If you’ve ever spent much time in New York, you know that it can be weather-challenged: very hot in the summer, and very cold in the winter. But September is almost always a month of near-perfect temperatures, and this year has been no exception. Nevertheless, the so-called “Climate Strike” movement chose last Friday, September 20, as the date for their big day of demonstrations.

The high temperature was an ideal 77 deg F (25 deg C). Estimates of the number of protesters that turned out range (according to the New York Times) from 60,000 (NY Police Dept.) to 250,000 (organizers). The message of the speakers was, of course, that we are in the midst of a climate crisis that must be addressed immediately by drastic and coercive government action. It seems that the organizers and leaders of the demonstrations, let alone a goodly number of the participants, have turned themselves purple with anger over unverifiable predictions of barely-perceptible future temperature increases. From the Times:

Rarely, if ever, has the modern world witnessed a youth movement so large and wide, spanning across societies rich and poor, tied together by a common if inchoate sense of rage.

Let me assemble some of the words that were used by these people. I suppose that they somehow think that this kind of rhetoric might be convincing to the normal people who were just trying to enjoy a beautiful late summer day. Is any of it persuasive to you?

From the ubiquitous teen-ager Greta Thunberg, quoted in Time:

“This is an emergency. Our house is on fire. . . . We will do everything in our power to stop this crisis from getting worse. . . . Why should we study for a future that is being taken away from us. That is being sold for profit. Everywhere I have been the situation is more or less same. The people in power, their beautiful words are the same. . . . The number of politicians and celebrities who want to take selfies with us are the same. The empty promises are the same. The lies are the same, and the inaction is the same.”

If that is not crazy enough for you, try these lines, also attributed to Thunberg (although I seriously doubt that she wrote them), appearing in a “Climate Resistance Handbook” put out in advance of the event by 350.org:

I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act. Around the year 2030, we will be in a position where we set an irreversible chain reaction beyond human control, that will most likely lead to the end of our civilisation as we know it.  That is unless in that time, permanent and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society have taken place, including a reduction of CO2 emissions by at least 50%.

And let’s not focus all of our attention on the wild-eyed Ms. Thunberg. How about something from another speaker at the New York event, Vic Barrett? That’s the Vic Barrett previously best known as one of the plaintiffs in the litigation dubbed by the Manhattan Contrarian as the “Stupidest Litigation in the Country,” namely the case from Oregon seeking to have the federal courts declare a “constitutional right” to a “stable climate,” and then use that declaration to enjoin all production and use of fossil fuels. Here are some of the words of Ms. Barrett (video at the link):

We are being pushed from the lands that we settled, the lands that my family has inhabited for generations. That land will be under water in a few decades if we continue on the path we are on. . . . My future is being stolen from me. . . . Everything that I am is slipping into the sea. . . . My people face extinction. Indigenous lands all over our planet are being flooded, poisoned and destroyed.

Yes, we are to feel “panic” over our impending “extinction.” Supposedly, this is the conclusion of “science.” Really? Meanwhile, here’s a new source of relevant data that I have not previously highlighted at this site. NOAA has a special and relatively new U.S.-only surface temperature series, called USCRN (US Climate Reference Network) based on only 114 of its very best ground thermometers, with state-of-the-art equipment and pristine siting, relatively evenly spaced around the country. By contrast to the other series from NOAA and NASA, this one has no “homogenization” adjustment thrown in by the climate activists in the bowels of the agencies. The series only goes back to 2005. Here’s what it shows:

No warming at all. By the way, did you notice those very warm months in 2006 and 2012, with temperatures some 4 degrees above normal for the entire U.S.? Neither did anybody else. So why again is a projected 2 or 3 degree temperature increase something to panic about? And, if you believe the business about greenhouse gas emissions controlling the climate, shouldn’t we be seeing a nice steady year-by-year increase in temperatures as CO2 concentration in the atmosphere increases? You do find that in the NOAA and NASA adjusted series — but all of the increase is in the adjustments. Here, in a series that consists only of raw data from pristine stations, there is no increase.

Finally, for today’s entertainment, check out this report from Climate Change Dispatch on the climate strike demonstrations that took place in Washington, DC. Those demonstrations featured massive blocking of traffic at multiple locations, plus dumpster fires, in addition to gratuitous travel by car and plane by thousands of people. In other words, it couldn’t be more obvious that these people don’t care at all about the amount of carbon emissions they cause. From Climate Change Dispatch:

Thanks to these brave warriors fighting for their precious Mother Earth, thousands of cars are spewing tons of exhaust into the air that wouldn’t have if these enviro-crybabies had real jobs. Here’s an official rundown of all the traffic that’s been blocked.

Somebody here has become completely detached from reality, and I don’t think it’s me.