The Scientific American, among other mainstreams media outlets, such as The New York Times and The Washington Post, are promoting claims made by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), that climate change is causing increased instances of extreme weather, causing billions of dollars of damage. An examination of the press release NOAA put out shows that the agency’s claims are unsubstantiated. Extreme weather does cost Americans billions of dollars each year, but there is no evidence climate change is making weather worse, so it can’t be the cause of higher costs.

In fact, hard data refute NOAA’s claims, suggesting the press release is nothing more than a slick campaign to hype up climate fear Exposing this campaign, climate Scientist Roger Pielke, Jr. Ph.D., Tweeted three years ago:

Former NOAA official admits tabulation of “billion dollar” disasters was/is a shadow campaign to get people to “connect the dots” on climate change and severe weather Why not instead rely on actual data, IPCC, USNCA & peer-reviewed research?

Pielke showed that in a USA Today opinion piece, the deputy administrator for NOAA, Monica Medina, admitted the shadow campaign to fool the media, as the screencap below, shows:

In a 2020 Forbes article, “Everything You Hear About Billion-Dollar Disasters Is Wrong,” Pielke cites data and graphs that refute NOAA’s claims, blowing its effort to “connect the dots” apart, saying:

Are there more or more severe US hurricanes since 1900? No.

Is extreme weather costing us more as a proportion of GDP? No.

Pielke goes on to say that the entire episode “is an embarrassment.”

I worked in a @NOAA cooperative institute for 16 years & it is an important agency, staffed by smart, thoughtful scientists But the “billion dollar” disasters “connect the dots” propaganda is an embarrassment.

Despite the evidence that extreme weather events haven’t become more common or severe during the recent period of modest warming, the “connect the dots” propaganda continues today courtesy of disaster loaded NOAA press releases like the one that resulted this flurry of stories in the mainstream media in recent days, uncritically parroting NOAA’s claims.

Looking at the Scientific American headline, just how does “a record number of billion-dollar disasters show US isn’t ready for climate change”? According to hurricane data, the number of hurricanes making landfall in the United States has declined in recent decades. Hurricanes do billions of dollars more in damage compared to 30 years ago because more people live on hurricane prone coast, building and developing more expensive properties there.

The same holds true for destructive tornadoes and many other types of extreme weather.

As demonstrated by the second graph above, when these weather-related catastrophes flagged by NOAA are correlated with inflation and the U.S. Gross Domestic Product, costs are declining, suggesting NOAA is pushing misinformation and the media is complicit in promoting it.

A recent Climate Realism article, titled Wrong, Mainstream Media, ‘Extreme Weather’ is Fairly Common, Not Rare, shows that despite media claims, so-called “rare” weather events are actually fairly common, and there’s no signal in suggesting that climate change aka “global warming” is making extreme weather events more common.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) agrees with this assessment. In its Sixth Assessment Report, chapter 12, the IPCC says it finds low scientific confidence in the existence of any visible “global warming” effects in the form of weather extremes, for:

• Air Pollution Weather (temperature inversions)
• Aridity
• Avalanche (snow)
• Average rain
• Average Wind Speed
• Coastal Flood
• Drought Affecting Crops (agricultural drought)
• Drought From Lack Of Rain (hydrological drought)
• Erosion of Coastlines
• Fire Weather (hot and windy)
• Flooding From Heavy Rain (pluvial floods)
• Frost
• Hail
• Heavy Rain
• Heavy Snowfall and Ice Storms
• Landslides
• Marine Heatwaves
• Ocean Alkalinity
• Radiation at the Earth’s Surface
• River/Lake Floods
• Sand and Dust Storms
• Sea Level
• Severe Wind Storms
• Snow, Glacier, and Ice Sheets
• Tropical Cyclones

So, what we have is a disagreement between NOAA and the media claim on the one hand, who claim things like “We’re already seeing the effects of global warming in storms/cyclones/floods/coastal erosion/fire weather/sea level/etc.”, and hard data and the IPCC’s assessment, which show just the opposite to be true.

This is yet another shameful instance of the Biden administration’s disinformation campaign on climate change to gin up support for its climate spending and costly net zero policies. Sadly, the mainstream media is failing in their job as government watchdogs, instead they are complicit in spreading climate falsehoods.

Anthony Watts

Anthony Watts is a senior fellow for environment and climate at The Heartland Institute. Watts has been in the weather business both in front of, and behind the camera as an on-air television meteorologist since 1978, and currently does daily radio forecasts. He has created weather graphics presentation systems for television, specialized weather instrumentation, as well as co-authored peer-reviewed papers on climate issues. He operates the most viewed website in the world on climate, the award-winning website wattsupwiththat.com.

From CFACT

By David Wojick 

Six Atlantic shore Governors are begging the Feds to bail them out of a huge looming offshore wind cost overrun. They sent Biden a joint letter asking for a list of relief measures ranging from tax breaks to revenue sharing.

The outcome is far from clear but my guess is the largess is unlikely to appear, especially given the ongoing federal budget battles. Maybe later. However most of the requests also likely require major regulatory changes, which could take years. They might even take legislation which could be never.

But the need is urgent as the offshore developers are demanding immediate power price increases of around 50% lest they leave for better opportunities elsewhere. They can do this because offshore wind is a global boom. Even mid-income developing countries like Indonesia are talking big offshore numbers.

Ironically, it is this boom that is driving some of the sticker-shocking price increases. There is even a shortage of highly specialized crane ships to erect these huge towers. The supply chain is a seller’s market, at least on paper. Rising interest rates are another big driver.

The letter is pretty vague, but there are basically. three kinds of federal relief requested. These are tax credits, revenue sharing, and streamlined permitting. I am sure there is lots of lobbying going on by the developers, as well as the Governors. Unfortunately, it is all secret so the specific issues are well hidden, making the following brief analysis somewhat speculative.

The letter is here: https://cleanpower.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Governors-Offshore-Wind-Letter_ACP.pdf

There look to be two tax credit issues. The first, which the IRS might actually be able to do something about, involves the definition of the renewables energy project that gets the investment tax credits. At present, probably only the generating assembly counts. This likely includes the tower and monopile foundation as well as the turbine generator and enormous blades.

But it may not include the extensive undersea connector cabling, the massive offshore substations, the huge export cabling, and the costly onshore transmission upgrades. These system components make up a sizable fraction of the project cost.

The second issue is the bonus tax credits awarded under the so-called Inflation Reduction Act. This is a 10% credit bump that developers get if they meet certain domestic content specs. Offshore wind already gets a big break under IRA because their content requirement is just half that of all other renewable projects.

As near as I can tell, they want the presently measly requirement to be even less. This is likely because most of the components come from overseas. America has very little specialized offshore component production capability since we have never built any here. Building this kind of industrial capacity will take a long time.

However, since the specific domestic component requirements are in the law, the IRS may have very little leeway, and what they have should require rulemaking. How this works out will be very interesting to watch. It might take legislation, which is uncertain, to say the least.

On revenue sharing, the States want a piece of the billions of dollars developers are paying the Feds in offshore site lease payments. Single sites have paid over a billion. Some sites are at least partially within State waters, but most are not.

Here the question is why taxpayers in, say, Wyoming should, in effect, pay to lower electricity bills in New Jersey? The agency in charge of offshore leasing is the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) in the Interior Dept. They are gung ho for offshore wind, so might not mind sharing revenue if it keeps the project coming.

I have no idea what the legalities are here except they are likely to be complex. BOEM has been doing offshore oil and gas leasing in the Gulf for a long time, so there should be a big body of law to deal with.

Who gets how much is an interesting question, especially for projects set to sell juice to several States. Plus, the States expect to sell some to other States. Given that many of the power purchase contracts at issue are with utilities, not States, maybe they should get the money.

For that matter, if this revenue sharing happened, the Gulf states might want a piece of the oil and gas action. None of this is simple, for sure. (Aside: maybe the Feds should collect royalties on the harvested wind power, like the 18.75% they get on offshore oil production.)

As for speeding up permitting, that is already a hot topic in Congress, but there is no consensus on what it even means, much less how to do it. I think BOEM is already going as fast as it can, ignoring many issues in the process, such as whale deaths. And, of course, the Biden Executive Branch cannot speed up the Judiciary, where a lot of the project delay lies in litigation.

In short, this seemingly simple letter is pointed at some really hairy issues. The talks are going on in secret, and I have yet to see any detailed analysis of the potential policies and ramifications thereof. If the fate of Atlantic offshore wind really depends on taking these hairy steps, then we are in “Nobody knows land” for sure. This cannot be good from the investment point of view so more stocks may drop.

Stay tuned to CFACT to see how this wacky offshore drama plays out. It might be awhile.

Author

David Wojick

David Wojick, Ph.D. is an independent analyst working at the intersection of science, technology and policy. For origins see http://www.stemed.info/engineer_tackles_confusion.html For over 100 prior articles for CFACT see http://www.cfact.org/author/david-wojick-ph-d/ Available for confidential research and consulting.

For more on offshore wind boondoggles, see our ClimateTV page