Trump Auto Rule: Washington Post’s Non-Shocking Non-Discovery
Guest essay by Marlo Lewis, Jr., CEI
Today in the Washington Post, Juliet Eilperin, Brady Dennis, and Chris Mooney bash the Trump Administration’s SAFE Vehicles Rule, a proposal to freeze new motor vehicle fuel economy standards at the 2020 levels through 2026. Eilperin, Dennis, and Mooney (EDM) claim, or rather insinuate through the mouths of others, that the SAFE rule is a plan to doom humanity to a future of planetary ruin.
“Last month, deep in a 500-page draft environmental impact statement, the Trump administration made a startling assumption: On its current course, the planet will warm a disastrous 7 degrees by the end of this century,” EDM breathlessly report.
Actually, there is nothing startling about that assumption. It’s the same old catastrophe narrative begat by mating overheated climate models (first figure below) with an emission scenario known as RCP8.5 that bizarrely assumes coal displaces gas as the world’s dominant electricity fuel throughout the 21st century (second figure below).
Mooney, for one, has been peddling climate catastrophe for years. What is startling is that EDM should find anything startling about finding “consensus” climatology in the draft environmental impact statement. The EIS attempts to estimate the change in greenhouse gas emissions and climate impacts resulting from the SAFE rule’s proposed revisions to the Obama administration’s fuel economy standards. To do that, the EIS must compare apples to apples.
In other words, the EIS must use the Obama administration’s climate sensitivity estimates, which derive from the aforementioned overheated models, and the Obama administration’s baseline (business-as-usual) emission scenario, the aforementioned RCP8.5.
The EIS finds that replacing the Obama mileage standards with the SAFE rule’s standards would have vanishingly small impacts on greenhouse gas emissions, global temperatures, and sea levels.
Specifically, under the SAFE rule, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration would reach 789.76 parts per million in the year 2100 instead of 789.11 ppm—an 8/100th of a percent increase. That extra 0.65 part per million of carbon dioxide would increase global average annual temperature by 0.003°C and sea levels by 6 millimeters in 2100 (see table below).
Three one-thousands of a degree Celsius is 27 times smaller than the margin of error (0.08°C) for measuring changes in global average temperature. So, the climate impact of the Trump proposal would be undetectable under current scientific methods.
More importantly from a policy standpoint, an unverifiable bump of 0.003°C in global average temperature and six millimeters in sea levels 82 years from now would make no practical difference to weather patterns, coastal flooding, polar bear populations, or any other environmental condition people actually care about.
To make mountains out of these mole hills, EDM quote two climate experts and a politician. “The amazing thing they’re saying is human activities are going to lead to this rise of carbon dioxide that is disastrous for the environment and society. And then they’re saying they’re not going to do anything about it,” said Michael MacCracken, former senior scientist at the U.S. Global Change Research Program.
Ridiculous. Again, to make an apples-to-apples comparison between the Obama standards and the SAFE rule standards, the EIS must use the Obama methodology. If it didn’t, people like MacCracken would trash the EIS for “cherry picking” climate sensitivity estimates and emission scenarios.
The Obama administration assumed a climate sensitivity of 3°C for a doubling of carbon dioxide-equivalent greenhouse gas emissions. Accordingly, the Trump Environmental Protection Agency and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also assume a 3°C sensitivity, even though many recent studiesindicate significantly lower values. Similarly, the Trump agencies use the Obama administration’s preferred RCP8.5 baseline emissions scenario.
Besides, if the Trump administration fuel economy standards don’t “do anything” about climate change, neither do the Obama standards, as can be seen in the tables above. Or take a gander at this chart from the SAFE rule:
EDM also quote David Pettit, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC):
He noted that the [National Highway Traffic Safety Administration] document projects that if the world takes no action to curb emissions, current atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide would rise from 410 parts per million to 789 ppm by 2100. “I was shocked when I saw it,” Pettit said in a phone interview. “These are their numbers. They aren’t our numbers.”
The attorney doth protest too much. Pettit is the last person who should be shocked by 789 ppm, because it derives from RCP8.5, which is NRDC’s favorite baseline scenario. Why? Because RCP8.5 is very close to being a worst-case emissions scenario.
EDM go on to quote Gov. Jay Inslee (D-WA) who condemns Trump’s “reprehensible behavior” for failing to protect his children and grandchildren. Inslee conveniently ignores the equal impotence of the Obama standards to measurably affect global warming.
EDM, for their part, ignore the Trump administration’s estimate that the SAFE rule would save $250 billion in auto industry compliance costs, $77.1 billion in avoided traffic fatalities, and $120.4 billion in avoided serious injuries. If those estimates are anywhere near the ballpark—indeed, if the SAFE rule simply helps middle-income households afford to buy new motor vehicles—the proposal makes good sense, because sticking with the Obama standards would have no discernible climate benefits.
the extremists do not care at all about their children or their grandchildren or their sisters or brothers and it comes to safety. They only care about saving them from a Bogeyman that does not even exist.
The same Malthusian nihilistic folks who promote abortion and euthanasia; who support the ideology that has overseen the deaths of hundreds of millions of people in the last century; demands the release of violent criminals back into the streets; assists the colonization of MS-13 types into a relatively docile and lawful society; coördinates violent mobs to attack those who disagree; simultaneously promotes anything goes hedonistic YOLO lifestyle while insisting we de-industrialize, de-populate and de-volve into subsistence peasants…
Yeah, I’ll listen to their sermons on the Reverence of Life.
Now, to be fair, the bogeyman does get a participation trophy.
Today, another webnews I read posted an interesting letter from WW II’s famous Dietrich Bonhoeffer. It made me think of climate alarmists like WaPo–and too many skeptics as well.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was executed on April 8th, 1945, a Lutheran minister, recorded a number of his thoughts in a work we now know as Letters and Papers from Prison. One of these essays, entitled On Stupidity, records some of the problems which Bonhoeffer likely saw at work in Hitler’s rise to power:
Upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity. … The power of the one needs the stupidity of the other. The process at work here is not that particular human capacities, for instance, the intellect, suddenly atrophy or fail. Instead, it seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances. The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with him as a person, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings.
Sheeple pretty well describes what he is talking about, although the term was invented years later.
aunty abc downunder had a quiz on how skeptical are you
turns out im more skeptical than99% of females;-0
and pretty much the rest of the pop too
good to know my bullsh*t meters finetuned;-)
infects a large part of humankind with stupidity. … The power of the one needs the stupidity of the other.
Happened to the Roman culture. A once educated, capable and reasonably moral culture decayed to barbarians. The Founding Fathers of the US were very aware of the Romans & their history.
I found a post explaining many alarmists (and too many skeptics an another news site today:
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was executed on April 8th, 1945, a Lutheran minister, recorded a number of his thoughts in a work we now know as Letters and Papers from Prison. One of these essays, entitled On Stupidity, records some of the problems which Bonhoeffer likely saw at work in Hitler’s rise to power:
Upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity. … The power of the one needs the stupidity of the other. The process at work here is not that particular human capacities, for instance, the intellect, suddenly atrophy or fail. Instead, it seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances. The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with him as a person, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings.
And WW 2 was over in Europe on the 8th of May, 1945. VE Day.
The Nazis pushed his execution foreward to make space for new subjects for death, while they still could.
The GISS models seem to have their thumbs on the scale. 18 runs for one of them, 16 for another, whereas many had only 1 run, and many don’t say how many runs.
And what’s that one that matches most closely with the entirely fictional average? I honestly can’t tell.
I think that was a Russian model
Couldn’t be, Russian models are hot.
badaboom – tishhhh!! he is here all week folks!
Glad someone appreciated it. 🙂
Always remember that when the journey here ends and you have to select between going to the American or the Russian hell you should always go to the Russian one … because the heating doesn’t work! 😉
Where is the Cost benefit analysis on the number of lives lost do to slower acceleration, flimsier cars, etc and these Higher GPM requirements. Also need a cost benefit on the Repair costs of these flimsier vehicles.
UNFCCC
Articles:
Search results: Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE).
Isn’t CAFE a Demand-side supply “tool” to control fossil fuel (oil) use?
https://unfccc.int/gcse?q=corporate%20average%20fuel%20economy
Considering the FE requirements and many other factors, it is no wonder that over 50% of all vehicles sold are now trucks and SUVs. The family passenger car is a dying breed. Ford is considering not producing new mid and large passenger cars and others will follow.
“On its current course, the planet will warm a disastrous 7 degrees by the end of this century,” EDM breathlessly report.”
“Breathlessly” should be changed to “mindlessly”.
Could these people even tell you what it means for a “planet to warm 7 degrees”. Break it down — exactly what does this statement mean? First, it operates on the assumption that a planet has a temperature. Okay, what temperature is that? Yea, it has what can be called an “emission temperature”, but I don’t think that THIS has any chance in hell of warming 7 degrees. So, they must be referring to the concept of a “global average temperature”. Okay, exactly how might this warm 7 degrees? Where on Earth will the increase happen? Will just a few locations on Earth be so warm that, when added to other regions cooler or not so warm, these isolated locations will cause this 7-degree rise? Do just these locations now count as … “the planet”? — no, they are REGIONS of the planet, with regional variations. Do THESE regions somehow cause the rest of the planet to warm? — climate change at a distance? — with no immediate causal connection in this known universe? — just somehow magically, instantaneously, through no known means of contact, exert an impact on other regions that they do not even touch physically?
So, also change the word, “report”, to “rant”, thus, changing the phrase, “breathlessly report”, to the phrase, “mindlessly rant”.
I was wondering what “WaPo” stood for. Now I know — reporters of “way poor” (wa po) science”.
… way, way, way, way, way … poor … science !
And consider this. Infrared heaters do not heat air. They heat objects which then heats the air in a room because of conduction. All IR moves at the speed of light. The 18.5W/m^2 from the surface that crashes into the CO2 and the water vapour is moving at 186000 miles per second. Notice that this 18.5W/m^2 represents a little over 11% of the solar that actually hits the earth and oceans. After crashing into the radiant GHG’s, over 50% of it is directed upwards and outwards as the GHG’s are isotropic molecules which radiate in all directions. So the ~49% that heads downwards at 186000 miles per second either crashes into a radiant GHG on the way down or crashes into an O2 or N2 molecule, or else misses them all and makes it back to the earth’s surface. However there are 2457 of the O2 and N2 and H2O molecules for each CO2 molecule, so if it misses them all, the emitted IR then hits the surface and then the whole process starts all over again again at the speed of light. Without clouds, the air never gets warm at night anywhere. The IR seems to miss the 407ppm CO2 molecules on the way up. Don’t forget convection is always carrying hot air upwards. in another post i calculated that there were 9 CO2 molecules for every photon that is emitted from the earth’s surface. So there is certainly enough CO2 to theoretically catch them all, but CO2 doesnt trap in every wavelength and really only is important around 15 microns. Since nightime temperatures are really only affected when there are clouds, one wonders how much of the DWIR is from CO2. If each CO2 molecule is surrounded by 2457 N2 and O2 molecules, how does the vast majority of N2 and O2 get heated from collisions with CO2. If the alarmist are going to say that it is not the collisions but the DWIR back to the surface and up again in a continuous cycle THAT REALLY COUNTS, then you must realize that this continuous recycling of IR between the atmosphere and surface is happening at the speed of light with 51% of it being lost to upper atmosphere on each cycle.
Also, The visible part of the sun’s solar radiance is 36.661%. The part of the sun’s spectrum to the lower wavelength (UV, xray,… etc) is ~3.3% , so that leaves ~ 60% left which is the IR. However 22.5% (all of it being IR) of the incoming solar is absorbed by the atmosphere. That leaves 37.5% of the solar radiance (actual IR) hitting the oceans and land. It is the IR that you feel on the back of your neck when you are out in the sun. Depending where you are,and at what time of the year, at high noon you will receive anywhere from total irradiance of 1366 W/m^2 down to ( x amount of back radiation at nighttime. Actually back radiation operates 24 hours a day since the CO2 is always present. Therefore we have to add x amount to the 1366 at daytime as well.
However we have to take only 37.5% (see above) of it for the thermal IR. That leaves (.375 x 1366) = 512W/m^2 in the tropics) However because I live at 50 N latitude, I am probably getting around 1000 W/m^2 + x (back radiation) at high noon on a hot summer day. So that means I am feeling 375 W/m^2 + x back radiation. I think we can all agree that we dont feel any of the x amount of back radiation from the DWIR from CO2 at nighttime. But I certainly feel (375 + x) during the hot sun of the day. NASA’s energy budget diagram gives x = 340.3 W/m^2 DWIR as a constant. Therefore I am feeling (375 + 340.3) = ~ 715 W/m^2 on the back of my neck during the hot sun of the day in the summer time.
So If I compare the burning sensation on the back of my neck of 715 W/m^2 in the midday sun in the summer, to the 0 heat effect on the back of my neck of 340.3 W/m^2 at midnight in the summer, something doesn’t compute. NASA PRACTICES JUNK SCIENCE.
Okay I have to make a correction . We do feel the visible part of light from the sun. So that means the full 1000 W/m^2 + 340 back radiation = 1340 W/m^2 is hitting the back of my neck in the summer during the day. So that has to be compared to the 340 back radiation at nighttime in the summer. It is still 25%. At nighttime I dont feel any heat on the back of my neck. Compare that to the burning sensation in the summer time and NASA;s back radiation doesn’t compute.
I believe there is a spelling error in the sentence: “What is startling is that EDM should find anything startling about finding “consensus” climatology in the draft environmental impact statement.” I think the “r” in “draft” should be deleted.
“mating overheated climate models (first figure below) with an emission scenario known as RCP8.5”
OK so maybe they are a little off on the temperature
But what about ocean acidification?
Our use of fossil fuels is causing oceanic CO2 conc to rise
And that in turn is killing corals, shellfish, and endangering the entire oceanic ecosystem.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/09/29/ocean-acidification-by-fossil-fuel-emissions/
You report a rise of 0.2 Oceanic CO2 mm/L over half a century. My first thoughts are the following questions.
1) What is the accuracy of these measurements? Is it better than ±0.02 Oceanic CO2 mm/L or is the whole trend swamped?
2) Are the measurements made consistently in location and procedure over the 50 years?
3) How come there are no measurements for a third of the period, from 1970-1990?
4) Have we actually got two populations (pre-1970 and post-1990) with a linear trend being unproven and thus correlation to Mauna Loa CO2 measurements also bein irrelevant?
A PH change from 8.2 to 8.1 over 30 years is hardly cause for concern because the PH scale is a logarithmic scale. A study by Kerrison et al. 2011 found that the ocean around volcanic vents in the Mediterannean was still above 7, even though the vents were emitting the equivalent of 5600 ppm CO2. The ocean contains 50 times more Carbon than the atmosphere. Human CO2 emissions are less than 2% of the combined human and natural CO2 entering and leaving the ocean surface each year. The oceans did not acidify in the past when CO2 levels in the atmosphere were up to 8000 ppm.
THIS WHOLE ALARM OF OCEAN ACIDIFICATION IS ONE BIG SCAM. Tiny, though compared to the main CO2 scam of temperature rising.
I looked at the oceanic pH data several years ago, and worked with it over several decades before. The buffering capacity of sea water is so great that the only way you can get estuarine pH even close to 7 is with several dilutions of very low alkalinity or high acidity fresh water. Even then the critters do fine except the salinity may be too low.
When I worked for the government as a chemist, one of my additional duties was a Contracting Officer’s Representative. I wrote the contract requirements, and evaluated the offers, and recommended the successful bidder to the Contracting Officer (mostly for maintenance on our analytical instruments). I used to feel that the government could have anything they wanted, even something that hasn’t been invented yet, by writing a contract requirement /sarc. (If you put it out to for bid, someone will bid on it — whether they could do it or not).
In regards to this subject, I was counting on having my own car with a “Mr. Fusion” in 2021.
Yes, the RCP 8.5 model is unreasonable and probably represents the upside case. The RCP2.6 evaluation is much more realistic. Even though it is shown as a downside case, it should be the expected case.
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_TS_FINA L.pdf
Re: “Or take a gander at this chart from the SAFE rule: ” ???
Where is the chart we are supposed to ‘take a male goose at’?
‘Gander’ is a perfectly respectable term meaning ‘to peek and peer like a male goose’.
The proponents of CAFE predict the benefits of these rules are temperatures will be cooler than would be in the absence of CAFE standards by an amount that so small that it cannot be measured, and with a sea level lower by an an amount less than the thickness of the sole of a typical shoe. This is a prediction based on computer models that have failed to demonstrate any predictive abilities.
The benefits of CAFE are clearly not importantly different from zero, unless the value of the additional self esteem of the virtue signalling politicians, bureaucrats and academics behind CAFE standards
The cost in human life is enormous. Between 1989 and 1993 studies based on a statistical analysis of tens of thousands of actual traffic deaths were published by Brookings- Harvard and the NAS. Combining the estimates in these two studies yields an annual death toll of 2825 Americans. The cost of forty years of CAFE can reasonably be estimated as 2825 people / yr X 40 yrs =113,000 additional traffic deaths (and many more serious and life altering injuries) The is about 1/4 of All Americans killed in WWII, nearly twice the number of Soldiers. Sailors, Airmen and Marines we lost in Vietnam or thirty eight times the number of civilians we lost om 911.
One of these people was a friend of mine who was killed in a one car accident on interstate 90 which would clearly been survivable if she were not driving one of the little lawnmower-cars the automakers must produce in order to continue producing the large comfortable
cars that people with significant income want to buy.
The causal relationship between CAFE standards and premature death or mutilation were well known by the people promulgating these regulations. Where’s the outrage?
This is another example of an almost universal thing in the climate wars, and its excellent that it is at last being called out.
It is very common to hear people arguing for climate policies and actions which their own account of the problem should say are totally useless.
In the present case, its lets improve mileage performance of American cars. As the article shows, this can have zero direct effect on global emissions and thus, even if you accept that CO2 emissions are the driver, can have no direct effect on global warming.
Nevertheless, we hear columnists saying all the time that in some unexplained way not enforcing higher mileage in American cars is endangering the planet. In the same way, its commonly argued that to leave Paris will endanger the planet, despite the fact that what needs to be done, according to the alarmed, is lower emissions, and Paris does not lower emissions.
In the same vein, China, which is raising emissions and reactivating mothballed coal generation projects, is said to be leading the struggle against global warming because its doing something totally irrelevant at the same time: installing wind and solar.
Is it possible that were America to put out and enforce improved mileage standards, the example would motivate the rest of the world? Don’t think so, don’t think anyone is looking to America as a leader in climate matters.
The question to ask in all policy cases is the one the article correctly raises: how much effect will the measures advocated have on global emissions and global temperatures? Either directly in terms of tons reduced, or by example, in the form of others reducing their emissions because they are so impressed and want to match?
You will find, if you seek to have such a debate in any public forum, that you will immediately be denounced and shouted down or banned.
What the alarmists actually want, and this judgment comes from observing what their advocated measures would actually lead to, is for emissions by the non-Western countries to rise, while the Western countries do things which are enormously expensive and useless, such as building huge subsidized wind farms, and which do not lower their emissions either.
This goes along with citing as evidence in favor of the proposed policies scientific theories which have no bearing on the matter. For example, there is or is not a pause. The models are or are not accurate. The MWP was or was not global. The effect of a doubling of CO2 ppm will be a rise 1 , 2, 3…or 7 degrees C.
Its all simply irrelevant, because whatever you think about all this, it does not affect the question of what effect US mileage improvements, or turning off standby appliances, will have on global emissions, which are supposed to be the climate driver. It is almost as if having claimed that global emissions are an existential problem, the alarmed are doing everything in their power to avoid talking and thinking about how to reduce them and how what they want to do will reduce them.
Now figure out why perfectly intelligent people would either not see this, or continue advocating what they do regardless. My own explanation is that they don’t believe in the dangers of emissions, and they know perfectly well that what they advocate will not reduce them. They don’t, I think, advocate what they do in order to reduce emissions. They advocate it because its not going to happen, and can so be enormously useful as a radicalizing meme.
The ‘Safer Affordable Fuel Efficient Vehicles’ sounds a bit like the mission of Volvo and Volkswagen a decade ago. The former is nowadays a subsidiary of Chinese automotive company Geely and the latter ended up in court.
The President of the United States is on the right track in my opinion. In fact, the politicians resisting him the most have willingly demonstrated: the less they are involved, the better it is.
It’s enough the producers are responsible for misleading advertising. The consumers can decide for themselves.
I first read the article above in the mainstream media, full of it’s alarmism and hyperbole and then I came here and found a rational, sane rebuttal. It really is refreshing and enlightening.
As someone who suffers from anxiety that is often triggered by alarmism, its been very helpful to see a side of this story that the mainstream media simply ignores and dismisses outright.
This topic has honestly been off of my radar for awhile until I happened upon an article in the media about how schoolchildren were worried for their future over climate change.. or worried they would HAVE no future and that made me angry. It made me angry that this alarmism which the media uses to gain viewers and the politicians and scientists use to get attention and funding is causing children to worry if they will have a future or not.
I’m paraphrasing something I read where it basically said.. it’s amazing that we protect children from scary movies or news but we will have a science teacher tell their class that their planet is doomed by the time they reach adulthood and never once present an opposing viewpoint or any doubts that might exist in the science.
So after that, I became reengaged with the subject and began to become affected by the alarmism myself! I asked myself, “What if I am being intellectionally dishonest?” “What if the alarmism is correct?”
I read articles about potential “Hothouse Earth, a New York Times Op ed with the author lamenting that he just had a child who will inherit a “doomed world”. I read about this past summer of heat waves, crazy forest fires and more recently Hurricane Florence. It became overwhelming after a point and I had to tune it out, yet it was still in the back of my mind and this constant sense of anxiety or dread.
Two things began to help..
One, a sense of history, that we have had THIRTY ODD YEARS of this sort of alarmism and proclamations of doom. The arctic is supposed to be free of summer ice by now. The Maldives should be underwater, the West Side highway should be underwater. Snowfall should be a thing of the past, etc. So what happened? We now have the perspective of time to look back on these predictions and see how badly they failed. I don’t think sunlight is the best disinfectant, I tend to think HISTORY is!
Two, I found sites like WUWT! For example, this summer, I read about forest fires being out of control because of climate change, I came here and discovered that they were actually trending down historically and often more the result of bad forest management practices instead of climate change.
I would like to say thank you to Anthony Watts for creating and maintaining this site and the many people who contribute to it daily, both in article writing and comments. If I can make a suggestion for a future article or subject I’d like to see covered more it would be how alarmism negatively affects people and the lack of care or concern often displayed by the CAGW proponents in media, science, academia and politics who cynically employ it to draw attention to their cause.
“…One, a sense of history, that we have had THIRTY ODD YEARS of this sort of alarmism and proclamations of doom. The arctic is supposed to be free of summer ice by now. The Maldives should be underwater,….”.
Prediction about the Maldives was 30 years ago this month:
https://climatechangedispatch.com/maldives-global-warming-sea-level-rise/
Quote:
“…Environmental officials warned 30 years ago the Maldives could be completely covered by water due to global warming-induced sea level rise.
That didn’t happen. The Indian Ocean did not swallow the Maldives island chain as predicted by government officials in the 1980s.
In September 1988, the Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported a “gradual rise in average sea level is threatening to completely cover this Indian Ocean nation of 1196 small islands within the next 30 years,” based on predictions made by government officials….”.
So far as I know, the Maldives are still there. ROTFLMAO.
Good catch, CD.
Though, they used the weasel word “could”. Sure, it COULD have, but there was never any evidence that it WOULD.
“Three one-thousands of a degree Celsius is 27 times smaller than the margin of error (0.08°C) for measuring changes in global average temperature. So, the climate impact of the Trump proposal would be undetectable under current scientific methods.”
So where does this “margin of error” come from?
As for “measuring changes in global average temperature”..say what?
This is a calculated meme, NOT a measurement.
Ditto the “climate impact of,”..well anything manmade for that matter,being “undetectable under current scientific methods”
Indeed the contribution of manmade CO2 emissions has yet to be measured.
Language is important.
The entire Anthropogenic Global Warming, AKA Climate Change myth is dependent on fuzzy language,undefined and ill defined terms.
I love the imagery of measuring changes in an unmeasurable concept.
This really is “The New Religion”.
What I found interesting of the Post article was the emphasis on the 7 degree Fahrenheit headline. Granted, most Americans have absolutely no clue on how to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit. So that 7℉ is just completely shocking because they have always been saying that it HAS to be maintained below 4℃ by the end of the century.
Hey folks, apologies. There is a technical error in “WaPo’s Non-Shocking, Non-Discovery,” as posted here. The Trump EPA and NHTSA do not use RCP 8.5 as a baseline emission scenario. Rather, they use an updated scenario called GCAM Reference. It projects more forcing than RCP 6.0 but less than RCP 8.5.
I have corrected the post on the Competitive Enterprise Institute Web site: https://cei.org/blog/trump-auto-rule-washington-posts-non-shocking-non-discovery.
Fortunately, the correction strengthens the post’s big-picture conclusion. The Obama agencies projected even higher CO2 concentrations in 2100 (826 ppm) than the Trump agencies project (789 ppm). But did Mike MacCracken, NRDC, and Chris Mooney fault the Obama gang for doing so? No way. After all, higher baseline emission scenarios are scarier.