Climatists are increasingly complaining about critics dismissing their doomsday claims as false alarms.  Recently I posted on meteorologists upset about negative pushback from their audiences.  [See Enforcing Climate Correctness (Fact Checking)]

The alarmists are calling for greater censorship of growing numbers of studies and perspectives that refute and contradict claims made by “consensus” scientists.  For example Fraser Institute recently published Celebrate Earth Day by burning latest UN climate report.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

Ahead of Earth Day, and not coincidentally, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change  released a summary of its summaries of summaries of a massive unreadable multi-volume report that specifies how the climate is changing and what must be done. Again, not surprisingly, the new plans are more stringent than the already unachievable previous plans.

In presenting the report, which is still not available in its final form, Antonio Guterres, UN secretary-general, called on developed countries to move up their already impossible “net-zero” greenhouse gas emission timelines from 2050 to 2040. He also wants coal use to end entirely by 2030 in developed countries, and wants the developed world on carbon-free electricity generation by 2035, meaning no gas-fired power plants. Yes, only 12 years from now.

If we don’t follow that advice, we’re told, we’ll cruise past the politically-determined target of limiting increased global average temperature to 1.5 Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures. And, we’re told, UN scientists believe we’ll see all kinds of negative trends—droughts, floods, storms, hot weather, cold weather, ocean acidification, glacier retreat (basically all the worst parts of the Bible). Some of this may be true, much is likely untrue, as almost all of it is based on speculative computer models infused with assumptions about how things might work in nature, rather than rigorously measured values that establish how they actually work in nature. Canadians who believe computerization can correct soothsaying will be concerned; those who believe the future is unpredictable will be less so.

But either way, the secretary-general’s net-zero acceleration is a terrible idea that Canada’s governments should ignore, mainly because the side effects of this prescription will be far worse than the ailment. In 2021, RBC estimated it would cost a cool $2 trillion to reach net-zero by 2050. Broken down by year, the estimated cost rivalled spending on our health-care system. And RBC’s estimate assumed continued use of natural gas, which the UN is taking off the table. And even though, through RBC’s rose-coloured glasses, a “nation of electric vehicles, solar-powered houses and hydrogen-fueled airplanes” will help enormously, RBC found even the best-case scenarios for these technologies might only get Canada three-quarters of the way to net-zero—the old net-zero of 2050, not the potential new net-zero of 2040.

Finally, as always, the climate benefits from all of this will be negligible.

Nothing Canada can do to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (already a small and diminishing fraction of global emissions) would be enough to exert a measurable influence on the climate. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Trudeau’s friends in China, the world’s largest emissions emitter, are allowed to emit with abandon. Hopefully, Canadian policymakers will file the new UN report in the voluminous burn bin with other silly UN reports, and with the Trudeau government’s current woes, there’s room for hope.

Ben Pile’s Compilation of Climate False Alarms

Pushback Against Ruinous Climate Policies Takes to the Streets

The growing resistence to elite’s agenda is not only in discourse, but now working people are protesting in the streets.  Brendan O’Neill writes at Spiked The working-class revolt against Net Zero.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

Danish truckers are the latest workers to rise up against eco-authoritarianism.

Danish truckers are the latest workers to join the rebellion against green authoritarianism. Yesterday, they caused ‘road havoc’ in Denmark. They parked their huge hauliers side by side on key roads. Sections of the border with Germany were affected, as were the M11 and M16 around Copenhagen. Roads towards the ferry docks at Helsingor – ‘one of the most important ports in Denmark’ – were also briefly clogged by angry truckers.

Their beef? The government’s plan to introduce a ‘truck tax’ in 2025. As part of its devotion to the cult of Net Zero, the Danish ruling class wants to slash carbon emissions by 70 per cent before 2030. And one way it intends to do that is by imposing a punitive mileage-based eco-tax on the drivers of diesel trucks, in the hope that the financial pressure will become so unbearable that they’ll switch to electric trucks instead.

The ingratitude is staggering.

Truckers are the lifeblood of a modern society. They transport the fuel, food and other goods that are essential to everyday life. They drive alone, for hours, in all weathers, to keep society well stocked. And how do the elites in Copenhagen repay these people who, without fuss or fanfare, bring them everything they need? By slapping them with a new kind of sin tax – the sin in this case being to drive a vehicle that the eco-minded consider to be ‘dirty’ and ‘polluting’.

No wonder the truckers are angry. Others are, too. Dutch farmers have been in a state of revolt for a couple of years now. They’re raging against their government’s plans to cut nitrogen emissions by half before 2030, which would entail farmers getting rid of vast numbers of their livestock and possibly lead to the closure of 3,000 farms.

The nitrogen-slashing policy was drawn up under pressure from the eco-oligarchs in the EU, who are heaping pressure on all member states to hurry toward that secular heaven of Net Zero. In Ireland, too, farmers are simmering over government plans to cut ‘farm emissions’ by up to 30 per cent in order that Ireland might achieve its ‘climate goals’. They’re worried that 58,000 farm jobs could be lost to the elites’ slavish devotion to the Net Zero ideology.

Elsewhere, cab drivers and hauliers in England have blocked roads over the introduction of ‘clean air’ taxes on anyone who drives an allegedly dirty vehicle. Some Londoners have taken direct action against the ugly bollards erected in Low Traffic Neighbourhoods to discourage driving, and against the cameras that are being installed to monitor the movements of ‘high-pollution’ vehicles.

And let’s not forget that the great gilets jaunes revolt in France of 2018 to 2020 started out as an uprising against a hike in fuel tax that was introduced as part of the government’s plan to ‘reduce greenhouse-gas emissions’. Yet another Net Zero assault on working people’s pockets. The French knew very well that this eco-punishment was an act of Jupiterian overreach by Emmanuel Macron.

And Danish truckers, Dutch farmers, British cabbies and other working-class
blasphemers against the religion of Net Zero clearly feel similarly
about the green policies being imposed on them.

These uprisings throw into sharp relief the elitism of the climate-change ideology. They expose the class element in the green tyranny. It is increasingly clear that where the pursuit of Net Zero might benefit the elites, providing them with a sense of moral mission as they tackle the fantasy apocalypse of their own fever dreams, it is incredibly destructive for working-class communities. Our rulers’ fretful turn against industrial society threatens to decimate jobs in ‘dirty’ industries and further raise the cost of energy and driving, leaving the hard-up even harder up.

Look On The Bright Side

There is a brighter side to emphasize in contrast to the climatists’ gloom and doom. Zachary Emmanuel summarizes the alterrnative messaging in his Countere article How climate change could benefit life on earth. Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

A world warmer by a few degrees Celsius, far from dealing a death blow to humanity, presents several opportunities for the flourishing of life: a world-altering trading passage will finally open, global food agricultural production could rise, and we will even see the return of mega-lakes such as Lake Chad in Africa. This certainly depends on the degree of warming: for example, a 2.5 degree-warmer earth could even be considered ideal, whereas a 5 degree-warmer earth would present significantly more challenges. Even then, I have no doubt humanity would be able to survive and succeed, as it has through crises in our time and in the past.

This is an unpopular opinion. In fact, an AI like ChatGPT literally can’t tell you one positive benefit of marginal global warming, as it said when I asked: “I’m sorry, but I cannot provide you with reasons why an increase in temperature by 1 degree Fahrenheit would be beneficial to biodiversity, nature, or human society. Climate change and global warming, which are largely driven by human activities, have already caused significant impacts on the planet…” yadda yadda yadda.

There will be negative effects of global warming. But scientists and “experts” explicitly ignore any positive effects of global warming. Dissident climatologists like Dr. Judith Curry, former chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, have stated this is because entire academic careers, professional recognition, and media spotlights are linked to one’s degree of alarmism over climate change. (This is also because intense fear over climate change makes a population more willing to accept radical measures.)

Well, that’s why we have Countere. Here are some reasons why you should look forward to the future—or at least, no longer be so scared of it.

Climate change is not a new phenomenon. The Earth has been much hotter and colder before. In fact, over the 4-billion-year lifespan of the Earth, warmer periods are correlated with the flourishing of life, while colder temperatures are tied to mass extinctions. The impacts of global warming on our civilization will be complex and unpredictable; while it will undoubtedly cause harm to some, we must recognize its potential opportunities.

We only get one side of the story—the one meant to intimidate us
and convince us that the only way to prevent climate Armageddon
is to vote for a certain political party or to radically remake our society.

Far too often, global warming is viewed as the most critical environmental action of our time, or even cited a reason not to have children, when in reality, we are contending with just as grave issues: destructive mono-cropping practices, glysophate-containing pesticides, micro-plastics in the ocean, and a spiritual crisis threatening all of humanity and to sever our connection to nature. And that’s to say nothing of the game of nuclear chicken that our warmongering foreign policy elites play on a daily basis.

You are being lied to about climate change.

Global warming does not mean the end of the world. It means a new world with new challenges. We should accept these challenges with a stoic mindset and a positive attitude. By embracing new ideas, technologies, and approaches to global warming, we can create a better future for ourselves and our planet.

via Science Matters

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May 18, 2023 at 09:49AM