Commentary
With so much going on in politics, other topics of interest wound up on my stack of stuff. Just as I was beginning to write about the latest global story of fraud in the selling of climate change, another climate fraud was highlighted in my daily newspaper, the left-leaning Arizona Republic.
First, from Frances Menton’s Manhattan Contrarian, comes his essay, “The Greatest Scientific Fraud of All Time,” in which he writes about the altering of sea level rise data by NASA, designed “to scare the bejeezus out of the people.”
Before I continue, you need to know that Menton is more than your ordinary blogger, who I incidentally quote from time to time, and who lists Kramerontheright in his blog’s recommended reading block.
Menton received a B.A. in economics and mathematics summa cum laude from Yale and his J.D. cum laude from Harvard.
Since 2012, about a third of his blogs have dealt with the subject of climate change broadly defined, with an emphasis on formal science methods over what passes as climate “science.” As the president of American Friends of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, Menton keeps a close eye on the latter, especially in academia.
In his latest piece on the altering of sea level data. He notes that the increase of temperature has been so insignificant that it’s not scary, so he writes that bureaucrats and leftists came up with Plan B, a rising sea level.
Referring to hundreds of human-caused global warming stories … you’ve seen them … they show melting ice flows and usually with polar bears as part of a new narrative.
I don’t want to get into the weeds here, with measurements in millimeters, but I found it interesting that Menton compared the sea height variation data provided to him by a knowledgeable reader with that of NASA, 1993-2023.
After the reader challenged NASA, the agency’s chart was mysteriously altered. If you are curious, I invite you to see the charts in Manhattan Contrarian on line with the title above.
“Is all of this anything to be scared about? Absolutely not,” writes Menton. “Linear sea level rise of about 3.3 mm/yr. is consistent with what has been going on throughout history since the last ice age and implies a rise of around one foot by 2100.”
The Other Story
I was flabbergasted … okay, disappointed … when I saw the double banner headline across the top of Page 2A in the Arizona Republic – “Bill Nye: Slowing climate change means world working together.” For two reasons, Bill Nye, commonly referred to as the “Science Guy,” has been pegged a fraud for some time, and the fact that the Republic’s climate reporter, Joan Meiners, not only wrote this half-page plus article, but that her editor okayed it.
To devote 26 inches of copy – that’s a lot for a newspaper– to Nye, whose reputation has been criticized, is one thing, but to use it to promote his television series, “The End is Nye,” in which he offers a “scientific blueprint” for surviving the “most epic disasters imaginable,” is an undeniable crock.
Meiners describes Nye as “one of America’s most beloved and trusted science ambassadors.” Who says?
She also gushed over his appearance at Arizona State University, which she said was all about bringing attention, in a joking way, to the real threat of climate change. Yet, Nye is “concerned that people don’t fully understand climate change is not a joke.”
If it’s not a joke, why does Meiners tell us that “it’s a fine science communication line he’s walking?” adding that “with his comedic on-stage presence and background, attendees could be forgiven for not fully taking every one of his warnings seriously.”
Some years ago, Nye targeted the elderly as climate deniers, saying that climate science will start to advance when old people start to “age out.” How’s that for trying to win people over to your cause?
May God continue to bless the United States of America.
