Speaking at the 13th International Conference on Climate Change held on July 25th in Washington, D.C., Dr. Roy W. Spencer of the University of Alabama in Huntsville said, “There is no climate crisis. There is no climate emergency. Even if all of the warming we’ve seen in any observational data set is due to increasing CO2 (carbon dioxide), which I don’t believe it is, it’s probably too small for any person to feel in their lifetime.”
Yet, on July 9, Reuters News Agency reported “Democratic lawmakers, including six presidential candidates, on Tuesday unveiled a Congressional resolution declaring a climate change emergency to spur ‘sweeping reforms’ to stem a dangerous rise in global temperatures. The non-binding resolution, introduced by Democratic Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Earl Blumenauer and Senator Bernie Sanders, ‘demands a national, social, industrial and economic mobilization’ to ‘halt, reverse, mitigate and prepare for the consequences of the climate emergency and to restore the climate for future generations.’”
In an effort to drum up support for its costly ‘carbon tax,’ the Liberal government of Canada has also announced a climate emergency. Britain’s parliament has declared a climate change emergency as well, “backing a call by opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn for ‘rapid and dramatic action’ to protect the environment after… weeks of protests by the Extinction Rebellion climate movement,” according to Reuters. The Climate Mobilization group exclaimed that “Over 790 local governments in 17 countries have declared a climate emergency and committed to action to drive down emissions at emergency speed.”
In considering whether this makes any sense, let’s take a page out of Blumenauer’s book and, as he put it, “tell the truth about the nature of this threat.”
The so-called emergency is nothing other than the over-active imaginations of activists who are putting too much faith in the computer model forecasts of the future, while ignoring observational data that tells us nothing extraordinary is happening.
NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies asserts that between 1880 and 2017, there has been only slightly more than one-degree Celsius rise in the so-called global average temperature despite a supposed 40% rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) database of state-wide extreme weather records, arguably the best of its kind in the world, shows that so far in 2019, only one extreme weather record has been set—the coldest day in the history of Illinois.
In 2018, the only records set were:
- the largest hailstone in the history of Alabama
- the most rainfall in a 24-hour period in Hawaii
- the most precipitation in a year in Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina and West Virginia.
In 2017, the only record set was for the fastest wind gust in California. No records were set in 2016.
In 2015, only two records were set: the most precipitation in a year in Arkansas and the largest hailstone in the history of Illinois.
In 2014, only one record was set – the most rainfall in a 24-hour period in New York. And so it goes, year after year as we move into the past with the occasional state record set, as one would expect due to natural climate variability. In the first 18+ years of the 21st century, only two states recorded their maximum temperatures—South Carolina in 2012 and South Dakota in 2006.
Contrast that with 1936, when 15 states set their all-time maximum temperature records.
Similarly, the NOAA’s updated coastal sea level tide gauge data (2016) shows no evidence of accelerating sea level rise. NOAA data also shows that for almost 142 consecutive months starting on Oct. 24, 2005, there were no major or moderate landfall hurricanes in the continental United States, the longest such period in records starting in 1851.
Much to the frustration of climate alarmists, the instrumental record clearly indicates that, not only is there no climate emergency underway, but today’s climate is actually quite stable.
The climate scare is based on only one thing—computer model forecasts of what may happen someday if we do not restrict our use of fossil fuels to reduce CO2 emissions. But these models do not work because we do not understand the science well enough to know what mathematical equations to program into the models. Observations demonstrate that the actual rate of warming between 1979-2017 is three times smaller than that predicted by the average of 102 different climate models.
Yet today’s modelers tell us that they can forecast the planet’s climate for decades or even a century in the future and want our leaders to manage our economies accordingly. No one should take them seriously.