Stupid enough to buy climate change crisis?

The American people aren’t stupid enough to buy the manmade climate change crisis narrative from the files of Marita Noon at Energy Makes America Great

Meet Marita Noon

Late last year, the name Jonathan Gruber became part of the public consciousness for his newly public declarations that Obamacare passed due to the “stupidity of the American voter.”

While there are many cases one can cite affirming that most Americans don’t closely follow politics and/or the political process and, therefore, may be called “stupid,” the campaign to sell the manmade climate change crisis narrative proves otherwise.

We are smarter than they think. We are not buying what they are selling.

Global warming has been the most expensive and extensive “public relations campaign in history”—as David Harsanyi calls it in his post at TheFederalist.com. He identifies the “25 years of political and cultural pressure,” as including “most governmental agencies, a long list of welfare-sucking corporations, the public school system, the universities, an infinite parade of celebrities, think tanks, well-funded environmental groups and an entire major political party.”

Yet, despite all the “gentle nudging,” “stern warnings,” and “fear mongering,” Harsanyi states: “Since 1989, there’s been no significant change in the public’s concern level over global warming.”

Based on new polling data from Gallup, Harsanyi points out that with the past 25 years of messaging, even among Democrats those who “worry greatly” about global warming has only increased “by a mere four percentage points”—with no change in the general public in the past two years.

A pew research poll on the Keystone pipeline—also the target of years of intense messaging and fear mongering—offers similar insights: “support for the Keystone XL pipeline is almost universal,” reads the Washington Post headline. The poll results report that only those who self-identify as “solid liberals” oppose the pipeline.

Clearly, Americans aren’t that stupid after all. We can smell a rat.

It isn’t that we don’t believe the climate changes—it does, has, and always will—but, as Harsanyi states: “there is a difference in believing climate change is real and believing that climate change is calamitous.” He continues: “as the shrieking gets louder, Americans become more positive about the quality of their environment and less concerned about the threats.”

And: “as the fear-mongering becomes more far-fetched, the accusations become more hysterical, and the deadlines for action keep being pushed right over the horizon, fewer people seem to really care.”

Harsanyi concludes: “if you haven’t been able to win over the public in 25 years of intense political and cultural pressure, you are probably down to two options: You can revisit your strategy, open debate to a wide range of ideas, accept that your excited rhetoric works on a narrow band of the Americans (in any useful political sense), and live with the reality that most people have no interest in surrendering prosperity. Or, you can try to force people to do what you want.”

With the huge investment of time and money, it appears the fear mongers have chosen the latter option. The regulatory scheme coming out of Washington reflects an acknowledgement that the PR campaign has failed, but that the effort is continually being forced on people who don’t want it—though they may not be following it closely; they may not be politically engaged.

The climate campaigners are continuing to do that which hasn’t worked for the past 25 years—somehow believing they’ll get different results (Isn’t that the definition of insanity?).

On March 6, “A documentary that looks at pundits-for-hire,” Merchants of Doubt was released. It aimed to smear the reputations of some of the most noted voices on the realist side of the climate change debate—specifically Fred Singer who has been one of the original climate skeptics. But nobody much wanted to see it. In its opening weekend, BoxOfficeMoJo.com reports Merchants of Doubt took in $20,300.

A week later, former Vice President Al Gore, as reported in the Chicago Tribune, called on attendees at the SXSW festival in Austin, TX, to “punish climate change deniers”—which is the tactic being used now.

We’ve seen it in the widely publicized case of Dr. Willie Soon, a scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian center for Astrophysics, who “claims that the variations in the sun’s energy can largely explain recent Global warming.” The New York Times accused him of being tied to funding from “corporate interests.”

Similar, though less well known, attacks have been made on Henrik Moller—Denmark’s leading academic expert on noise research, who was fired by his university after exposing a wide reaching cover-up by the Danish government of the health risks caused by wind turbine noise pollution.

And, on eminent meteorologist Lennart Bengtsson, who received world-wide pressure after he stated: “I believe it is important to express different views in an area that is potentially so important and complex and still insufficiently known as climate change.”

Even Senator Edward Markey and Congressman Raul Grijalva recently joined the crusade. Paul Driessen draws attention to a letter they sent to “institutions that employ or support climate change researchers whose work questions claims that Earth and humanity face unprecedented manmade climate change catastrophes.”

The lawmakers warn of potential “conflicts of interest” in cases where evidence or computer modeling emphasizing human causes of climate change are questioned—but no such warning is offered for its supporters.

Driessen states: “Conflicts of interest can indeed pose problems. However, it is clearly not only fossil fuel companies that have major financial or other interests in climate and air quality standards—nor only manmade climate change skeptics who can have conflicts and personal, financial or institutional interests in these issues.”

He quotes Dr. Richard Lindzen, MIT atmospheric sciences professor emeritus and one of Grijalva’s targets: “Billions of dollars have been poured into studies supporting climate alarm, and trillions of dollars have been involved in overthrowing the energy economy.”

But somehow, only those who may receive funding from “fossil fuel companies” are suspect. The anti-fossil fuel movement has been vocal in its funding for candidates who support its agenda.

I’ve experienced this on a small scale. I wrote on op-ed for the Albuquerque Journal warning New Mexico residents about concerns over SolarCity’s arrival in the state—which included offering 30-year financing for rooftop solar panels.

A week later the paper published an op-ed that didn’t discount my data, but accused my organization of receiving funding from the fossil-fuel industry. The op-ed was written by an employee of SolarCity—but this didn’t seem incongruous.

The little attack on me allowed me to ask for people to counteract the claim that the Citizens’ Alliance for Responsible Energy is not an “alliance of citizens.” The outpouring of support astounded me—though the newspaper didn’t post every comment.

Others, with whom I have been in contact, while researching for this writing, provided similar stories of support following the attacks.

In a Desmog post titled: Climate deniers double down on doubt in the defense of Willie Soon, the author states that Soon’s supporters “circled the wagons.”

In a Scientific American story about the Merchants of Doubt, Andrew Hoffman, a professor at the University of Michigan, who studies the behavior of climate skeptics, says: “tit-for-tats between mainstream and contrarian researchers tend to raise the profile of skeptical scientists.” He concludes: “Frankly, this degradation benefits the skeptics.”

Because of the failure of the manmade climate-crisis campaign to capture the hearts and minds of the average American—who, after all, isn’t that stupid—we can expect the Gore-ordered attacks to continue. Expect the fear mongering to become more far-fetched, the accusations to become more hysterical, and the deadlines for action to keep being pushed right over the horizon. When this happens, “fewer people seem to really care.”

Like the mythical Hydra, when one “skeptic” is cut down, supporters “double down”—two more grow to take its place. While designed to silence, the attacks draw attention to the fact that there is another side to the “debate.”

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The author of Energy Freedom, Marita Noon serves as the executive director for Energy Makes America Great Inc. and the companion educational organization, the Citizens’ Alliance for Responsible Energy (CARE). She hosts a weekly radio program: America’s Voice for Energy—which expands on the content of her weekly column.

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2014 - Not the warmest year in history

No, 2014 wasn't the 'warmest year in history' from the files of Jeff Jacoby at the Boston Globe

Climate science is still in its infancy. Experts didn't
foresee the global cooling that began in the 1940s
and didn't anticipate the warming cycle that
started in the late 1970s.

Unless you've spent the last few weeks in solitary meditation on a remote island, you couldn't miss the wave of media stories breathlessly proclaiming that 2014 was the hottest year in recorded history. As usual, the coverage was laced with alarm about the menace posed by climate change, and with disapproval of skeptics who decline to join in the general panic.

Among those seizing on the news to make a political point was President Obama, who used his State of the Union address to voice disdain for those who don't share his view.

"I've heard some folks try to dodge the evidence by saying they're not scientists," he scoffed. "Well, I'm not a scientist, either. But. . . I know a lot of really good scientists at NASA, and NOAA, and at our major universities."

Well, I'm also not a scientist. But I do know that what NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and NOAA's National Climatic Data Center actually reported was rather less categorical than what the news accounts — or the White House — might lead you to believe. As both government agencies made clear in their briefing materials, the likelihood that 2014 was the planet's warmest year is far from a slam-dunk.

Indeed, the probability that 2014 set a record is not 99 percent or 95 percent, but less than 50 percent. NOAA's number-crunchers put the probability at 48 percent; NASA's analysis came in at 38 percent. The agencies rationalize their attention-getting headline on the grounds that the probabilities were even lower for other candidates for the label of "hottest year in history."

But other compilers of the standard global temperature datasets have been more circumspect. The report from the UK Met Office noted only that "2014 was one of the warmest years in a record dating back to 1850." Given the size of the margin of error, it acknowledged, "It's not possible to definitively say which of several recent years was the warmest."

Similarly, the Berkeley Earth summary of its 2014 calculations explained that last year's bottom line was statistically identical to other recent years. "Therefore," it noted candidly, "it is impossible to conclude from our analysis which of 2014, 2010, or 2005 was actually the warmest year."

All of which reasonably leads to the conclusion not that the planet has been relentlessly warming, but that the warming trend that peaked at the end of the 1990s has neither resumed nor reversed. Global warming has more or less been on hold since the turn of the 21st century. That hiatus poses something of an inconvenient truth to those who believe that anthropogenic carbon-dioxide is the key driver of climate change, since CO2 emissions have continued without letup.

You don't have to be a scientist to realize that climate is complicated and hard to get right. Climate models have so far been unable to accurately predict changes in global temperature. Experts didn't foresee the global cooling that began in the 1940's and didn't anticipate the warming cycle that started in the late 1970's.

Climate science is still in its infancy, and it would be folly to treat any single explanation for changes in global temperatures as impervious to challenge or skepticism.

In fact, the very idea of a "global temperature" is hard to make sense of. How can an entire planet, with its multifarious systems, be said to have a temperature, or even an average temperature?

The latest data reinforces the conclusion not that the planet has been relentlessly warming, but
the warming trend that peaked at the end of the 1990s has neither resumed nor reversed.

Averaging is a familiar and useful concept that we use in a myriad of contexts. Average household income, average life expectancy, average weight of airline passengers, average number of earned runs given up by a pitcher, average daily temperature in Waikiki in April — each is a comprehensible and meaningful statistic.

But as the authors of a provocative 2007 paper in the Journal of Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics explain, there are certain kinds of variables that lose all meaning if they are averaged. For example, exchange rates are extremely useful when comparing two currencies. The notion of a "global exchange rate," however, would be absurd.

Temperatures on the earth are in constant flux. They change with latitude, with time of day, with season, with weather; they vary from ocean depths to atmospheric heights, from the equator to the poles. Even assuming that the necessary raw data could be properly gathered, mathematicians must choose among multiple averaging techniques, which can yield flatly contradictory results.

Physically, there is no such thing as the "global temperature trend," the authors conclude. Hence, "ranking this or that year as the 'warmest of the millennium' is not possible, since other averages will give other results with no grounds for choosing among them."

As headline fodder, "warmest year ever" may be irresistible. As an unassailable reality on which critical public policy questions should turn? Be skeptical.

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What I did on summer my vacation

What I did on my summer vacation by David Legates, Professor of Climatology at the University of Delaware

Visit a Museum Today says Dr. Legates

'We should celebrate fossil fuels, not condemn them'

I recently read an article in which “hockey stick” creator and climatologist Michael Mann discussed his summer vacation. Reporting on his travels to Montana, Dr. Mann lamented the fact that glaciers in Glacier National Park are receding. He blamed this on human-caused climate change. He said he tried to get away from work but just couldn’t, because the “spectre of climate change stares you in the face as you tour the park.”

I likewise did my level best to get away from life, but was no more successful. You see, I’m a not just a climatologist. I am also a human being, and am acutely aware of the life-long struggle for survival experienced by billions of destitute, desperate people on our planet – and of the innovative, determined human spirit that stares you in the face as you peruse the daily news and tour our nation’s museums.

Dr. Mann was viewing glaciers that have actually been receding since the end of the Little Ice Age, back around 1860. He got upset because he thinks (and wants us to believe) that they have been losing ice only since 1975 or so – and it’s our fault, because carbon dioxide emissions from our cars, factories, electricity generating plants, home heating units and other sources are causing “unprecedented” global warming.

I instead visited three museums that are within a one-hour drive from my home: the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasbourg, PA, the Air Mobility Command Museum at Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware, and the Chesapeake-Delaware Canal Museum in Chesapeake City, Maryland.

What I saw underscored how far we Americans have come since the Civil War and Industrial Revolution, in large part because of fossil fuel-driven technology – and how far billions of less fortunate people worldwide still have to go, to achieve a standard of living, health and welfare close to what we enjoy.

Unfortunately, and unforgivably, they are being held back by policies that elevate misplaced concern about hydrocarbon energy and “dangerous manmade climate change” above the needs of people.

At the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania you see the impacts the railway had on building this great nation. From simple steam engines that could carry just two people, to huge steam locomotives that connected our country's two far-flung shores, to the diesel and electric locomotives that built the industrial backbone of this country, the ingenuity of the last 150-plus years sits quietly on display as an historical reminder of our legacy.

The Air Mobility Command Museum is a testimony not just to aviation, but to air cargo transportation. The amazing machines, and the intrepid men and women who flew them, helped us move equipment and supplies to support troops, provide assistance in areas ravaged by natural disasters or human catastrophes, and keep freedom alive in places like West Berlin during the 1948-49 airlift.

They also stand as marvelous monuments to human innovation – and a testament to our ability and determination to support freedom and democracy, and lend assistance when needed to the plight of those less fortunate, even when located in the far reaches of our planet.

Connecting two important waterways, the Chesapeake-Delaware Canal is truly a miracle of human entrepreneurship. Originally dug by hand, the fourteen-mile-long canal connects the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays, reducing the shipping distance from Baltimore to Philadelphia by nearly 300 miles.

Eventually, the canal was deepened and its locks removed, to allow goods to be shipped directly by ocean-going vessels without having to offload them to a turnpike, or later the railway. This greatly increased the region’s economic viability and encouraged development of the mid-Atlantic area.

But as I looked these monuments, I did so with sadness. This ingenuity was brought about by forward-looking men and women who used their energies to develop machines and enhance their efficiency, with the ultimate goal of helping humankind.

Today, however, there are those who see this effort as wrong and (dare I say it?) even evil. They want to restrict energy and its availability, and thereby limit our ingenuity, innovation and progress by draining the very lifeblood that made these earlier developments possible. Without coal and oil, there would have been no railroads and no cargo transportation, either by air or by sea.

Democracy would likely have been but a distant memory in most of Europe and Southeast Asia – or maybe not even a memory at all. The United States would not have developed as it did, and it certainly would not be the world's leader in innovative thinking that it is today. It is quite likely that we would not be far removed from the conditions in which Africa currently finds itself.

These three museums only offer a small glimpse at the myriad of marvels produced by human ingenuity, and the role that hydrocarbon energy has played in them since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.

The development of inexpensive energy led to phenomenal, previously unheard of increases in industrial output and worker efficiency, in wages and free time, in living standards and human health and welfare.

They also provided us with the weekend and vacation time, and the physical wherewithal, to experience the wonders of God’s creation -- as well as the ability to attend to environmental stewardship.

It is all these opportunities that people in undeveloped and under-developed countries wish to emulate. But for that to happen, we must help keep the cost of energy low and shun policies and practices that make it expensive and unreliable.

If we make energy so expensive that only the rich can afford it, the poor and the vulnerable will be denied access, and will be condemned to nasty, brutal and short lives marked by squalor, deprivation, starvation and disease.

I find it immoral to suggest that the abject poverty, disease and malnutrition that still afflict much of the world must be ignored, while we concern ourselves with “saving the planet from global warming.”

Are national park glaciers – whose existence and demise are affected primarily by the same natural forces that repeatedly spawned and melted mile-high, continent-wide Pleistocene ice fields – more important than the more unfortunate inhabitants of our planet? Assuming, of course, that by addressing greenhouse gas emissions we can positively alter the planet’s climate, or that we can know what climate is optimal.

It is ironic that it is our affluence – created by our technological innovations and use of hydrocarbons – which has allowed us to become environmentally conscious. When people are in dire need of food, clothing, shelter and other basic necessities of life, they cannot be concerned with environmental issues.

To cite just one example of thousands, because the people of India and Bangladesh are so poor, the Ganges River serves as both their source of drinking water and their cesspool for untreated sewage. Their poverty prevents them from focusing on even the most basic environmental concerns.

Moreover, freedom and energy availability go hand-in-hand. Oppression thrives when subjects are kept poor and deprived of technological advancements. When people have the time and ability to travel and communicate, to be innovative, and to organize to produce a better way of life or fight a common enemy – freedom grows. Inexpensive energy is the key to ending both poverty and oppression.

More than two million people will visit Glacier National Park this year, to marvel at nature. I wonder how they would have gotten there ... or whether they would have had the time to do so … if it were not for the transportation innovations that resulted from hydrocarbon fuels.

I would encourage them to visit these museums – or museums like them – to see what humans have built, and ponder what our future will likely be if backward-thinking policies cause their legacy to vanish.

May they marvel at the wonders of nature, and perhaps lament the loss of glaciers. But may they also lament the loss of life caused by too little use of fossil fuels, not by too much of such life-enhancing fuels.