The Climate Scare: Ever More Shrill, Ever Less Serious

The Democrats have taken control of the House of Representatives! And, for their first act, how about some scary “climate” hearings? The New York Times, of course, takes the occasion to run a big front-page story with the headline (in the print edition — online is different) “2018 Continues Warming Trend, As 4th Hottest Year Since 1880.” Let’s apply a little critical analysis.

The Times adorns their article with a huge temperature graph, covering the period 1880 to 2018, that goes across two-thirds of the top of the front page. The overall trend looks up at first glance. But on not-very-much-closer inspection, it is obvious that 2017 was down from 2016, and 2018 was down from 2017. How exactly does that constitute 2018 “continu[ing the] warming trend”? I would have said that the last two years in a row down is the opposite of “continuing the warming trend,” but what do I know?

The Times’s graph derives from the systematically-altered NASA/GISS surface temperature series. Go to my 19-part series “The Greatest Scientific Fraud Of All Time” to learn more than you would ever want to know about the adjustments that NASA and NOAA make to the surface temperature record to lower earlier year temperatures and raise later year temperatures to create a fake enhanced warming trend. Since all reasonably-informed readers would know about the serious allegations of data alteration in the surface temperature records of NASA and NOAA, would you think that the Times would deign to mention the issue, let alone mention the existence of the far more accurate satellite record that exists since 1979 and shows something far different? Of course they don’t. It’s just propaganda for the ignorant. Sample scary quote from Gavin Schmidt (head of NASA/GISS and the guy in charge of making the alterations to the raw temperature records):

“We’re no longer talking about a situation where global warming is something in the future,” said Gavin A. Schmidt, director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the NASA group that conducted the analysis. “It’s here. It’s now.” . . . The Earth’s temperature in 2018 was more than one degree Celsius, or 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, above the average temperature of the late 19th century . . . .

Better check in with the satellite record. Here is the UAH times series through the end of 2018:

Suddenly 2018 is not the fourth warmest year of 139, but only the 6th warmest year of 40; and the decline from the peak in 2016 is some 0.6 deg C, fully 60% of that 1.0 deg C increase that the Times was trying to use to scare you.

Meanwhile, over in the House of Representatives . . . . Michael Bastasch of the Daily Caller has a summary of yesterday’s hearing before the Committee on Natural Resources. Do you think that the Dems would bring in a few serious scientists to prove their case? Don’t kid yourself. The majority’s witnesses were two politicians, a clergyman, a climate activist, and a 16 year old. From the clergyman:

“Climate change is a civil rights issue,” Reverend Lennox Yearwood, president of the Hip Hop Caucus, told lawmakers on the committee on Wednesday morning. Lennox also referred to tackling global warming as the “lunch counter moment for the 21st century.” Yearwood also warned the U.S. does “not make it beyond 12 years from now without huge amounts of death, destruction, and suffering” unless Congress addressed global warming, according to his prepared remarks. To hit the point home, Yearwood wore a hat with the words “12 Years” on it, which he placed in front of himself during the hearing.

Rev. Yearwood does not seem to think that tripling or quadrupling the electricity bills of poor people is anything anyone should care about. Also, I would have recommended to the Rev. Yearwood that before issuing one of these scary climate “tipping points,” he should have reviewed the Manhattan Contrarian Climate Tipping Points Quiz to see how many climate idiots (Al Gore, Prince Charles, James Hansen, Jeremy Rifkin, Timothy Wirth, George Monbiot, etc., etc., etc.) have previously made fools of themselves by issuing these tipping points, only to see the predicted year of disaster pass without anything notable occurring.

Or, from the 16 year old:

Nadia Nazar, the 16-year-old founder of the Zero Hour Movement, said the Trump administration’s inaction on “climate change is violating my right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” according to her prepared remarks.

Meanwhile, Ms. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez dropped her “Green New Deal” proposal on the eagerly awaiting world. Did you think this was going to be draft legislation? Please, that would take way too much work. Instead, it’s in the form of a “Resolution,” announcing the multiple intersectional “crises” that require immediate government-imposed solutions, and calling for top to bottom U.S.-led change of the world over the next decade:

[M]eeting 100 percent of the power demand in the United States through clean, renewable and zero-emission energy sources, . . . upgrading all existing buildings in the United States, . . . spurring massive growth in clean manufacturing in the United States, . . . working collaboratively with farmers and ranchers in the United States to eliminate pollution, . . . overhauling transportation systems in the United States to eliminate pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, . . . restoring and protecting fragile and protected ecosystems, . . . .

And that’s just a sample! Thanks, King Canute — er, I mean AOC.

In one final development in the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the Democratic members of the new Select Committee on the Climate Crisis. Not among them: AOC. Speaker Pelosi also had this to say about AOC’s Green New Deal proposal: “It will be one of several or maybe many suggestions that we receive,” Pelosi told Politico on Wednesday. “The green dream or whatever they call it, nobody knows what it is, but they’re for it right?” Even NP knows that this is not serious!

The rest of the world continues to build their 1600 new coal power plants.