If you are like me, you are desirous of getting to the bottom of the “truth” regarding the issue of “climate change.” Pardon my skepticism when it comes to various proclamations of doom from the same entities that have lied to us on occasions too numerous to count. From those for whom massive fortunes have been made by stoking the flames of climate alarmism.
As a child, I recall reading forecasts of catastrophic changes due to a coming ice age. Growing up in the Midwest and experiencing harsh winters firsthand, I truly hoped that these forecasts were wrong.
I vividly recall the summer of 1980, when temperatures in the particular region of Kansas in which I resided at the time exceeded 112 degrees for weeks at a time. I recall seeing scorched lawns and swarms of grasshoppers along my route as I walked to the courthouse at which I was working at the time. I also recall driving to-and-from a college that was 20 plus miles away in a vehicle with no air conditioning to purse some prerequisites for a graduate degree during that same summer.
It is safe to say that when it comes to climate alarmism, I am skeptical. I confess that I quickly lose respect for those who foster a cause by corrupting applicable language, such as those who equivocally assert that climate change (formerly referred to as “global warming”) equals climate catastrophism. I know of no adult who denies climate change. However, I know many individuals who have serious doubts about climate catastrophism.
Myron Ebell (director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute) and Steven J. Milloy, unwilling to accept claims of climate catastrophism, published a post on the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) blog titled “Wrong Again: 50 Years of Failed Eco-pocalyptic Predictions:”
They state that doomsayers have been predicting climate and environmental disaster since the 1960s. They also assert that the predictions continue. In that post, they state, “[N]one of the apocalyptic predictions with due dates as of today have come true.” They offer, as proof, a collection of notably wild predictions from notable people in government and science. Forty-one of which are as follows:
1. 1967: Dire Famine Forecast By 1975
2. 1969: Everyone Will Disappear In a Cloud Of Blue Steam By 1989
3. 1970: Ice Age By 2000
4. 1970: America Subject to Water Rationing By 1974 and Food Rationing By 1980
5. 1971: New Ice Age Coming By 2020 or 2030
6. 1972: New Ice Age By 2070
7. 1974: Space Satellites Show New Ice Age Coming Fast
8. 1974: Another Ice Age?
9. 1974: Ozone Depletion a ‘Great Peril to Life’
10. 1976: Scientific Consensus Planet Cooling, Famines imminent
11. 1980: Acid Rain Kills Life In Lakes
12. 1978: No End in Sight to 30-Year Cooling Trend
13. 1988: Regional Droughts (that never happened) in 1990s
14. 1988: Temperatures in DC Will Hit Record Highs
15. 1988: Maldive Islands will Be Underwater by 2018 (they’re not)
16. 1989: Rising Sea Levels will Obliterate Nations if Nothing Done by 2000
17. 1989: New York City’s West Side Highway Underwater by 2019 (it’s not)
18. 2000: Children Won’t Know what Snow Is
19. 2002: Famine In 10 Years If We Don’t Give Up Eating Fish, Meat, and Dairy
20. 2004: Britain will Be Siberia by 2024
21. 2008: Arctic will Be Ice Free by 2018
22. 2008: Climate Genius Al Gore predicts Ice-Free Arctic by 2013
23. 2009: Climate Genius Prince Charles says we Have 96 Months to Save World
24. 2009: UK Prime Minister says 50 Days to “Save The Planet From Catastrophe”
25. 2009: Climate Genius Al Gore moves 2013 Prediction of Ice-Free Arctic to 2014
26. 2013: Arctic Ice-Free by 2015
27. 2014: Only 500 Days before “Climate Chaos”
28. 1968: Overpopulation Will Spread Worldwide
29. 1970: World Will Use Up All its Natural Resources
30. 1966: Oil Gone in Ten Years
31. 1972: Oil Depleted in 20 Years
32. 1977: Department of Energy Says Oil will Peak in 1990s
33. 1980: Peak Oil In 2000
34. 1996: Peak Oil in 2020
35. 2002: Peak Oil in 2010
36. 2006: Super Hurricanes!
37. 2005 : Manhattan Underwater by 2015
38. 1970: Urban Citizens Will Require Gas Masks by 1985
39. 1970: Nitrogen buildup Will Make All Land Unusable
40. 1970: Decaying Pollution Will Kill all the Fish
41. 1970s: Killer Bees!
Nine additional failed predictions (via Real Climate Science) are included below to make it an even 50 for the number of failed eco-pocalyptic doomsday predictions over the last 50 years:
42. 1975: The Cooling World and a Drastic Decline in Food Production
43. 1969: Worldwide Plague, Overwhelming Pollution, Ecological Catastrophe, Virtual Collapse of UK by End of 20th Century
44. 1972: Pending Depletion and Shortages of Gold, Tin, Oil, Natural Gas, Copper, Aluminum
45. 1970: Oceans Dead in a Decade, US Water Rationing by 1974, Food Rationing by 1980
46. 1988: World’s Leading Climate Expert Predicts Lower Manhattan Underwater by 2018
47. 2005: Fifty Million Climate Refugees by the Year 2020
48. 2000: Snowfalls Are Now a Thing of the Past
49.1989: UN Warns That Entire Nations Wiped Off the Face of the Earth by 2000 From Global Warming
50. 2011: Washington Post Predicted Cherry Blossoms Blooming in Winter
Once again, forgive my skepticism. So-called “Liberals” fear the free exchange of ideas. The once respectable Liberalism has been hi-jacked by an ideology that is certainly not liberal when it comes to contrary views. Those holding views contrary to mainstream orthodoxy are demonized, doxed and, if possible, destroyed for simply disagreeing with that which is asserted.
There are those who say that if we don’t immediately convert to socialism and allow Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez et al. to control and organize our lives, the planet will become uninhabitable. Why would any sane person listen to someone with a 0-50 record?
John Locke, deemed the “Father of Liberalism,” is among the most influential political philosophers of the modern period. In the “Two Treatises of Government”, he defended the claim that men are by nature free and equal against claims that God made all people naturally subject to a monarch. He denied that coercion should be used to force people to believe what those in authority believe. His “Social Contract” intended to provide for life, liberty, and freedom to possess property. Some of these freedoms were to be attenuated in exchange for governmental protections (e.g., provide for the common defense and to ensure domestic tranquility).
John Gresham Machen opined: “Freedom of thought in the middle ages was combated by the Inquisition, but the modern method is far more effective. Place the lives of children in their formative years, despite the convictions of their parents, under the intimate control of ‘experts’ appointed by the state, force them then to attend schools where the higher aspirations of humanity are crushed out, and where the mind is filled with the materialism of the day, and it is difficult to see how even the remnants of liberty can subsist. Such a tyranny, supported as it is by a perverse technique used as the instrument in destroying human souls, is certainly far more dangerous than the crude tyrannies of the past, which despite their weapons of fire and sword permitted thought at least to be free.”
Those sounding the alarm for climate catastrophism must frame their arguments around a fear of a future doomed by extreme weather. It has been surmised that these views are rooted in human nature. Ironically, an ideology that is virtually devoid of a belief in God’s providence serves as the predicate for those beliefs in ancient accounts of giant floods, famines and plagues – all of which they attribute to man’s sins. In reality, climate alarmists are tapping into that primal fear, concluding that extreme weather and floods are a result of mankind’s carbon sins.
Climate catastrophism is reminiscent of the story of the “Emperor’s New Clothes.” Irrespective of no evidence of either climate catastrophism or a rise in sea level, they dismiss their observations because a putative 97% of scientists believe we are doomed due to global catastrophism. Only a select few individuals are quoted by the press and politicians over and over again. These oft-stated propositions are claimed to represent the opinion of 97% of the world’s millions of scientists. (Cf. CO2Coaltion.Org)
Would you change your view of this topic if you learned that there has never been a survey done remotely resembling such a consensus. This claim was made in 2013. However, a survey of professional members of the American Meteorological Society (2013), revealed that only 52% of their members believed that global warming is primarily man-made. Those same 52% also concluded that the change was less dangerous.
A serious question may be raised regarding the existence of any broad survey of scientists in which they were asked to opine on the danger of a one part per ten thousand increase in CO2 over the past century. Among professionals knowledgeable in meteorology, less than half believed global warming is primarily man-made.
We don’t realize that climate alarmism impacts virtually every aspect of our society. Trillions of dollars either have or are intended to be drained from Americans’ coffers in an effort to address claims that have been clearly shown to be, at best, dubious. The health and safety of millions of people around the world are jeopardized by the diminution of energy resources.
The madness of climate catastrophism is difficult to fathom. Will we correct this careless course of action before irreparable harm is done? I suspect that we are too far gone. However, God is still on His throne. Hebrews 4:16 tells us, “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
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