Things I Know to be True About Climate Change

This is the first of a three-part series on climate change, with the other two installments appearing tomorrow and on Wednesday.  I’ve written numerous commentaries on the topic and have concluded that like most things in America, we have a choice.  One can choose to accept the fact-based and fully sourced, “Things I know to be true about the climate change debate,” below, or someone can accept CNN’s agenda-driven version of the debate – the choice is yours.

• Planet earth has been alternately warming and cooling for 4 ½ billion years.
• The planet has experienced extremes in climate during its 4 ½ billion years of existence, e.g., there have been periods when the entire planet was covered in ice, miles deep in some places and periods when there was little or no ice on earth at all.
• No one has yet to identify what the ideal temperature for planet earth is nor during which geological period that ‘ideal temperature’ was supposed to have occurred.
• It is true that humans exert a growing but physically small warming influence on the planet; however, deficiencies in peer reviewed climate data challenge mankind’s ability to untangle the response to human influences on climate from the many poorly understood natural influences on climate.
• When measuring historical climate data, such as temperatures, hottest days, sea level, carbon dioxide, snowpack, glacier recession, volcanic, hurricane & typhoon activity, wildfire frequency, etc., climate activists always begin with a baseline that fits their agenda, for example they’ll use carbon dioxide levels from the Mesozoic period, ocean temperatures beginning in the Middle Ages, and hurricane intensity from 1950.
• Consequently, the current state of climate science is insufficient to make useful projections about how the climate will change in the coming decades, much less what effect our actions will have on it.
• There is no accepted standard for creating climate models; every agency (NOAA, NASA, IPCC, etc.) designs its own.  As a result, there is significant disagreement among them with many even contradicting each other.
• True scientific research does not rely on the biased and agenda-driven government or UN press releases for its information; rather scientists seeking facts review the actual written reports and then publish peer reviewed studies.  ‘Peer reviewed’ being the operative phrase.
• The green movement is predicated on the premise that wind and solar are renewable.  But energy requiring the removal, refining, and transportation of billions upon billions of tons of minerals from the earth is not “renewable.”
• It makes absolutely no sense to eliminate reliable, safe, and economically feasible energy sources, i.e., fossil fuels, before securing other reliable, safe, and economically feasible energy sources to replace them.
• Solar photovoltaic (PV) plants, wind farms and electric vehicles (EVs) require far more minerals than fossil fuel- based sources.  Consequently, the shift to green energy is set to drive a huge increase in the requirements for lithium nickel, cobalt, copper, aluminum, and dozens of other rare earth elements in a world where the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) controls 85% of the planet’s rare earth minerals and where the United States is 100% dependent on the CCP for the majority of them.
• As a result, there is a glaring mismatch between the world’s strengthened climate ambitions and the availability of the critical minerals that are essential to realizing those ambitions.
• The world will need 75% more food by the year 2050 – so where do you think the third world nations are going to put their resources, building solar panels and windmills, or feeding their citizens?
• To date, there is no agreed upon safe, economical, and pollution-free method to dispose of the obsolete solar panels and wind turbines.
• Policy makers and the public may wish for comfort and certainty in their climate science, but at this point in time, the science is replete with uncertainties.  And considering the astronomical costs associated with unproven energy sources, and the fact that China, the world’s biggest polluter of greenhouse gases has failed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions one iota since the Paris Accords were signed, while its president, Xi Jin Ping didn’t even attend the 2021 Glasgow Climate Change Conference, should tell us all we need to know about Chinese intentions. Therefore, any undertaking to revamp this nation’s, much less the world’s energy sector should proceed fully mindful of that reality.
• And lastly, it is easier to make a square circle than to have a fact-based discussion with a “true believer.”