Why I’m Not Sold on Climate Change

The climate alarmists insist that we all behave like hysterical children terrified about the monster under the bed, because if we don’t the world will end. But I’m having trouble getting worked up about it, because they say we’re in a climate crisis, while talking about the weather, and tweaking the data so the “science” agrees with their narrative.

I’m not a climatologist, meteorologist, geophysicist, or blonde “weather gal” who spent more time on her makeup than her education. I don’t claim to be an expert on our impending greenhouse gas apocalypse. But I am an engineer specializing in thermodynamics. That’s the science behind the conversion of energy to work, such as an internal combustion engine using chemical energy to propel a car down the road, or a hurricane using atmospheric energy to level New Orleans faster than a Democrat mayor.

Even with my limited understanding of energy conversion as it applies to the weather climate, I’m convinced that the hysteria is more about politics than environmental protection. I say that, not based on emotion, but on objective observation.

Climate

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, climate is defined as an area’s long-term weather pattern. But that definition is not particularly useful for scientific purposes – it involves too much subjectivity. What exactly does “area” and “long-term” mean? I’d venture to say that the weather patterns of the Sahara Desert haven’t changed much this summer. But the weather patterns in my back yard have changed a crap-load in just the past week.

The World Meteorological Organization says “long-term” for the purposes of climate change is 30 years. Hence, if a glacier has been growing for 50,000 years, but for the past 30 years has been receding, the glacier isn’t growing on average, it’s melting. See how that works? One need only pick the area and the time scale necessary to make the narrative fit the definition. Hence, the current definition of “climate” isn’t very useful for scientific purposes, because any conclusion can be reached with the appropriate choice of definitions.

I suggest that a better definition of “climate” would be atmospheric conditions required to achieve global energy equilibrium. Energy added to the planet by the sun, must equal energy radiated back out into space (at night), plus the work done by surface heating, atmospheric heating, wind blowing, water evaporation, plant growth, and etc. Therefore, if less heat is being radiated out to space because of greenhouse gases (hence why they’re called “greenhouse” gases) the globe will need to get hotter and experience more atmospheric disturbances to maintain equilibrium, which is just what the alarmists claim is happening.

Weather

Weather is the localized and transient changing of atmospheric conditions. It is one (and only one) of the methods the planet uses to maintain energy equilibrium. If radiated energy is reduced by greenhouse gases, theoretically more energy must be converted into heating the water, heating the soil, blowing the wind, etc. That’s why each time there’s a storm; the alarmists blame it on climate change.

Theory

We know that climate and weather have been changing for millions of years. Contrary to what the alarmists say, it is not “settled science” that this variability is caused by anthropogenic (manmade) climate change. Until the math behind the theory reliably predicts the Earth’s response to changing greenhouse gas loading, it’s no different than Dr. Fauci telling us that 6-foot spacing will protect us from a virus – it’s just a guess.

We know that the greenhouse gas load in the atmosphere has been increasing since the dawn of the industrial age. But has it upset the planet’s energy equilibrium? Has there been an increase in weather severity consistent with predictions?

The NOAA tracks the annual global accumulated cyclone energy – the accumulated work done by hurricanes to build waves, spawn tornados, and blow down buildings. According to their data, the global cyclone energy is at a 20-year low. Even though the greenhouse gas loading has continued to increase, storm intensity peaked in 1995 and has been going down ever since.

So, if the excess retained energy isn’t being dissipated with wind, waves, and destruction, it must be warming the planet – right? The alarmists scream “You betcha. The planet has experienced a sharp increase in temperature since 1995!” By sharp, they mean ¾ of a degree Fahrenheit.

But recall that the definition of “long-term” matters. Check out this graph of the Earth’s average temperature over millions of years. That tiny little blip at the end of the graph, is the “sharp” increase in temperature, which has occurred since 1995. When viewed beyond a 30-year window, the graph shows that we are currently at a 50-million-year low point in terms of average global temperature. The planet was considerably warmer long before humans invented planet killing SUVs and gas stoves.

Does that graph prove that the anthropogenic global warming theory is wrong? No, it doesn’t. But it does prove that there are much more significant factors than greenhouse gases with affect the climate and that we don’t know as much about it as we pretend. It also means that the science is far from “settled.”

Data

If storms aren’t getting stronger, and the temperature change is a blip, why do the models predict disaster with such specificity? Because garbage in gives garbage out. The “settled science” crowd claims that recorded temperature data confirms their predictions. But NOAA admits that it “adjusts” the data to improve its reliability. However, NOAA doesn’t explain why actual measured data isn’t as “reliable” as their adjustments. An article in Investor’s Business Daily points out that all of NOAA’s adjustments, change historical readings downward, and recent readings upward. As the author points out, the “adjusted” data therefore makes the warming trend look very different than what the sensors recorded – more like what the alarmists are predicting. Convenient, no?

I think the Google AI provides a pretty good explanation for the NOAA adjustments. When asked if scientists adjust temperature data it responded:

Yes. climate scientists do adjust temperature data. These adjustments are made to account for various factors that can affect temperature readings, ensuring that the data accurately reflects long-term climate trends.

Did you get that? A trend isn’t discovered in the data, the data is adjusted to reflect the trend – they’re tweaking the data to get the “settled science” answer.

But What If?

Despite obvious problems with the data and the models, the alarmists demand that we take drastic action now, because the possible consequences are so grave. Apparently, disaster can only be averted if we give the government control over where we live, what we eat, how we travel, and how many children we have. So, what if they’re right, and we’re flirting with extinction?

If the science isn’t settled, but the consequences of a wrong decision are dire, what do we do? Simple – use common sense to assess the credibility of the alarmists.

Former Vice President Al Gore assured us that our coastal cities would be under water by 2014. He even won an Oscar for a documentary showing polar bears stranded on a melting iceberg. But 2014 has come and gone, and the only thing our coastal cities are drowning in is crime and human excrement.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (Socialist, NY) revised the arrival date of the Four Horsemen of the Climate Apocalypse when she proposed her Green New Deal. According to Sandy, New York and Los Angeles will actually be underwater in 2031. With that only being 6 years away, shouldn’t sandbag crews already be engaged in a losing battle with rising waters? Dutch scientists Hessel Voortman and Rob de Vos noticed the suspicious absence of dike construction and did something never done before: they checked the readings on over 200 tide sensors! Guess what they found? The water isn’t rising like the climate models predicted.

In fact, the only evidence of a climate crisis is alarmists like Gore, Gates, DiCaprio, Thunberg, Cortez, and their besties dumping tons of carbon into the atmosphere to reach Davos every year so they can complain about us driving cars.

Is it possible that the alarmists have some motive other than saving the planet – a conflict of interest if you will? Is there any chance their primary objective is wealth or “fundamental transformation” of the country into a communist utopia. It turns out they do have other interests. Al Gore became a multi-millionaire by selling carbon offsets, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez just happens to be a member of the Democratic Socialist party. I consider those facts somewhat relevant to the debate about whether to give up our freedom to save the planet or not. In fact, I think it places their credibility somewhere south of Adam Schiff’s.

I’m Not Sold

Here’s the climate hysteria narrative in a nutshell: We have people of questionable motives, insisting that we are in the midst of a crisis, based on science they can’t validate, and using predictive models that provide the wrong forecasts. They insist that it it’s our duty to Mother Birthing Person Earth to give up children, meat, gas appliances, residential cooling, private transportation, reliable electricity, incandescent light bulbs, and toilets that use more than a tablespoon of water. Further, if we don’t agree to their terms, they will continue to use an uneducated Swedish girl with autism to hector us. That’s what we in the engineering field call “Brooklyn bartender logic.”

Author Bio: John Green is a retired engineer and political refugee from Minnesota, now residing in Idaho. He spent his career designing complex defense systems, developing high performance organizations, and doing corporate strategic planning. He is a contributor to American Thinker, The American Spectator, and the American Free News Network. He can be reached at greenjeg@gmail.com.

If you enjoyed this article, then please REPOST or SHARE with others; encourage them to follow AFNN. If you’d like to become a citizen contributor for AFNN, contact us at managingeditor@afnn.us Help keep us ad-free by donating here.

  Substack: American Free News Network Substack
  Truth Social: @AFNN_USA
  Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/afnnusa
  Telegram: https://t.me/joinchat/2_-GAzcXmIRjODNh
  Twitter: https://twitter.com/AfnnUsa
  GETTR: https://gettr.com/user/AFNN_USA
  CloutHub: @AFNN_USA