Climate Change: 10 myths and why we’re taking the wrong approach

There’s nothing like a post on Climate Change to get the blood boiling is there?

Before C19 it was the only story occupying the headlines. The house was on fire, Greta told us, while her facillitators kept screaming that we only have 12 years to reverse course before we’re all consumed in a fiery ball.

Meh. I’ll take my chances and here’s why. I’m a Climate Realist, not a Climate Alarmist and certainly not a Climate Cultist.

Extinction Rebellion, Greta and Black Lives Matter don’t seem to have much in common but in reality they’re part of a neo-Marxist movement to dismantle capitalism and restructure our economies into their own vision where wealth can be redistributed according to their agendas.
There’s one big issue with that: democracy. We live in a democracy which isn’t perfect but it’s a lot better than the alternatives being proposed.
But the Science! You scream. The Science! Sure, there are scientists and there are scientists. There are also economists and data analysts. And there are politicians. They all play an important role in the hype and reaction to the issue of Climate Change.
We live in a world where ideology is trumping science. We’ve long seen it with Climate Change on the left and we’ve seen it more recently with the antics of U.S. President Donald Trump.
The trouble with climate change is that it has become a Trojan Horse for the neo-Marxists to ram through their disruptive and disasterous changes.
There are, however, other voices, which get shouted down and often canceled when they try to point out facts.
So, let’s look at some of the contrarian positions on Climate Change which take a step back and consider, what if we took a different approach?
Bjorn Lomborg is an economist, not a climate scientist but since resolving the challenge of climate change requires economic and resource planning, his take is not only educated but enlightening.
He’s got a new book out False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet, and he asks: If the goal is to make the world a better place, is climate change policy the most important thing to focus on?

He says “Climate change is real, but it’s not the apocalyptic threat that we’ve been told it is. Projections of Earth’s imminent demise are based on bad science and even worse economics. In panic, world leaders have committed to wildly expensive but largely ineffective policies that hamper growth and crowd out more pressing investments in human capital, from immunization to education.”

“Certainly, it is one thing we should focus on. We must rein in temperature increases and help ensure the most vulnerable can adapt. But today’s popular climate change policies of rolling out solar panels and wind turbines have insidious effects: They push up energy costs, hurt the poor, cut emissions ineffectively, and put us on an unsustainable pathway where taxpayers are eventually likely to revolt.“

He explores some of the issues in this Fortune Magazine column, specifically warning groups demanding revolutionary change like Extinction Rebellion and Greta, that we can’t have it all right now.
“But we also need to recognize that reducing global warming is only one of many things we can do to make the world a better place.

We should also invest in health care, in education, and in technology. But we can’t do it all. Current climate policy is so expensive and will drain so much of potential future gains in GDP, that it will leave less money for policies that will enhance prosperity.
Ultimately, there is a limited amount of money we can spend on making the world a better place. So we need to make choices, and we need to make tradeoffs. The good news is that we have a great deal of data indicating what the best investments are.”
He has long advocated that we should focus on the low hanging fruit, things we should do right now to make this a better world, from fighting tuberculosis, to ensuring clean water, to cleaning up the oceans because betting the farm on green technology and simply pulling the plug on fossil fuels which got us here, for good or bad, just isn’t a workable solution, no matter how much poor Greta screams at us.

Lomborg is promoting his book, so his commentary is ubiquitous right now and if the book intrigues you, have a read of more of his assertions. They should inspire you to buy and read the book and take note.
Indeed, without fossil fuels, as many commentators have pointed out, there are no sustainable energy sources.
Michael Moore’s documentary Planet of the Humans is a catalogue of the mistruths of the green energy lobby and exposes the fact that without fossil fuels, none of these so called green technologies can exist.

There are other voices too, but you may not hear or see them in mainstream media which loves a good scare headline, such as Climate Change To Make Polar Bears Extinct by 2100. It won’t as you can read here.

Nor is Climate Change gonna kill us.

As Robert Lyman notes in this article (BTW if you share any of this you will find Climate Change Cultists start attacking the sources. Shooting the messenger is their first line of defense when you question their faith in the end of the world.)

“Whenever you read a story about how we are headed toward catastrophe if we continue living “business as usual” (meaning if we do not sharply slash carbon dioxide emissions), the reports are almost always referring to one of the IPCC scenarios called Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5, or RCP8.5.
“What you will not be told is that RCP8.5 is an implausible worst-case scenario that was never meant to represent a likely outcome. You also will not be told that scientists have been severely criticizing the use of RCP8.5 as a predictor of doom.

“For example, since 2000 world coal consumption has risen about 30% and is now slowly declining. The RCP8.5 scenario instead projects coal use to double by 2060 and almost triple by 2070.

“This is completely counter to current trends and the predictions of all authoritative sources of global energy analysis; it borders on the impossible. Yet, this is what the “Extinction Rebellion” and journalists who claim we will all soon die rely on.”
He’s not the only one to point this out. Bjorn Lomborg does, if you’ve already clicked on the links earlier you will have seen his arguments, and so do people like Ross Mckitrick a University of Guelph economist who has extensively researched and written about the infringement of ideology into science:
“And you can bet that nowhere in the story will they explain that RCP8.5 is an implausible worst-case scenario that was never meant to represent a likely base case outcome, or that scientists have begun castigating its usage as a prediction of a doomed business-as-usual future.”
Mckitrick, who had a column banned for a while on Facebook because it upset climate cultist so much, has lots of material at his website. It’s deep, it’s complex and its highly technical but plough through and you will get to the meat of the matter.
The point of all this is simple. Worst case models don’t tell the story. The fact is, we have changed, we are changing and we will continue to change. We evolve. At some point there will be more EVs or at least hybrid vehicles than straight gas or diesel but not now, not tomorrow, not next year and maybe not for 25 to 40 years or more.
For things to change as the Climate Cultists demand the result would be economic chaos. That’s what they want, of course, the better to tear down the structures we have now and replace them with structures of their own where they can exert their Totalitarian Left authority.
The world is changing at its own pace and change accelerates when it makes economic sense.
There are many voices of reason supporting the counter to people like David Suzuki, Greta, George Monbiot of the Guardian who wants us all to stop eating meat, stop driving and end fossil fuels overnight.
We need to make time to share their voices and ensure they don’t get shouted down by the mob. That’s why Pitbullmedia.ca is here.

So let’s get to why you clicked on this link: 10 Mistruths About Climate Change You’ve been Force Fed drawn from conclusions of the writers noted and linked above.

1) Climate Change is going to kill us all: The IPCC doesn’t argue this and frankly there’s no evidence. (Lyman)

2) Climate Change is triggering extreme weather. Sure, there are weather events but again the IPCC, finds “limited evidence that climate change or sea-level rise is the direct cause”.
In fact, there has been a 99.7% decline in the death toll from natural disasters since 1931. (Lyman)

3) We’re going to starve. We produce 25% more food than we consume and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization forecasts crop yields increasing 30% by 2050. (Lyman)

4) Poor nations will be hit harder: The IPCC projects the global economy will be 300 to 500% larger than today by 2100. Which means those poor countries will have revenues and income. (Lyman)

5) Our standard of living will decline: “In 1900, the average life expectancy was 32. Today, it has more than doubled to 72. The disparity in health between the rich and poor has reduced, the world is much more literate, child labor has been dropping and we are living in one of the most peaceful times in history. Indoor air pollution, previously the biggest environmental killer, has halved since 1990. Four out of five people were extremely poor in 1900 and today — despite the intense impact of the coronavirus — less than one in five is.” (Lyman)

6) Sea levels will drown Miami  – sea levels have been rising slowly since the last Ice age, and are now rising at about 9 inches per century; where the rate is increasing it is largely due to local factors such as land subsidence (i.e. sinking).

7) Heat waves and Forest Fires are increasing: – Heat waves have been decreasing since the 1930s in the US and globally. Despite all those stories and “scientists” declared those Australian bush fires to be caused by Climate Change. They were cause by mankind. Just like the California fires and the Fort McMurray fires. That’s what happens when you don’t clear brush which acts like kindling. Tony Heller has some great data on forest fires.

8) Hurricanes and Tornados are increasing – The decade just ended is the second quietest for landfalling hurricanes since the 1850s while the number of strong tornados has declined over the last half century. Check out the stats. (Lyman/Heller) and then check out a pre-eminent authority on hurricanes and climate, Judith Curry’s study.

9) Droughts and floods are increasing– There are no statistically significant trends. In fact, there has been a 99.7% decline in the death toll from natural disasters since 1931. (Lyman)

10) Arctic, Antarctic and Greenland Ice are melting and Polar Bears are dying  – The polar ice varies with multidecadal cycles in ocean temperatures. Current levels are comparable to or above historical low levels. Polar bear populations in the Canadian Arctic are well above levels of fifty years ago.