Did you hear the news? We’re all going to die.

One of the Great Modern Hoaxes of the 20th and 21st centuries has got to be the notion of Global Warming.  This is the meteorological phenomenon that happens when too many politicians talk about ways to take your money at once.  All that exhaled carbon dioxide has been classified by the EPA as a ‘pollutant’ and so the political figures who go on and on about this impending doom are really creating it by the act of opening their mouths and speaking about it.

Oh, wait.  That’s not what Global Warming is… Let me try to correct myself.

Global warming is when the planet overheats because of an excess amount of Carbon Dioxide, a trace gas in the atmosphere.  This gas is so poisonous that it will kill people if you breathe it in pure form, and it will cause the earth’s atmosphere to trap the heat received from the sun, all the ice will melt, our cities will flood and we’re all going to die.

Oh, wait (again).  Some of that was supposed to have happened already.  We had predictions that the Arctic Ocean would be ice-free by 2007.  Then it was supposed to be ice free in 2012.  Well, the Arctic ice situation looks like this as of January 9th, 2018:

This pinkish color is indicative of an ice thickness in excess of 50 cm, or about one and a half feet.  The gray circle around the pole is probably just a circle of missing data, as can happen in some of these surveys.

But it is about the trends, isn’t it?

But what about the trends?  Isn’t ice going away?  Well, yes and no. In the Arctic it is significantly less than it has been during the period from 1981 to 2010. But that datapoint is still in excess of 12 million square kilometers of ice at present, and there is a lot of winter to go.

The Antarctic has seen some different trends take place over the recent years. The overall trend for 30 years in this part of the world is an increasing amount of sea ice (though that did also drop in the last two years rather markedly). But most of you probably never see gloom and doom news about this.

The Compleat Problem of the Polar Bear Population Explosion

One thing that climate change believers hammer over and over is that the elimination of Arctic sea ice will kill polar bears (because “they have to swim farther for their food”).  This is a dubious claim, however.  Polar bears love to eat ringed seals, and the seals prefer in most cases to be on thick ice floes.  However, their own food is likely more sparse in the middle of the Arctic ocean, because this ocean, like our others, is something like a desert when one is away from shore and the water is 10,000 to 12,000 feet deep with no islands.  This is the case for the Arctic ocean.  So while some seals will go far to the north, their food supply is relatively low. The greater amount of food is going to be found in shallower waters, which usually means that there is going to be land nearby for undersea plants and aquatic life to exist in greater quantity.  So the seal population on shore is probably quite high, too, and this leads to some good eating for polar bears.

There seems to be no connection between the polar bear population and diminishing sea ice. In fact, while sea ice levels have certainly shown a drop since at least 1970, the polar bear population has overall increased by some 16 percent, as written here.

There does seem to be some population change by region, with the notable place of a population drop being around the north coast of Alaska and Western Canada.  However, farther east there are two known areas of increasing population, with many further areas showing stability.  This could simply mean that the bears may be moving from region to region.  While they may be following the relocation of Arctic ice floes, it does not necessarily mean they are dying because there is not ice in a given area.

So, the bears do not seem to be in trouble.

So, about all that hot air that’s supposed to kill us…

Politicians and social activists, on the other hand, do seem to be in trouble.  At the time of this writing, Drudge carried three pieces from activists all promising gloom and doom. The only one who is anything close to a scientist is the theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking.  He insisted that the earth will become unbearably hot because of climate change “if something isn’t done” – and he offered the hyperbolic statement that anyone wanting to understand this situation should study or even go to Venus, where a runaway greenhouse effect is credited for that world’s ambient temperature of over 460 degrees C (864 F).

Prince Charles of Wales was our second celebrity to trumpet the impending demise of us all, but he gave us a bit of reprieve.  Whereas in 2009 he gave the world 96 months to “change our ways” or be consumed by heat-death, he has now graciously extended our live expectancy before doom to 35 years from now.  One wonders what he wants to do that will take him 35 years to accomplish.

The third doomsday crier is the one that actually also calls for the solution to this problem. Washington State Democrat Governer Jay Inslee gave the most dire warning of all: 59 days to save our children from global warming.  But he has the solution to the problem as well, so we ought to consider what he says.

You see, the solution to climate change / climate disruption / global warming / alien invasion / medical care / dogs and cats living together – is one thing.

Money.

Your money.  (And the liberal will emphasize that, saying “your money (and not mine)”)

Governor Inslee wants his state to pass a tax on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and other industries.

Inslee’s plan would tax carbon dioxide emissions at $20 a ton in 2019, that would gradually rise at 3.5 percent above inflation each following year. Inslee’s office estimates it will raise $3.3 billion over the next four years.

About $950 million would go toward education programs. The rest would go toward green energy programs and research, water infrastructure, wildfire mitigation. Some money would offset taxes or go to poor families.

This is all very well and good, except for the premise.  The real issue here is a money grab.  This idea sounds great on paper, but there is precious little said that explains how money is going to remove excess CO2 from the air. It does go a long way towards explaining how this politician wants to remove what he considers excess cash from your wallet.

Who is the fool – the fool, or the fool that follows him?

I am obviously not a believer in the climate change religion.  I am also not a climatologist or a meteorologist, though I study these fields fairly extensively as a hobby.  There is only one certain thing I can say about this matter, though, and it is reflected by scientists in virtually every field.

When you think you are totally right, you’re likely to find out you have been totally wrong.

Climate study is an extremely new science.  We have many technical gadgets at our disposal now to help us study the history of climate.  But we also have very limited understanding of weather even in as short term a forecast as 20 minutes, let alone one day, or one year.  As it is winter in the Northern Hemisphere, I ask the reader to consider the accuracy of snowstorm predictions in your area.  How often are they right?  Have you ever noticed how erratic such forecasts can be? We can observe patterns, but I would opine that the book on what climatology is has yet to be written.  We are learning, but it is absurd to say that we can know anything about this field right now.

While I totally agree about the necessity of having a clean environment, this added scree about global warming and impending doom is a sad commentary on our wish not to be responsible.  We have to be frightened into action, but then when it comes clear, as it has been lately, that the climate change hype is really a hoax and a fabrication, the end result might actually be rather unfortunate.  However, everything that longer-term studies show seems to indicate that Mother Earth has regulated herself pretty well with and without human interference, and if anything, it is we who must be a bit wiser about where we settle and live and work, because we create our own problems when we defy nature.  A good way to lose your home is to build it on a coast that risks exposure to a major hurricane, for example. A good way to make forest fires is to refuse to let nature control overgrowth naturally.  We are learning these things. One hopes that we would learn more.

It will make polar bears everywhere very, very happy. Probably the rest of us, too.