Climate change projects spend enormous sums
with no effect. They have not only been a waste of money, they have done
real harm.
Some trillions
of hard-earned taxpayer dollars have been spent to combat global warming over
the last three decades. Has the expenditure of all of this money reduced global
temperatures from where they would have otherwise been? No, at least not to a
measurable degree.
The major
governments of the world have undertaken a public policy which to date has cost
far more than any benefits. The rebuttal by the advocates of all of this
government spending is to say it is nothing more than a down payment on what
needs to be done and the benefits will accrue to future generations.
British
scientist Valentina
Zharkova and her team at Northumbria University in the United Kingdom have
produced a new model enabling unprecedentedly
accurate predictions of the sun’s solar cycle.
She recently
presented her findings in an address to the Royal Astronomical Society, Heartbeat
of the Sun from Principal Component Analysis and prediction of solar activity
on a millenium timescale.
The model predicts that a coming periodic reduction in
the sun’s magnetic radiation will soon lead to major global cooling.
For
many decades, it has been known that a decrease in sun spot activity is
associated with lower temperatures. Ms. Zharkova argues that we will soon enter
a new “Maunder Minimum,” which refers to the period from 1645 to 1715 when the
sun’s surface ceased producing its heat-releasing magnetic storms. This period
coincided with the Little Ice Age — a time of much cooler temperatures and crop
failures.
A number of
other respected scientists have also argued that changes in solar output are
more important than changes in carbon dioxide in regulating the earth’s
temperature. During the last couple of weeks, since the release of the Zharkova
study, the debate has been quite fierce between those who believe that solar
changes trump carbon dioxide and vice versa (see her interview
with the Global Warming Policy Forum).
Remember, “climate science” is not a unified field of
study like quantum physics, but a combination of many different disciplines
from the people who study tree rings, ice cores, atmospheric gases, cloud
science or solar output.
One climate
scientist, commenting on the debate, observed that mankind might luck out with
the heat-trapping effects of carbon dioxide, offsetting the temperature decline
coming from the expected solar minimum. It may be that the solar folks are
right, or the carbon dioxide folks are right or that neither is right.
What do we know?
We know that extreme global warming doomsayers, like Michael Mann (of “hockey
stick” fame), were telling world leaders if they did not make massive changes
in carbon-dioxide emissions by 2002 — that it would be too late. Despite the fact
that it is now “too late,” Mr. Mann and others are still preaching the same old
gospel — and I expect they will continue to do so until the government grants
and other monies run out.
We do know that
those like Al Gore, who told us that Arctic sea ice would be gone by now and
that Antarctica ice would be greatly diminished, were wrong (ships still cannot
sail the Arctic Ocean and Antarctica ice is now covering a record amount since
the measurements were first taken).
We do know that not one of the climate change models
predicted the 16-year pause in rising temperatures and all of them overstated
the rise in temperature that did occur.
We do know that
rise in carbon dioxide to date has been largely beneficial, with the earth
getting greener (carbon dioxide is plant fertilizer).
What we also know is the trillions spent on global warming
mitigation schemes slowed real economic growth through higher energy prices and
taxes worldwide, particularly in Europe and to a lesser extent in America, thus
leaving millions more people in poverty, without jobs and economic opportunity.
The beneficiaries of all this spending were
the crony capitalists of the ruling class, including all of the researchers who
have been funded to “prove” global warming is a massive immediate threat,
caused by humans, and that humans have the tools at hand to stop it.
If your research
happens to show something else, you are immediately attacked, not in a calm,
objective manner, but in a rather vicious manner, as Professor Zharkova has
found in the last couple of weeks. The scientific and political establishment
has a vested interest in silencing the sun output theorists, because if they
are right, many others’ funding and pride are at risk.
What is clear is
that much is still unknown — let alone how to stop the newly labeled “climate
change.” From the end of the Little Ice Age around 1850, temperatures and sea
levels have been gradually rising, and mankind has been dealing with it quite
well through adaptation.
Old structures
and piers are replaced as they wear out with stronger and higher structures.
Air conditioning is invented. And all of this happens almost automatically
without anyone noticing.
The Germans and others are giving up their “renewables”
and moving back to coal because of cost. They would have been better off doing
nothing to “stop climate change.” Until mankind knows far more than now, the
safest and best course of action is to do nothing — other than, as always,
adapt.
Richard W.
Rahn is chairman of Improbable Success Productions.