The Democratic Party is on the verge of imposing a climate change agenda on the American people that will result in massive energy price increases, brown outs, decreased access to clean water and even war. The proposed legislation – passed off as infrastructure upgrades – aims to achieve carbon-free power generation by 2035. This can only be accomplished by the overreliance on fickle energy sources such as wind and solar power.
Anyone who opposes this agenda is immediately personally attacked as a “climate denier” or as an ignoramus who does not believe in “science” and “data.” Yet anyone who asks what the science and data show is immediately given the response that “98% of scientists believe human behavior is changing the climate.” This is like telling an atheist that God exists because 98% of the theologians say it is true. It is not an evidence-based argument.
The actual science behind the climate change agenda is sketchy. Basically, it states that human behavior is changing the climate by producing more naturally occurring greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and hydrofluorocarbons. Yet, there is no reproducible scientific experiment that can replicate this thesis. Instead, scientists who support the climate change thesis rely on statistical modelling that is dubious at best.
The carbon dioxide concentration in our atmosphere is so low that it is measured in parts per million. Furthermore, according to the data of the climate scientists themselves, it has only increased by 100 parts per million in the past century. How can this possibly change the temperature by two degrees to five degrees Fahrenheit as the climate change scientists are claiming? Where is the scientific model that replicates this phenomenon? Where is the experiment in which carbon dioxide is injected into a geodesic dome increasing the carbon dioxide concentration from 300 parts per million (the concentration one century ago) to 400 parts per million (the concentration now) that resulted in the temperature in the dome rising by at least two degrees Fahrenheit? The answer is that there is no such experiment because what the climate change scientists are asserting is thermodynamically impossible.
Could methane and hydrofluorocarbons be the culprit? Unlikely. The concentration of both methane and nitrous oxide are so low that it is measured in parts per billion while the concentration of hydrofluorocarbons is so low it is measured in parts per trillion!
Fortunately, some reputable scientists are finding the courage to fight back. Physicist Steven E. Koonin has recently published a book, Unsettled, debunking the hysteria of the climate change Cassandras with blunt scientific facts. Dr. Koonin is not some MAGA hat wearing apostate; rather he was the undersecretary for science under the Obama administration in the U.S. department of energy. Bjorn Lomborg, the former director Danish government’s Environmental Assessment Institute in Copenhagen, has written a book entitled False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Cost us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet. MIT meteorologist, Professor Richard S. Lindzen, has stated “The relationships of modest warming to coming catastrophe are blatantly false,” and warned against “indoctrinating a generation of young people with foolishness.”
Yet Biden-appointed Climate Czar John Kerry is flying around the planet in his private jet asserting that climate change is an “existential crisis” even though he is unable to stop China or India from building more carbon dioxide producing coal-fired energy plants. These countries’ leaders know that the cheap energy coal provides will lift their people from centuries of grinding poverty and afford them the same middle class life style we Americans enjoy. Even if one agrees with the climate change agenda, there is no sense to moving to carbon-free power generation if China and India refuse to comply.
Since President Biden’s election, gasoline prices have spiked 30% and the fossil fuel exchanged traded fund XLE (a collection of energy stocks such as Chevron, Exxon-Mobile etc.) has increased 40%. If gasoline hits $5.00 a gallon, the oil companies will be coining money while our poorer citizens are economically decimated.
Thanks to President Trump, American finally achieved energy independence. But President Biden’s agenda, such as prohibiting the Keystone Pipeline and allowing bureaucratic hurdles for more oil exploration, risks our becoming energy dependent again, especially on Middle Eastern oil. And if another OPEC oil embargo, as was imposed in 1973, causes a huge spike in gasoline prices and ensuing unrest, our incompetent ruling class may be unable to cling to power without starting another senseless unwinnable war. China and Russia now have larger stakes in the Mideast and this could lead to a nuclear confrontation. This is the real existential threat of the climate change agenda.
The environmentalist movement has been hugely successful. In the 1960s, our major cities were covered with smog. Lake Erie had so much oil pollution that in caught on fire. Long Island Sound was not much better. But thanks to the environmentalists, Long Island Sound is now replete with herons, egrets, teals, mergansers, rails, sandpipers and oystercatchers. My wife and I even saw a Glossy Ibis while birding at Hammonasset State Park! But now the climate change agenda advocates have become so dogmatic that those who disagree with them risk losing their jobs via a social media storm – the twenty-first century equivalent to burning at the stake.
Cheap energy is the main reason human life span doubled in the twentieth century. Machines rather than human labor exponentially increased food production. Houses could be heated and cooled decreasing disease. Goods could be moved rapidly by trucks, ships and airplanes. Clean water could be pumped everywhere, improving sanitation and causing infant mortality rates to plummet. Imposing the climate change agenda will bring this to an abrupt end, except for the rich and powerful, who are already purchasing fossil fuel powered generators for their houses in anticipation of what may come. Hopefully, the American people will wake up stop this agenda before it is too late.