Alex Mills
By Alex Mills
A paper regarding the National Climate Assessment blamed you and me and our love affair with fossil fuels for all the bad weather – droughts, floods, rising tides and the like – because of the dramatic increase in temperatures.
Dramatic?
The report admits that temperatures have increased only 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1895.
The big increases are projected – and the word projected should be underlined and in bold type – to come in the future. “U.S. temperatures will continue to rise, with the next few decades projected to see another 2 degree F to 4 degree F of warming in most areas. The amount of warming by the end of the century is projected to correspond closely to the cumulative global emissions of greenhouse gases up to that time: roughly 3 degrees F to 5 degrees F under a low emissions scenario involving substantial reduction in emissions after 2050 … and 5 degree F to 10 degree F for a higher emissions scenario assuming continued increases in emissions,” according to the report.
The projected increase in temperatures by a United Nations’ study in 2007 already has been proven to be too high.
The report issued on May 6 by the Federal National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee is 800 pages long and much of my analysis has been limited to news reports and the 23-page Executive Summary.
Newspapers focused on the predicted catastrophic impact the projected rising temperatures would have on the environment and even the health of living things. The Wall Street Journal had a large picture of flooding in New Jersey in 2012 over the headline “U.S. Warns on Climate Change.” USA TODAY had a picture of dry lake with huge cracks in the soil and the headline “Climate Costs Already Hit Home.”
Of course, television played up the visual of weather disasters with the vocals that this will be mild compared to what’s to come if we don’t change our evil addiction to fossil fuels.
“Climate change is already affecting the American people,” according to the first sentence in the Executive Summary.
“Certain types of weather events have become more frequent and/or intense…,” the report continues, but they never substantiate this claim.
“The climate change of the past 50 years is due primarily to human activities, predominantly the burning of fossil fuels,” the report states, but again it offers no proof, except to say the using fossil fuels creates greenhouse gas emissions.
The report is close to a carbon copy of the UN study released last year. It spends 800 pages pointing out all of the negatives and barely mentions the positives of a warmer climate, and there are many positives that will be presented in a future column.
Those who live in Texas know that the weather can be unpredictable, cruel and deadly at times. North and West Texas face the third year of a serious drought and some parts of the state had their first 100-degree day a week or so ago.
Just about everyone knows that the climate changes constantly.
However, just about everyone remembers the days before our homes and automobiles were air conditioned. Our standard of living will decline without fossil fuels. I haven’t found the section where the good old boys and girls with the Federal National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee address these issues. They just try to scare the public with their computer models and projections of what might happen under certain scenarios.
Alex Mils is President of the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers. The opinions are solely of the author.
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