out renewable energy capacity.” Based on statements like these, I wonder if the scientists who produce these types of reports are delusional.

If we were to eliminate fossil fuels and stop using coal as a fuel source,
the entire global economy would grind to a halt,
billions of people would suffer, and millions would die.

But maybe that is the point, or at least a part of it. One of the last recommendations the scientists make is downright chilling: “gradually decrease the human population.”

Make no mistake, for decades, climate-change zealots have been calling for degrowth and depopulation. From Paul Ehrlich to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), the list is too long to catalogue. For some strange reason, this call for depopulation and degrowth is resonating across academia and the illiberal Left. Even worse, it seems to be in vogue among today’s youth.

Across the West or “global north,” birth rates have been declining precipitously. In many countries, including the United States, the birth rate has dropped below the level of replacement.

Sadly, the climate change-industrial complex, a multi-trillion-dollar money machine, has irrevocably corrupted the once-hallowed scientific community. As most scientists know, though are probably less-than-willing to go on record for fear of cancelation and loss of grants and such, climate change is not an existential threat. However, if we unflinchingly take their recommendations as gospel, and plow forward with their idiotic degrowth and depopulation agenda, you better believe humanity will face an existential crisis like none before: the possible extinction of the human species.

Addendum: Zero CO2 is a Suicide Pact (Dr. Happer)

Biznews published excerpts from an interview with Dr. William Happer Sign  Elimination of CO2 is a suicide pact.  Text below in italiics with my bolds and added images.

Overview

It’s safe to assume no one consciously sets out to challenge a narrative as deeply entrenched and emotionally charged as climate change. Dr William Happer, an American physicist and Professor Emeritus in the Department of Physics at Princeton University, certainly didn’t. It was only in 1991, upon Happer’s appointment by President George W Bush as director of Energy Research in the US Department of Energy, that his interaction with climate change authorities – and their refusal to engage in customary scientific debate on climate change – piqued his interest.

Thereafter, Happer was dismissed for his contrarian views and ‘head butting’ with climate change luminary Al Gore, only to be brought back to Washington by former president Donald Trump in 2018. BizNews spoke to Happer about his prodigious career and discovery that the burgeoning climate change hysteria had no scientific basis. Happer meticulously detailed why and how CO2, the “demon gas”, is not a pollutant but is essential to mankind’s prosperity.

Professor William Happer on the effect of carbon dioxide on planet Earth

Carbon dioxide is what drives life on Earth. The growth of plants depends on carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide in the air diffuses into the leaves of plants through little holes, and the plants combine this with water and it requires energy. This energy comes from sunlight. So, the combination of carbon dioxide, the so-called pollutant, water and sunlight is what makes life. You know, that’s what we live on. And carbon dioxide at the present time is much lower [in] concentration than has prevailed over most of geological history. [During] most of geological history, it’s pretty clear from proxy records, CO2 levels have been two or three times greater than they are now.

It’s true. CO2 is a greenhouse gas and it warms the Earth,
but the warming isn’t enough to matter.

It’s very small. And so, it’s probably beneficial on balance. If you double CO2, it seems like a lot, that’s a 100% increase of CO2. How much does that affect the cooling radiation that goes off to space? That sounds like a lot, but in effect it only decreases the radiation to space by 1%. So, 100% increase of CO2, 1% decrease in radiation to space. It’s a very small effect, and you don’t have to change the Earth’s temperature very much or cloudiness very much to bring it back into equilibrium with the situation before you increase the CO2.

On climate change activism having become like a religious cult

It is a religious cult for many people. Many people have stopped believing in traditional religions, you know? So, they don’t believe in God, but they need something beyond themselves to believe in. What could be more noble than saving the planet? “The planet is threatened by the demon gas CO2, so we’re going to save it.” The fact that it means essentially suicide for the human race doesn’t get into their brains. But that is what it means.

You cannot immediately eliminate CO2 and let the human population survive.
It can’t be done. So, it’s a suicide pact, you know, what is being proposed.

The movement is a joke – a little bit – but it’s not so different from a coalition of organised crime and religious fanaticism. And the religious fanatics … You know, you don’t argue with someone about their religion. This is not a joking matter. It brings crusades and religious wars and God knows what. So, that’s a big problem. There is this religious aspect; so many people now have been brainwashed into thinking there really is an emergency. And anyone who stands in the way of saving the planet is Satan incarnate. They are sincere people but they’re just badly misled.

Many of the most vociferous climate emergency folks; if you press them, they say, “Yes, the real problem is not fossil fuels, it’s human beings. You know, there are just too many people. We should not have more than a billion people.” We’re roughly eight billion now, so that means seven out of eight of us should disappear from the planet. This is extremely dangerous. It’s an evil cult.

On what has been lost owing to climate hysteria

The alarmist community recognised 20 years ago that the warming is a lot less than their models had predicted. “Just you wait,” they’d say, “Sooner or later it will warm. But in the meantime, we need something else to keep the alarm going.” And they seized on extreme weather and rising sea levels and ocean acidification… Things that really were not warming. And they changed the name from global warming to climate change because warming wasn’t going to cut it. There wasn’t enough warming.

Earth has an unstable climate which isn’t very well understood to this day, and it would be wonderful if we understood it better. But I think our ability to understand it has been set back very badly by the climate hysteria. So, what could’ve been 20, 30 years of good, basic research and real understanding of the climate has been wasted with hysteria about this false climate emergency, which does not exist. In the meantime, the real parts of the climate – which would be good to understand – have been ignored.