In
Part
One and Part
Two of “Climate Change and the Great
Manure Crisis”, I talked about the apocalyptic portrayal of the climate
“crisis” and the uncertainty of actual climate science. Today, in Part Three, I'll ask if there's
really a crisis at all.
"...in this year was a very strong hail and
wind, as never seen before, and it did great damage, [...] and so many women,
which it's said to have made the hail and the wind, were burned according to
the law."
"... all the vineyards were totally destroyed by
frost … the same with the precious grain which had already flourished … everything
froze, [something] which had not happened as long as one could remember,
causing a big rise in price … as a result, pleading and begging began among the
peasants, [who] questioned why the authorities continued to tolerate the
witches and sorcerers destruction of the crops. Thus, the prince-bishop
punished these crimes, and the persecution began in this year."
~ Bavarian
and Swiss chronicles, circa 1445 and 1626 respectively
“What I would challenge you to do is to put a lot of effort into trying
to see whether there’s a legal way of throwing our so-called leaders into jail
because what they’re doing [re: climate change]is a criminal act.”
“You idiots ... The planet's on fucking fire!'”
~ Bill Nye, the
(alleged) 'Science Guy', 2019
Within
the context of our own era, it's hard to see the similarity between these four
examples, except that they all assign blame for climate change.
After
all the first two, although originating two centuries apart, are based on late
medieval superstition -- and the last two on what we think of as modern
science, right? Never mind that two centuries from now our own progeny will
look back and scoff at our silliness as we scoff at those that came before us.
And so, it is and so it will ever be, as Edward Harrison explains in “Masks
of the Universe: Changing Ideas on the Nature of the Cosmos”.
“In every age people believe that their
universe contains all that is believable and real. Wise men in their palaces,
temples, academies, and universities reject the rest as opinion and illusion.
Forget all the
superstitions of the uneducated and the myths your parents taught you; for
behold! Here is the true universe, awesome, vast, and wondrous.
The world is an
immense tug of war with gods and demons pulling on a giant serpent; the world is
the handiwork of almighty gods whom we must obey and worship or reap the
misfortune of their wrath; the world is a finite concentric unity of
crystalline spheres; the world is a dance of atoms and waves, all else is
outworn myth and discredited theory. The scene is timeless. Yesterday there is
a false image, today the true face.”
And
so, the TRUE face of the world today, is catastrophe in the form of climate
change. But is it really?
In
a Tweet
on February 22nd, Environment Minister Catherine McKenna claimed
that:
“Canadians
are feeling the impacts of climate change on their health, from deadly
heatwaves in Quebec last summer to asthma-inducing smoke from B.C. forest fires.”
The
trouble is that the RCMP had already announced that 29 of the 2018 BC forest
fires were a result of arson, and since the RCMP don't release speculative
figures, those 29 fires were only the ones the police were absolutely sure were
arson.
There
were no doubt many more the police believed but could not substantiate as
arson. And arson, according the best science available, is not a function of
climate change.
Further,
it
is well understood within forest management circles that the super-fires we
are experiencing now are mainly the result of decades of reactive forest
mismanagement.
Bill
Nye the science guy assures us in measured scientific tones that “The planet's
on fucking fire! By the end of this century, if emissions keep rising, the
average temperature on Earth could go up another four to eight degrees.”
That's
all very scary, except no. The earth is not on fire and not even the
IPCC gives any credence to a rise in temperature of between 4 to 8 degrees
(it claims 1.5 to 2 degrees)
Bill
Nye is simply regurgitating alarmism of the most unscientific sort. It's the
same sort of false narrative that has led many people to believe that fringe
ideas like the runaway greenhouse effect leading to a Venusian
life-extinction is actually on our future menu.
This
kind of unsubstantiated and unscientific fable-making has seeped into public
perception by means of repetition … and is flogged to death by climate
activists, many of whom have no scientific background at all.
Take
Russ Francis for example, advertising his academic bona fides as
“third-generation vegetarian,” in what amounts to a rant against LNG. His
article is chock full of alarmist hyperbole like “truly terrifying updates to the looming climate catastrophe,” and “'cascading chaos' of climate change,”
and the old standby, “unprecedented
global threat”.
Where does this all
come from? Certainly not objective,
questioning, ever-changing science.
And
have you ever noticed that the advertised effects of global warming are 100%
negative? Stop and think for a moment.
Does it seem reasonable, on a balance of probabilities, that climate
change, regardless of its cause or severity, only has bad effects? Does that
seem reasonable to you? Is it even mathematically possible? But if there are good effects why don't we
ever hear about them?
Catherine
McKenna, in
a tweet replying to Don Cherry, emoted – with no scientific basis – that he
“might want to think about all those kids
who might not have outdoor rinks to play on some day.”
That
would be sad for hockey-playing kids if there were the slightest indication
that Canada would have no ice someday, and there's not. But let's look at the positive corollaries to
a warmer Canada. Longer growing seasons, more readily accessible energy and
minerals, more agricultural land available, more CO2 fertilization, more
livable terrain. Can nothing good ever come of these things? And that's only in Canada.
Worldwide,
the situation is the much the same.
While
there are of course negative effects of climate change, Dr. Ranga Myneni
of Boston University, on the basis of 30 years of satellite data, has shown
that in that time 31 per cent of the global vegetated area of the planet has
become greener and 3 per cent has become less green. Not only that, but there has
been a net 14 per cent increase in productivity of ecosystems and all
vegetation types.
Most
notably, the Sahara Desert is becoming greener thanks to CO2 fertilization –
not 'may become, according to an imperfect climate model based on uncertain
data – but actually is, as we speak.
So
not only is the world not on fire … but weather disasters, including droughts,
floods, and hurricanes are NOT getting more intense or more frequent … and the
earth is in fact becoming greener. And
yet the cherry-picking of negative factoids and horrific prognoses continue
apace, both in the activist community and the media.
And
of course politicians in Canada are piling on the climate bandwagon as well,
with the federal Liberals and NDP competing via Bills to grab attention by
declaring a pre-election “climate emergency”.
This is a move that will achieve nothing
in the way of policy, but signal to all the world that the sky is falling and
WE MUST PANIC NOW. And so I ask, "Why?"
Stay
tuned for Part Four
— Scott Anderson, resides in
Vernon, and provides comments and analysis from a bluntly conservative point of
view.
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