Most people don’t really care, don’t think it affects them much, and don’t believe the hype
Guest opinion by Tom Harris
In a recent interview with the Vatican News service, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore again claimed “the climate crisis is now the biggest existential challenge humanity has ever faced.”
Gore boasted, “I have been fortunate to be able to pour every ounce of energy I have into efforts to contribute to the solution to his crisis.” Ironically, Mr. Gore personally uses vast amounts of energy, often traveling in private jets, SUVs and limousines, and lives in mansions, one of which uses 21 times more electricity than the average American home.
We often hear claims that man-made climate change is our greatest threat. But according to a recent Gallup poll, very few people in the United States actually believe it is. Indeed, even the United Nations own polling reveals that respondents across the world rate climate change last among issues they would like the UN and governments to focus on. No matter how long the list, climate change is always last.
In telephone interviews conducted July 1-11, 2018 with a random sample of 1,033 adults, over the age of 18 and living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, Gallup News Service asked: “What do you think is the most important problem facing this country today?” The question was “open ended,” in that any answer was accepted.
According to the respondents, the top problems facing America were “Immigration/Illegal aliens” (22%) and “Dissatisfaction with government/Poor leadership” (19%). Only 2% of respondents cited “Environment/Pollution.”
This 2% figure included those who mentioned climate change, as well as those who listed other environmental concerns such as ocean pollution, endangered species and toxic wastes. The fraction of Americans who labeled climate change as the nation’s most serious problem must have been very small indeed.
This sort of result is also reflected in July 5 poll reported by the New York Times. Among the main reasons young adults gave for not wanting (or not being sure they wanted) children, worries about climate change ranked #13 out of 19 reasons given. The first three reasons cited were “Want leisure time,” “Haven’t found partner,” and “Can’t afford child care.”
While other polls show varying levels of public concern about climate change, when people are asked to prioritize issues, climate change often does not rate highly. Even in 2014, just before then-President Barack Obama addressed the heavily publicized UN Climate Summit 2014 in New York City, Pew Research polling indicated that Americans did not consider climate change to be among the top six threats facing the country.
The UN’s own survey confirms that this trend is even more prominent internationally. After polling 9.7 million people from 194 countries, the UN’sMy World global survey finds that “action taken on climate change” rates last out of the 16 suggested priorities for the agency. This despite the fact that on the survey website, the UN lists climate change action as the first choice given respondents. Access to reliable energy, better healthcare, government honesty, a good education, etc., are apparently far greater concerns to people across the world.
This should not be a surprise. In contrast to vitally important issues people must deal with on a daily basis, concerns about man-made climate change are based merely on a theoretical hypothesis, not what is happening now or even in the recent past. After all, even NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies asserts that the Global Annual Mean Surface Air Temperature Change from 1880 to 2017 is only just over one degree Celsius despite a reputed 40% rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) content. And the impact of further CO2 rise diminishes as the concentration increases.
It is not known whether the rate of sea level rise has increased or not. However, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s U.S. state-wide extreme weather records database, probably the best of its kind in the world, there has been no increase in extreme weather. So, the primary rationale for “action taken on climate change” through expensive restrictions to CO2 emissions is merely the possibility of dangerous climate change in the future. And this is based on computer models of future climate states, models that have failed to forecast what has actually happened.
Dr. John Christy is Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science, Alabama State Climatologist and Director of the Earth System Science Center at The University of Alabama in Huntsville. During his February 2, 2016 testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space & Technology, he presented a graph that dramatically demonstrates how far apart computer model temperature forecasts differ from what has actually been measured by satellites and weather balloons.
In fact, as of 2016, there was already a 0.5 degree Celsius (0.9 degree Fahrenheit) difference between real-world temperatures and the “runaway” temperature predicted by averaging 102 climate model estimates. And yet those faulty models have become the basis for countless claims of imminent climate doom – and the foundation for policies that would replace abundant, reliable, affordable fossil fuel energy with sporadic, unpredictable, weather-dependant, expensive wind, solar and biofuel energy.
Five-year averaged values of annual mean global mid-tropospheric temperature as depicted by the average of 102 IPCC CMIP5 climate models (red), compared to the average of 3 satellite datasets (green – UAH, RSS, NOAA) and 4 balloon datasets (blue, NOAA, UKMet, RICH, RAOBCORE).
Christy told Congress, “[T]hese models failed at the simple test of telling us ‘what’ has already happened, and thus would not be in a position to give us a confident answer to ‘what’ may happen in the future and ‘why.’ As such, they would be of highly questionable value in determining policy that should depend on a very confident understanding of how the climate system works.”
To create the models requires vast amounts of weather and climate data. We also need to input accurate data as the starting conditions for model-generated forecasts to be performed.
However, the collection and interpretation of the necessary data has only just begun, says former University of Winnipeg professor and historical climatologist Dr. Tim Ball. But there are relatively few weather stations that have temperatures records of adequate length or reliability on which to base model forecasts of future climate, Ball explains.
Referring to former-President Barack Obama’s worries about dangerous future climate change, Ball concludes, “Obama’s worries therefore have absolutely no credibility in the real world.”
Ball is not alone in holding this view. Extensive analyses and reports by the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) summarize thousands of studies from peer-reviewed scientific journals that debunk or cast serious doubt on the hypothesis that emissions of CO2 from human activities will cause catastrophic climate change.
Yet there is nothing hypothetical about the issues that Americans, and people all over the world, list as their top priorities. Problems with immigration and government are happening right now in America.
The issues rated highest in developing countries like Nigeria (2,735,062 Nigerians voted in the UN poll) are similarly pressing: access to a good education, better healthcare, better job opportunities, better transportation and roads, political freedom, affordable and nutritious food.
All are immediate concerns – today, to real people who understand that the world has real problems to solve: problems that affect our lives and well-being right now.
They realize we don’t have the time, money or manpower to obsess over problems that exist only in computer models, questionable news stories, or the fertile imaginations of multi-millionaires like Al Gore.
Tom Harris is Executive Director of the Ottawa, Canada-based International Climate Science Coalition.
First: Which crisis? There is no crisis, so Gore-solutions are not needed.
Second: The only crisis a scaremonger like Gore is afraid of is that people will find out that he is a profiteer, trying to talk the world into investment funds of dubious sustainability, managed by Gore and his ilk. That’s his effort.
Given the plethora of extra ounces on Gore’s frame, I would say his claim he has used every ounce of energy is absolute horse hockey.
Then whose is the energy he is pouring into his efforts to make money?
Eric Stevens
..Then whose is the energy he is pouring into his efforts to make money?
> 98% fossil fuel derived <2% renewable!
Hey, if you can’t trust the word of a hypocritical politician turned investment banker who is making hundreds of millions of dollars by lobbying the government, just who CAN you trust?
I do read quite often the words “In God We Trust”. Although some have issues and altercations with him, I think that’s not a bad idea. Just sayin’
“The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false face for the urge to rule it.” – H.L. Mencken
This scam is just the greatest made for media and other attention seekers great ball of ‘moral’ fluff in living memory.
The delicious irony is that most of the population of relatively developed societies are now so inured to media and mediocrity advertorial crap being shoved in their faces that it is all just water iff a ducks back.
I take great reward though in the fact that this issue acts as an imbecileometer and reveals to us all just how dumb these galoots are.
I think socialism is the greatest scam. This rates second of the non-religious ideological bumph..
You could be right there Leo. Perhaps CAGW is just s zit on the arse of socialism that has become a very large, festering pustule.Who’s to know? Either way ‘capitalism’ is the cause in the ‘minds’ of the imbeciles.
True socialism is impossible. Everywhere it has been tried, quickly turned into communism or a dictatorship.
https://www.thegwpf.com/climate-change-leading-to-more-flowery-forests/
Maybe someone in the Vatican should try to perform an exorcism on the delusional A.G…?
Would an exorcism turn Gore’s head around backwards and cause him to throw up green pea soup like Linda Blair?
I’d pay to see that!
They’re all much too busy having orgies with each other to get involved with religious rites. Besides it’s far more likely that this pope would canonize Gore a presumptive future saint than to exorcize his demons.
First, someone in or out of the Vatican would need to perform an exorcism on A.G.’s fellow delusional CAGW traveler, the Pope
The danger of Global Warming would certainly rank well behind the nightmarish fear of running into Al Gore face to face in the street, in most people’s minds.
I would hope I could be civil and not break into hysterical laughter.
OR if you happen to be a masseuse in Portland Oregon.
The irrelevancy of Gorebal Warming becomes even more apparent when you ask people how much they are willing to spend on efforts to fix the weather.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/americans-money-to-fight-global-warming-climate-change/
“fix the weather” That right there is the nub of the issue, far too many people believe humans can fix the weather. That is the delusion which must be removed from our educational system, don’t see it happening. Kids will be taught real math long before they are taught humans are not causing climate to change.
“Fix the weather,” is now being discussed at conferences with absolute sincerity! I recently heard two schemes to “fix the weather” that are well-within current technology and they are terrifying. One involves increasing the albedo using salt flats and the other involves specially-rigged ships cruising around the world spraying finely aerosolized sea water into the atmosphere to promote cloud formation.
If either or both schemes are actualized we could open a Pandora’s Box of trouble that might really make the planet a mess. So far our feeble attempts to control the weather have been failures, I dread living on a world where weather control becomes reality.
Should any schemes to ‘fix the weather’ actually take shape, I would expect thousands of warmists to crawl out from under their rocks and start invoking the Precautionary Principle.
Therein lies the great fallacy of the precautionary principle. How does one know a priori whether a particular course of action won’t cause a worse condition than presently exists? (Law of unintended consequences?) All too often many of the attendant consequences are intentionally overlooked or underestimated.
Sadly for them the precautionary principle only applies when your trying to solve their pet problem. Thing would be far better if only they’d think more than 1 move ahead.
“The easiest problems to solve are the ones you don’t create.”
People have been trying to “fix the weather” since throwing screaming virgins into volcano caldera was the order of the day. Same impulse, different day . . .
Justin Trudeau wants to start taxing us in Canada $20/ton of CO2 starting Jan 1 2019. That will work out to at least $150/ month per household once the inflation factor kicks in from this imbecilic tax.
By hyping up the fake CAGW crisis, Gore has made himself very wealthy. For sure he’s working hard to promote the crisis. link
“After all, even NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies asserts that the Global Annual Mean Surface Air Temperature Change from 1880 to 2017 is only just over one degree Celsius despite a reputed 40% rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) content. And the impact of further CO2 rise diminishes as the concentration increases.” — According to IPCC global warming component [anthropogenic greenhouse effect]i s half of the global annual mean temperature; also the surface air temperature is positively biased.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
It’s actually 44 % and less than 1 C. And unless we get another super El Nino it will continue to be much less than 1 C.
Tipper tried to tell him. She even employed a lawyer to hammer the message but, such are the joys of Magical Thinking, he didn’t hear the accusation of Unreasonable Behaviour.
So now he can devote ALL his energy to reinforcing the bubble. win win eh?
But, it is something that’s happening to over 50% of modern marriages – even after the girls have had near permanent ‘headaches’ and been keeping their legs crossed. Hence the dearth of babies.
But magical thinking simply doubles down on stupid – the boys believe there are no babies because THEY (the boys) are sooooo intelligent.
They measure this intelligence by the amount of time they spend using super and other computers to admire the Emperor’s Clothes, count the Dancing Angels and endlessly argue about the properties of the contemporary Phlogiston.
Moving back to ‘surveys’…….
I was in a survey, by virtue of the ‘randomly selected’ house I moved into 18 months ago.
It was by the Office of National Statistics (ONS)
They wanted to know all the usual guff – do I own this house, how much money have I got, do I rent this house, do I have a job, what money does it pay, why do I not have a job, how much money have I got. An hour of face-to-face to discover that.
Even the nation’s top tax inspector could not be more thorough so overall, just a ‘nice’ way of finding out if they can milk more tax from people.
But then at the end an absolute blinder. Even the interviewer was blindsided.
It was a question put there by the insistence of Theresa May no less, our Prime Minister.
All she wanted to know was: “Am I anxious about anything?”
Wonder what sort of answers she got……..
Peta of Newark: “All she wanted to know was: “Am I anxious about anything?”
Prying pollsters posing personal questions?
There is no climate threat.
(No human-made that is. The real threat maybe running into a mini ice age unprepared but Joe Bloggs hasn’t heared of it, yet).
And you know what’s funny: 98% of galloped people know it.
When you’ve been exclaiming “The end is coming!” for 30+ years and nothing has really happened, people tend to stop listening to you.
No match for Jehovas Witnesses; they have been ending the world in 1878, 1881, 1914, 1918, 1925, 1975……
“In telephone interviews conducted July 1-11, 2018 with a random sample of 1,033 adults, over the age of 18 and living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, Gallup News Service asked…”
While I do not believe there is a crisis either, it’s hard to believe the above could be a representative sample….and, who answers the phone anymore if the number is not recognized?
ALGore:The Goreacle can prove he really believes all this drivel simply by giving away all his money and property. Till then he is just another lie spewing huckster, grifting the uneducated and gullible for money.
The Pope is never poor, but oddly most of the saints were, and the majority of adherents as well.
…there’s a pattern here…
Don’t get me started on the vast amounts of material wealth and land stolen by “the church”.
Al Gore: The Climate Scare Televangelist
“I have been fortunate to be able to pour every ounce of energy I have into efforts to contribute to the solution to his crisis.”
An ounce of energy is worth a pound of hyperbole.
And Gore has certainly packed on the pounds (of hyperbole).
“But there are relatively few weather stations that have temperatures records of adequate length or reliability on which to base model forecasts of future climate, Ball explains.”
Wouldn’t matter. Even if you had ONE perfect, long term station, you could only model for that particular space immediately around the sensor. Of course the habit is to average everything together and call it meaningful. That’s another reason models will never be “right”.
Indeed. The average of garbage is also garbage.
Naught into naught equals naught, to quote the immortal words of the great philosopher Jethro Bodine!
Add the question to the Census for responses in the spring and call it global warming not climate change and leave out the prejudicial setup language.
“I have been fortunate to be able to wring every possible ounce of gold from the public purse based on appearing to contribute to the solution of this manufactured crisis.”
We have had an extended public conversation about what to do about “global warming.” As a society, we’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not a big deal. True Believers may be sore about it, but they’ve lost the debate.
They lost the debate YEARS AGO, they don’t know it yet.
They keep rewriting the past. Such as the ‘pause’ never really happened. There it’s fixed.
Time to stick a fork in the CAGW theory and be done with it.
THIS speaks VOLUMES!!:
https://pjmedia.com/trending/earth-day-network-drops-climate-change-but-chooses-another-unscientific-cause/
This will be far easier to debunk. I think the plastic product manufacturers would be upset about an arbitrary imposition on their livelihood.
I guess now there will be accusations that anyone who opposes their campaign is a “paid shill” owned by the plastics offshoot of the oil industry.
Here’s my latest bumper sticker.
the passenger side says;
Anybody that’s been around long enough HAS to simply see that the multiple Biblical Armageddon scenarios have not materialized and how the warmists keep moving the goal posts and changing their story.
Again, that’s why they feed this stuff to the young.
Saw a preview for ‘Godzilla 2’ yesterday – it opens with ‘The mass extinction we all feared is already happening – and WE are responsible. The Earth has a fever, and we are the infection.’
Might have wasted a ticket on that one…. like I did on Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom, with Jeff Goldblum’s incoherent monologue trying to equate cloning dinosaurs with ‘massive, abrupt, human-caused change.’
Then there’s everything Disney’s doing.
Wa-al, if I’m headed for extinction anyway, may as well order TWO beers and the Extra-Large popcorn!
Paraphrase: “… greatest existential challenge mankind has ever faced. As they used to say in old English movies, “Balderdash!” In the 20th century, communism, socialism, Nazism, etc, killed more than 100 million people and destroyed most of the world. And we now have one prominent group working to destroy Western civilization. Climate change is about last on list of people’s concerns.
Well, Climate Change propaganda is one of the tools they’re using to destroy Western Civilization – so THAT is on my list of concerns.
I kinda pressed a life-long friend on the fact that Global Warming was a bunch of b.s.
He, as an avid outdoorsman, replied that even if it wasn’t true it would still keep the spotlight on protecting our natural resources.
Where, do you go with that ??
..Ummmm…get new friends ??
Yes it is: https://edition-m.cnn.com/2018/08/04/world/climate-change-deadly-summer-wxc-intl/index.html?r=https%3A%2F%2Fedition.cnn.com%2F
Rubbish. More fake news from CNN.
This summer is nothing out of the ordinary.
I for one am not willin to sac my freq flyer miles, steakums or baconators on sum yankee’s high falutin BS! Burn, MFer, burn! Roll, red tide, roll!