Guest essay by Eric Worrall
President Trump’s EPA Director Scott Pruitt has upset greens by suggesting that since humans have historically flourished during warm periods, global warming might be beneficial.
Pruitt suggests warming can help humans
Scott Waldman and Niina Heikkinen, E&E News reporters
Published: Wednesday, February 7, 2018
U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt questioned yesterday if rising global temperatures are harmful to humans, a claim that adds new insight to his alternative views on climate change.
In an interview with KSNV television in Nevada, Pruitt suggested that global warming could be seen as a good thing for people. He said civilizations tend to flourish when it’s warm.
“I think there’s assumptions made that because the climate is warming, that that necessarily is a bad thing,” Pruitt said.
Recently, Pruitt has questioned whether scientists know what the ideal surface temperature should be in the year 2100, or even in 2018. Scientists have disputed that premise, saying that any swift change to global temperatures can have disruptive impacts on plants, animals and humans.
Pruitt’s claims yesterday adds new texture to what’s known publicly about his skepticism about mainstream climate science. In the past, Pruitt steered away from commenting on what a warming world could mean for humankind. Instead, he often questioned whether humans are having a substantial impact on the climate, while acknowledging that temperatures are climbing. He has also described the science as being politicized and touted the fossil fuel industry’s progress in limiting carbon emissions through innovation.
Pruitt’s comments yesterday moved beyond those views.
“Is it an existential threat, is it something that is unsustainable, or what kind of effect or harm is this going to have?” he said. “We know that humans have most flourished during times of, what, warming trends?”
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Read more (paywalled): https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/02/07/stories/1060073119
Nothing upsets greens like pointing out the obvious. Humans evolved in the tropics. Outside the extreme tropics where we evolved, we have to wear clothes to stay warm, otherwise we die of exposure. Green suggestions that a few degrees warming would be a crisis are absurd.
To say a head exploding live, just read ivankinsman above.
Scott Pruitt concentrate TDS+CAGW fire, and he stands the heat. I love that.
Oh how I laughed at this there must be green heads exploding all over the place
“OH Dear How Sad Never Mind”
See this is what you get when people know history.
James Bull
Green heads are more likely to implode than explode.
Nature abhors a vacuum.
“Nature abhors a moron.”
—H.L. Mencken
You mean that I will get to see totty running around naked. Why couldn’t it have happened 40 years ago.
The internet has been with us for a while now.
Even the BBC admits, accidentally, that cooling is the real problem. In a news item today:
Climate change
Then as now, climate change was a key factor. “We know that led to famine,” says Eric Cline professor of archaeology at George Washington University, Washington DC
Indeed, pollen analysis, marine and oxygen isotope data show the period experienced 300-year-long droughts. The Mediterranean cooled significantly at this time, reducing rainfall levels over land.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42864071
Of course, they try to disguise the fact that cooling was the problem, by calling it ‘Climate Change’. It IS the BBC, after all.
My neighbourhood is built on a drumlin dated to only 10k BP.
For the sake of my children and humanity I hope and pray for continued global warming, the end of the present Holocene interglacial is too horrifying to contemplate.
I’ve read articles stating that in North Africa, where we now have the Sahara Desert, we had savannah several thousand years ago. Contrary to intuition, the desert happened NOT through global warming, but due to a slight COOLING!
A slight warming in North Africa’s temperature could induce a monsoon effect from the Mediterranean,, bringing back savannah and lakes to North Africa.
but but but
what about those cute fennec and desert ants?
It is very easy to understand why warming leads to smaller deserts and cooling to larger ones (on average, since it is very difficult to predict what will happen at one particular spot). Cooler means larger glaciers, so more water is locked up outside evaporation-rain cycle. Less rain, so larger deserts. The opposite happens when the earth warms and the glaciers shrink. Since temperatures at the equator do not vary much compared to those at the poles, warmer climates are — on average — better for everyone.
@D. Cohen.
Not so easy, as your explanation by water being locked in glaciers is wrong. The water not locked in glaciers in warmer time just flowed to the sea, where it is just as locked.
Sahara is a desert because the place of downward airflow from Hadley cell is in North Africa. This air is dry and get hotter in its downward motion, and then move southward in Sahara (nice illustration at wikipedia “Hadley cell”)
Should the Hadley cell be larger, this downward flow would be above Mediterranean sea instead, This air would evaporate a great deal water, and turn it into rain over North Africa mountains, and then river into the Sahara, which wouldn’t be a desert anymore (again).
It can be argued that warmer Earth has wider Hadley cell, but this is a very different explanation from yours.
Sea water evaporates from the sea surface, so it is still part of the evaporation-rain cycle. If you want an intermediate step in the reasoning, consider that as the sea level rises due to glaciers melting, the area of the sea surface increases, so more evaporation occurs leading to more rain. As for the Hadley cells, they determine **where** on earth — that is, the approxiamte latitudes — at which we can expect to find a desert. Exactly where the “edges” of the desert are — say, for example, their northern and southern boundaries — that can change (on average) as the climate warms or cools. If the boundaries move outward, the desert grows in size, and if they move inward it shrinks.
@D. Cohen
Obviously Sahara IS currently a desert, despite the sea extension being close to a maximum, so your sea-level explanation doesn’t work, either.
I agree with your point that a smaller Hadley cell means, a priori, a smaller desert, but it also matters if the downward airflow is above sea (where is will charge itself of moisture again) or land.
Great! Now start a regular jab a week schedule in the mirror image of the Obama pattern of PR lies from each agency on a rotating basis.
Ah, the sound of Greenie heads ‘sploding; like music to my ears:
As a journalist, there is one phrase I cannot stand, “Scientists say…”
as in the above story, “Scientists have disputed that premise …”
That phrase means that there are at least two people claiming to be scientists who say that thing.
But of course, there are also can be found at least two scientists who say the opposite thing. But the writer does not include that. Thus her personal opinion is inserted into the report.
Not as bad as “What you need to know”
It’s warmer at night, but not during the day. Colder parts of the earth are warming, while the tropics are not warming. I believe we are witnessing “Global Tempering” or “Global Mellowing”. Everyone, chill… it’s time to celebrate!
The scam relies heavily on everyone believing that warming is bad “everywhere” … that is, wherever there are few to no people to refute it.
The E&E News report quoted is exceptional in that the words quoted here actually appear to be a sensible balanced report, not dripping with green alarmist cant and dogma. Congratulations to the authors and the editor. It shows just how low most of the media has sunk when I feel the need to congratulate such people for just doing their job properly.
Scott Pruitt continues to go up in my estimation.
I still think he needs to do a number of outdoor press conferences on the Canadian border in ND or MN like maybe starting this week. Move the WH press room there also.
We humans do migrate to the warmer climate. Just look where we have chosen to live. Where do we find most of the population? Arctic? Antarctica? If a colder climate were preferable, we’d be there.
Up to 90% of Canadians are cuddled up within 100 miles of the warm US border.
90% of Canadians live within 100 miles of our southern boarder (the only major centers outside that distance is Edmonton and Calgary, approximately 2million people). It is because it is warmer, and crops survive better there.
In the rigidly close-minded world of absolutists, there is no grey, and moral relativity only applies to their own deviance.
I did engage a few people in comments on one story about this. The story didn’t even try to present info to defend the “consensus” position against the claim, they just found 10 ways to says, look how dumb he is to even suggest it. So called journalism.
What was really exceptional and stood out in the reposnse to my comments and others, was they didn’t argue that the overall outcome would be bad on average (the actual consensus opinion as it is). They instead viciously and religiously attacked any notion (no matter how small) that “anything” could ever possibly get better since global warming was “discovered”, even the tiniest bit was unacceptable. Every measure of every single topic had to be getting worse, and no amount of data would disuade them. When asked for proof of their position, they would present “predictions” of future problems as contrary evidence to real world data that showed improvement. It was surreal. 99% absolute seething uncontrolled rage and hate..and 1% cut and paste of things they mostly misunderstood at best.