Commentary

It’s November Fool’s Day, and while I have selected Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego and Councilwoman Yassimin Ansari to share the award, I am willing to extend the dubious recognition to all individuals who have fallen for the “scientific” belief that human influence has caused the climate to change.

Why Gallego and Ansari?  They travelled to Glasgow, Scotland to attend the UN climate change summit to meet and discuss mitigation with local officials from around the world.  Missing from the reporting in the left-leaning Arizona Republic was the cost to taxpayers for this boondoggle.  What can they possibly contribute?

It’s bad enough that at least 14 cabinet members and other staffers from the Biden administration tagged along with President Biden.

“Build back better.  Blah, blah, blah.  Green economy, Blah, blah blah.  Net zero by 2050, Blah, blah, blah,” exclaimed climate brat Greta Thunberg looking ahead to the Glasgow summit from the Youth4Climate summit in Milan, Italy

“This is all we hear from our so-called leaders.  Words that sound great but so far have not led to action.  Our hopes and ambitions drown in their empty promises,” she added.  “My expectation is that we will hear many, many nice speeches, we will hear many pledges that – if you look into the details – are more or less meaningless, but they just say them in order to have something to say, in order for media to have something to report.”

Just words … yes, however, rich countries have promised to provide poor countries, that are disproportionately affected by climate change, some $100 billion to aid to deal with climate change.  Ansari refers to it as environmental justice.

In my past blog posts I have written about the belief that the activities of humans are the cause of climate change.  I found it interesting that fellow blogger Francis Menton addressed this belief in his blog this week – “The Climate Is Changing And Human Activities Are The Cause: How, Exactly, Do We Know That?”

“That is a statement that is so often-repeated and affirmed that it goes way beyond mere conventional wisdom.  Probably, you encounter some version or another of that statement multiple times per week; maybe dozens of times. Everybody knows that it is true!” Menton notes, adding that to express disagreement it’s a sure way to be labeled a “science denier.”

Is it any wonder that so many intellectually deprived schlubs are taken in by it when those propagandists with the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel Climate Change repeat it over and over again?  Here are a few examples from it’s Sixth Assessment Report:

“Human influence has likely increased the chance of compound extreme events since the 1950s. This includes increases in the frequency of concurrent heatwaves and droughts on the global scale; fire weather in some regions; and compound flooding in some locations.

“Event attribution studies and physical understanding indicate that human-induced climate change increases heavy precipitation associated with tropical cyclones.

“Some recent hot extreme events would have been extremely unlikely to occur without human influence on the climate system.”

When asked, “where’s the proof,” we are told it is covered in “detection and attribution studies” in “scientific“ papers that purport to look at evidence; “a blizzard of highly technical statistical mumbo jumbo,” noted Menton.

It all comes down to fabricated models, the creation of a straw man if you will, followed by the development of methodologies that allow scientists to arrive at attributions they are comfortable with, knowing that most of us see this as “in-the-weeds” stuff.  There is no clear proof.  

Sadly, as I wrote in my October 28, 2021 blog piece, “I’m Happy to Be in the Minority,” a recent survey indicated that 54 percent of Americans admitted that they were influenced by scientists, and believe the disasters – heat spells, hurricanes, and wildfires – are caused by human activities.

Before leaving for the G-20 Meeting in Rome, Biden spoke about the human infrastructure bill with all of its energy fantasies, putting people to work in good-paying union jobs, as we “get off the sidelines on manufacturing solar panels, wind farms and electric vehicles. 

“We’ll build out the first ever national network of 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations all across the country,” he said, adding that we will get credit for buying an electric vehicle … “you’ll be able to go all the way across America on a single tank of gas, figuratively speaking.”

The Council on Foreign Relations issued a statement that the summit “comes as alarm over the earth’s climate reaches a new high … fueling unprecedented disasters worldwide.

“Scientists and UN officials have warned that if governments don’t take drastic action to reduce emissions immediately, much of the world will suffer climate catastrophes, such as devastating sea-level rise, longer and more intense heat waves, and widespread species loss, among other consequences.”

The Council is supposed to be an independent, nonpartisan organization that “takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.”  Reading their statement, I find that hard to believe.

You can expect the president will heavily commit the United States at the Glasgow summit, his first summit since he reentered the Paris Accord.  He will want to be seen as the big man on campus.

Meanwhile, his sweeping “kitchen sink” energy bill has yet to get a vote.

Now, more than ever … may God continue to bless the United States of America.