{"id":339268,"date":"2024-08-11T17:12:38","date_gmt":"2024-08-11T15:12:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=339268"},"modified":"2024-08-11T17:12:40","modified_gmt":"2024-08-11T15:12:40","slug":"put-climate-insanity-behind-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=339268","title":{"rendered":"Put Climate Insanity Behind\u00a0Us"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From Science Matters <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\u00a0Ron Clutz<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

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Conrad Black writes at National Post Time for the climate insanity to stop. <\/strong> <\/a>Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have been racing to destroy our standard of living
to avert a crisis that never materialized<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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We must by now be getting reasonably close the point where there is a consensus for\u00a0re-examining the issue of climate change and related subjects<\/strong>. For decades, those of us who had our\u00a0doubts were effectively shut down<\/strong>\u00a0by the endless deafening repetition, as if from the massed choir of an operatic catechism school, of the alleged truism: \u201c98 per cent of scientists agree \u2026\u201d (that the world is coming to an end in a few years if we don\u2019t abolish the combustion engine). Decades have gone by in which the\u00a0polar bears were supposed to become extinct<\/strong>\u00a0because of the vanishing polar ice cap, the\u00a0glaciers<\/strong>\u00a0were supposed to have\u00a0melted<\/strong>\u00a0in the rising heat and the impact of melting ice would raise ocean levels to the point that Pacific islands, such as former U.S. vice-president Al Gore\u2019s oratorical dreamworld, the Pacific island state of\u00a0Tuvalu, would only be accessible to snorkelers.<\/strong>\u00a0There has been no progress toward any of this. Ocean levels have not risen appreciably, nothing has been submerged and the polar bear population has risen substantially.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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A large part of the problem has been the fanaticism of the alarmist forces.<\/strong> This has not been one of those issues where people may equably disagree. There was a spontaneous campaign to denigrate<\/strong> those of us who were opposed to taking drastic and extremely expensive economic steps to reduce carbon emissions on the basis of existing evidence: we could not<\/strong> be tolerated as potentially sensible doubters<\/strong>; we were labelled \u201cdeniers,\u201d<\/strong> a reference to Holocaust-deniers who would sweep evidence of horrible atrocities under the rug. For our own corrupt or perverse motives, we were promoting the destruction of the world and unimaginable human misery. There has been climate hysteria like other panics in history,<\/strong> such as those recounted in Charles MacKay\u2019s \u201cExtraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds,\u201d particularly the 1630\u2019s tulip mania,<\/strong> in which a single tulip bulb briefly sold for the current equivalent of $25,000.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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In western Europe, and particularly in the United States, where the full panic of climate change prevailed, the\u00a0agrarian and working echelons<\/strong>\u00a0of society have\u00a0rebelled against<\/strong>\u00a0the onerous financial penalties of\u00a0the war on carbon emissions.<\/strong>\u00a0There have been movements in some countries to suppress the population of cows because of the impact of their flatulence on the composition of the atmosphere. This has created an\u00a0alliance<\/strong>\u00a0of convenience\u00a0between the environmental extremists and the dietary authoritarians<\/strong>\u00a0as they take dead aim at the joint targets of carbon emissions and obesity.\u00a0Germany<\/strong>, which should be the most powerful and exemplary of Europe\u2019s nations, has\u00a0blundered headlong into the climate crisis<\/strong>\u00a0by conceding political power to militant Greens. It has shut down its advanced and completely safe nuclear power program, the ultimate efficient fuel, and has flirted with abolishing leisure automobile drives on the weekends.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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Claims that tropical storms<\/strong>\u00a0have become\u00a0more frequent are rebutted<\/strong>\u00a0by meticulously recorded statistics.\u00a0Claims that forest fires<\/strong>\u00a0are more frequent and extensive have also been shown\u00a0not<\/strong>\u00a0to be\u00a0true<\/strong>. My own analysis, which is based on observations and makes no pretense to scientific research, as I have had occasion to express here before, is that\u00a0the honourable, if often tiresome, conservation movement,<\/strong>\u00a0the zealots of Greenpeace and the Sierra Club, were suddenly\u00a0displaced<\/strong>\u00a0as organizers and leaders of the environmental movement\u00a0by the international left,\u00a0<\/strong>which was routed in the Cold War. Their western sympathizers demonstrated a genius for improvisation that none of us who knew them in the Cold War would have imagined that they possessed, and they took over the environmental bandwagon and converted it into a battering ram against capitalism<\/strong>\u00a0in the name of saving the planet.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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Everyone<\/strong>\u00a0dislikes pollution and\u00a0wants the cleanest air and water possible.<\/strong>\u00a0All conscientious people want the cleanest environment that\u2019s economically feasible. We should also aspire to the highest attainable level of accurate information before we embark on, or go any further with,\u00a0drastic and hideously expensive methods of replacing fossil fuels.<\/strong>\u00a0Large-scale disruptions to our ways of life at immense cost to consumers and taxpayers, mainly borne by those who can least easily afford it, are a mistake. We can all excuse zeal in a sincerely embraced cause, but it is time to\u00a0de-escalate this discussion<\/strong>\u00a0from its long intemperate nature of hurling thunderbolts back and forth, and\u00a0instead focus on serious research<\/strong>\u00a0that will furnish a genuine consensus. I think this was essentially what former prime minister Stephen Harper and former environment minister John Baird were advocating in what they called a \u201dCanadian solution\u201d to the climate question. Since then, our\u00a0policy has been fabricated by fanatics, including the prime minister, who do not wish to be confused by the facts.<\/strong>\u00a0The inconvenient truth is now the truth that inconveniences them.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Western Europe has effectively abandoned its net-zero carbon emission goals;<\/strong>\u00a0the world is not deteriorating remotely as quickly as Al Gore, King Charles, Tony Blair and the Liberal Party of Canada predicted. Some of the largest polluters \u2014\u00a0China, India and Russia \u2014 do not seem to care<\/strong>\u00a0about any of this. Canada should lead the world toward a rational consensus with intensified research aiming at\u00a0finding an appropriate response<\/strong>\u00a0to the challenge. What we have had is faddishness and public frenzy. Historians will wonder\u00a0why the West made war on its own standard of living in pursuit of a wild fantasy,<\/strong>\u00a0and no immediate chance of accomplishing anything useful. We have been cheered on by the\u00a0under-developed world<\/strong>\u00a0because they\u00a0seek reparations<\/strong>\u00a0from the advanced countries, although some of them are among the worst climate offenders.\u00a0It is insane. Canada should help lead the patient back to sanity.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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Postscript:<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

So to be more constructive, let\u2019s consider what should be proposed by political leaders regarding climate, energy and the environment.  IMO these should be the pillars:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2666  Climate change is real, but not an emergency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2666  We must use our time to adapt to future climate extremes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2666  We must transition to a diversified energy platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2666  We must safeguard our air and water from industrial pollutants.<\/p>\n\n\n

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A Rational Climate Policy<\/a><\/blockquote>