Climate Change Threat
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I–VT) claims that “climate change” is an “existential threat to the planet and future generations.”
IN FACT, wide-ranging measures of human and environmental welfare related to climate change have remained stable or improved for the past 30–170 years, contrary to predictions that they would have radically degraded by now. These include but aren’t limited to:
- hurricane frequency & intensity.
- floods & droughts.
- forest mass & tree cover.
- foliage productivity.
- coral reef island area.
- mainland coastal area.
- extinctions.
- tornadoes.
- agricultural production.
- weather fatalities.
- weather economic damages.
Apocalyptic predictions about the future effects of climate change are all based on models, a class of studies that are notoriously unreliable. This fact is routinely ignored by those who use models to spread tales of climate doom, but an academic paper aptly summarizes the situation:
- Model-based “analyses of climate policy create a perception of knowledge and precision that is illusory and can fool policymakers into thinking that the forecasts the models generate have some kind of scientific legitimacy.”
- “The argument is sometimes made that we have no choice—that without a model we will end up relying on biased opinions, guesswork, or even worse. … This might be a valid argument if we were honest and up-front about the limitations of the model. But often we are not.”
That lack of honesty from academia is uncritically amplified by progressives and the media, leading to hysteria that harms people’s mental health and can incite violence.
