Climate Change Fiascoes and the Second Amendment

     In the week ending April 9th 2016, the Climate Change campaign suffered not one but two fiascoes. I am not sure that anyone besides me noticed. People are busy. They work; they rear their children. Many don’t have time to be critical about every little thing. Many are seldom critical of anything. I don’t work anymore; my children are reared, (for better or for worse); my mortgage is going to start paying back any time. My criticality is sharpened by broad reading. So, I will comment on the fiascoes on behalf of everyone else. Two reasons.

First, in spite of general public cooling to the concept (no pun), in the US, policy measures are being taken as I write as if there were no question that mitigating alleged global warming were a high priority. Second, where sets of beliefs of this sort (see below) are concerned, it’s not unusual for coolness to turn unexpectedly into heat. Witness the return of the popularity of “socialism” in this primary campaign. It’s as if I were 25 again, N. S. ! If you had bet me in 1996, that some politician would call himself a socialist, I would have lost my hundred bucks. So, better vaccinate, again and again against falsehoods. In a way, it’s the job of old men finally free from testosterone poisoning to do the vaccinating.

The first fiasco went unnoticed even, I think, by those responsible for it. The United Nations Inter-Governmental Consortium on Climate Change issued a warning to the effect that some forecasts regarding the consequences of climate change may well have been underestimated. The example that sticks to my mind is that the maximum rise in the ocean surface in the next hundred years could easily be six feet, instead of the three feet previously forecast. (My numbers are not precise; the order of magnitude is correct which is what matters in my story.)

So, think about it: The international authority on climate change may have been very wrong on an important issue; the issue of how many of the world’s cities are likely to be under water come 2116. In fact, the Consortium admits that it may have been wrong by a smashing 100%, one hundred per cent. Think!

Interestingly, the Consortium only considers the possibility that it underestimated future flooding. It has nothing to say about the possibility that it overestimated it. But, wait a minute, how can you trust anything, or any method, or anyone whose forecasts is one hundred per cent wrong? How can you further trust that it’s only wrong in one direction? I could be convinced but it would take some explaining. While, I wait, I think it’s more reasonable to assume that what’s wrong one way could easily be wrong the other way. So, the likely rise in the ocean surface in the next hundred years, from global warming and what not, is likely to be three feet to – nothing, zero, nada, rien, zilch, la sha. (I am paraphrasing here a short piece in the Wall Street Journal. I am sorry I am unable to give credit to the reporter. )

The second fiasco is even worse because it verges on fraud, or, it is actually fraudulent, or it expresses ignorance that is worse than fraud. A report issued by the Obama Administration ( I don’t know which branch) and dubbed “scientific” gravely warns that in some future time (that I don’t remember, and it does not matter), the number of people world-wide who will die from the effects of high temperatures will increase significantly. Point well taken. It took Bjorn Lomborg ( environmental activist, statistician, and author of The Skeptical Environmentalist ) writing also in the Wall Street Journal to point out the following: Still world-wide, many more people die from the cold than from heat. If the rise in temperature projected by the Movement happens, many more people will be saved from the cold than will die from the heat. In other words, the net effect of rising temperatures on mortality will be negative. Global warming as projected will save lives! (I know I am repeating myself.)

Global warming will save lives. To omit this simple fact (it’s not in dispute, I understand) bespeaks incredible dishonesty or unfathomable ignorance. I am not quick to conclude to dishonesty. The Climate Change Movement is a religion loosely and distantly based on science. Devotees may be honestly incapable of seeing unpleasant facts pertaining to their revealed truth. Or, the Obama Administration is underestimating the American people’s intelligence, again!

According to Rush Limbaugh (yes) 15 state attorney generals and a congressman have come together to examine the possibility of suing civilly, or even criminally, those who deny the reality of climate change. Limbaugh is surprisingly well informed overall but he is not always well informed. So, I would not take this as more than a rumor if I had not read a congressman’s letter to the Wall Street Journal where he denies that he wants to do any such thing, or all such things, it was not clear from the letter.

The Climate Change Movement is a religion that is made all the more dangerous because it’s losing traction in the US: The faithful are turning unfaithful; prepare the pyres!

So, if there is any grain of truth at all to the idea that some parts of government wish to criminalize disagreement, it’s a really good, fresh justification for the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment was written largely to protect the First Amendment guaranteeing free speech and freedom from religion.  (Note for my overseas readers: The Second Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees American citizens’ right to possess weapons, including firearms. The Amendment forbids government, all levels of government, from interfering with this right The American left is forever trying to grind down the Second Amendment and mostly failing. There are currently more firearms than there are Americans. Every time, Mr Obama speaks against the Second Amendment, weapon sales surge. He is the arms industry’s best friend.)

Here is a link to another one of my blogs on climate change:

Climate Change and Bad Science