The Patriot Post® · No Global Warming for Eight Years?
The politically orthodox position on climate change enforced by environmental activists is that warming is primarily man-caused and continually getting worse. Furthermore, the human activity that supposedly not only contributes to but drives global warming is closely associated with free-market capitalism. Capitalism, we are told, is responsible for creating, establishing, and then driving the industrial revolution, and the energy needed to drive this revolution are fossil fuels. Because fossil fuels are deemed bad, capitalism is therefore also bad.
That the climate is changing is not what those smeared by the Left as “climate deniers” are actually challenging. There is a fundamental question that has yet to be definitively answered despite all the claims of scientific consensus and a glut of computer-based modeling outcomes: What is actually causing this current era of changes in global temperature averages? That’s still up for debate.
Some with various nefarious motives preach doom and gloom if nothing is done to stop the earth from burning up. With academic hubris, they offer what they insist are the obvious and only “solutions” to reverse the trend. Yet they do so while demanding greater governmental power to enact these “solutions,” which just happen to look a lot like a plan for installing global socialism.
Of course, as we saw with the global COVID pandemic, those in power will use nearly every excuse in the book to increase that power, and they justify it by asserting that their goal is to help save humanity. Furthermore, those in power don’t like to have their use of power challenged — to the point that they will seek to shame and silence opposing or even questioning voices.
When it comes to the ongoing debate over climate change, Barack Obama infamously asserted that “97% of climate scientists agree that climate change is real and man-made.” That statement was never true, but it served as a bludgeon to use against Americans who were skeptical of the “solutions” being proposed by Obama’s administration. And those “solutions” equated to ever-more government control over Americans’ lives.
Last week, a story began making the rounds claiming that there has been a pause in global warming over the last eight years. Citing data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the story noted that global temperatures recorded by NASA satellites have measured no warming for eight years and five months. Included in the seemingly surprising claim was data showing that over the same period of time, there have been 475 billion tons of CO2 emissions. This data was cited by “climate change” contrarian Steve Milloy, who asserted, “CO2 warming is the biggest scientific hoax of all time.”
Leftmedia outlets raced to defend their climate orthodoxy. Reuters produced a “fact-check” article claiming Milloy’s statement was “misleading,” while not disputing the accuracy of the temperature data presented. Citing several scientists from NASA and Berkeley Earth, Reuters concluded that the “temperature data for the past eight years do not reflect long-term trends,” which “show a continuing rise in overall global temperatures.” Reuters then asserted that the “cumulative effects of CO2 emissions would not be reflected in yearly temperature variations.”
It sure is funny how this climate change game is played. When there’s a story relaying data showing the “hottest year on recored,” it’s immediately promoted as yet more evidence of man-made global warming. When wildfires burn swaths of forests in California, as they do every summer (largely thanks to state mismanagement, by the way), Leftmedia blowhards blame climate change. When massive weather systems hit the nation, causing millions of dollars in damage, the predictable excuse is climate change.
Yet as soon as some inconvenient data point comes in that serves to undercut the catastrophic climate change narrative, it’s dismissed with Jedi mind tricks. This data doesn’t really say what it says. Move along.
Since the climate is changing, and has been for as long as planet earth has been around, the better and more realistic approach would be to first eschew the pie-in-the-sky fanaticism of the climate alarmists who preach a radically impossible message: Stop all CO2 emissions or we’re doomed. Then endorse a more humble, sensible, and practical response by accepting the fact that humanity cannot stop global climate change. Instead, humanity should embrace the goal of adaptation. This means working to meet the challenges of a changing environment, whatever those changes may bring.
Humanity is not capable of saving a planet it never created in the first place. Despite our hubris and our greatest efforts, mankind has never been able to control it. Instead, mankind has learned to adapt, steward, and develop society with the amazing and abundant amount of natural resources the Good Lord has seen fit to put on and in the earth.
(Edited)