The best answer to many of the claims being made in climate change town halls across Canada this summer is simply: of course!
“Climate change is real,” they say. Of course! Gravity and sunrise are also real. But that doesn’t mean we cause them or we would be better off without them. Climate has been changing since the origin of the atmosphere billions of years ago.
But, “manmade climate change is a fact,” they respond. Of course! It is obviously warmer in urban areas than in the countryside because of man-made impacts. However, the only place where carbon dioxide (CO2) increase causes a temperature increase is in computer models preprogrammed to show exactly that. Records show that temperature increase precedes CO2 increase.
All that should matter to public officials is whether our CO2 emissions are in any way dangerous. Since they are almost certainly not, the $1 billion spent every day across the world on climate finance is mostly wasted.
“Scientific organizations across the planet agree with the climate scare,” say eco-activists and politicians. Of course! Many science entities have strong political and financial motivations for agreeing with political correctness. But none have demonstrated that a majority of their scientist members actually support the alarmist stance. And no reputable worldwide survey has demonstrated that a majority of scientists who research the causes of climate change support the hypothesis that our CO2 emissions will cause dangerous climate change.
Next activists tell us, “2014 was the hottest year on record, until 2015 surpassed even that. The last two decades include the 19 hottest years on record.”
Of course! One would naturally expect the warmest years to be at the top of a warming record. And thank goodness we have been in a gradual warming trend since the depths of the Little Ice Age in the late 1600s.
Regardless, 2014 set the record by about four hundredths of a degree Celsius; 2015 by 16 hundredths of a degree. These amounts are too small to even notice and one is even less than the government’s uncertainty estimates of about eight hundredths of a degree.
But “observations of extreme weather events are increasing. Insurance claims are skyrocketing,” we are told.
Of course! As human habitation increases in areas that were previously sparsely populated, there will naturally be more reports of extreme weather and more related insurance claims. But there is no convincing evidence of a rise in the incidence or severity of extreme weather events in Canada in recent years.
The next alarmist claim? “Sea levels rose 7 inches in the last century!”
Of course! Sea level has been rising since the end of the last glacial period, 15,000 years ago. There has been no recent acceleration, and the current rate of rise is less than one tenth that of 8,000 years ago.
As their climate change claims fail, activists change targets: “The oceans are becoming more acidic!”
Of course! But the change is very small. There are regions in the ocean where pH varies more in a day than the most extreme forecasts for the 21st century, yet ocean life adapts.
Overall, the oceans have never been acidic (i.e., a pH less than 7). Dr. Craig Idso, founder of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change in Tempe, Ariz., explains: “Forecasts of future pH come from unproven, theoretical postulations by models based on absorption of CO2 by the oceans. Regardless, there really is no such thing as a representative pH for the whole ocean. It varies vastly near the coast and in upwelling regions, much more than the projected increase in acidity.”
Climate campaigners are upset that fossil fuel companies support some of the groups who question political correctness on climate change.
Of course! But the amounts being funneled to entities which support the climate scare is enormously greater. The latest Foundation Center report (2010) shows that the California-based William and Flora Hewlett Foundation alone donated over one half billion dollars to climate change programs in 2008, over one hundred times as much as the average annual donation activists complain that the conservative Koch brothers have given to skeptics.
All this would be humorous if it did not have such serious ramifications. In the vain hope of stopping trivial changes in climate, activists and compliant politicians are working hard to force us to switch from coal and other fossil fuels, our least expensive and most abundant power sources, to unreliable and expensive alternatives such as wind and solar power. The public need to ask them, “Why are you doing this? Who are you trying to please?”
Dr. Tim Ball is an environmental consultant and former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg, Manitoba. Tom Harris is executive director of the Ottawa, Canada-based International Climate Science Coalition. ICSC is not right wing (its participants come from across the political spectrum), is not funded by “big oil,” and there are no lobbyists or “shills” for industry of any sort. Tom Harris has never worked as a lobbyist or PR rep for any company or sector.
