Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Here’s how billionaire hype works.
Without presenting a scrap of evidence to back up his claim, Bill Gates, multi-billionaire inventor of the blue screen of death and Mr. Rogers impersonator, says:
“All cities will be affected by climate change, but coastal cities will have the worst problems. Hundreds of millions of people could be forced from their homes as sea levels rise and storm surges get worse. By the middle of this century, the cost of climate change to all coastal cities could exceed $1 trillion . . . each year.”
Source
A trillion dollars each year? Really? Let’s take a look.
Per the tide gauge records, the sea level rise has been around 2 mm (0.08 inches) or so per year for about a century. There MAY have been a slight rise in that in the last couple of decades, although the data is unconvincing. The rise is due to the splicing of the satellite data onto the tide level data. I wrote about this in a post called “Inside The Acceleration Factory“.
But for the sake of Bill’s claim, let’s suppose that sea-level rise was to double by 2050. Highly doubtful, of course, but let’s pretend it could happen. That would mean that over the period until 2050, the average rise would be 3 mm (0.12 inches) per year.
It’s 29 years until 2050. So even with this high estimate, that means that the sea level would only rise by about 9 centimeters (3.4 inches) by 2050.
So I ask you—how is a 3.4 inch (9 cm) rise in sea level going to cost coastal cities a trillion dollars? The smallest waves are that large. And how will that slight rise force “hundreds of millions of people” from their homes?
Obviously, it won’t. Even if the rise were 50% greater than my figures, it still won’t. That’s just billionaire sea level hysteria. In most cities the tidal range is on the order of six feet or so (a couple of meters) from top to bottom … so unless you had an accurate tide gauge, you would never even notice the difference.
But heck, it’s Bill Gates, and he’s rich, so well-meaning fools believe him.
As I’ve mentioned before … math. Don’t leave home without it.
And let me add a second rule—don’t trust billionaires. Guess what? They just might not have your best interests at heart …
w.
PS—An alert commenter points out that despite his hype about seaside buildings being flooded, it didn’t stop Señor Gates from buying a house on the beach in lovely San Diego.
Yessiree, that’s not hypocritical at all.
“Mr. Rogers impersonator”. No. Look-alike perhaps, but Fred Rogers was a lovable, soothing to the kids, kind of person. One begins to suspect that his one-time astute mind, is going “south”. There was many more wild “evidence-free” assertions he also made. Plus, see above comments, he was definitely not a tech guru, but an astute business one. Ala Zuckerberg.
The “authorities” have been pulling most of the “science” from their well upholstered bottoms for years. I’m starting to wonder whether there ARE any models or actual climate scientists behind all those press releases of accelerating this and catastrophic that. They’re all doing exactly what Gates has been doing for years … just making it up to suit their agenda. People are buying it anyway, so why bother with expensive science.
Groundhog Day, an American tradition modeling the observed reaction of a ground hog looking out from it’s burrow in early February as a predictor, predates university majors in climate.The settled lore is that, because of atmospheric conditions, if the groundhog can not see it’s own shadow before going back inside then spring will come early. On the other hand, if it is spooked by seeing it’s own shadow & retreats inside it’s burrow then winter will be longer.
I’ve been watching the classic film, ‘Groundhog Day’, each February 2nd for over two decades, just to remind myself of that very thing 🙂 … and because I get a bit more from it each time.
Here in Canada we had a remarkable medicine man, among the Iroquois. His weather predictions were near perfect. Shortly before his death an envoy from the CBC was sent to get his story … “How do you manage to be right so often?”, the reporter asked.
After a long pause the great man answered … “I watch my white brothers. When he cut lot of wood for winter fire, it going to be pretty cold winter.”
An old tale comes to mind about when an American settler asked a Native American Indian about keeping warm. The response was that they kept warm by being close to the fire & feeding small pieces of wood into it. While they notice the White man kept warm by chopping a lot of wood for a fire.
There are many more layers of meaning to your anecdote than it would first appear.
Cheers, that’s a keeper.
The original version was building a big fire and standing back from it instead of being up close.
87% of all statistics are made up.
I just made that up.
It is obvious that you made it up because the correct number is 97%!
Something I didn’t make up and it’s origin is lost in time (to me anyway): “80% of everythign is crap.”
Theodore Sturgeon, and it’s 90%.
Sea levels rise, but in places they fall. Where I live in Queensland, the continent is going north. This causes it to rise. Once it was possible to row a boat around our littl;e township, but with falling sea levels, most of the waterway has dried up.
I take this personally. We live (mostly) directly on the Atlantic on its ocean side barrier island east of A1A in Fort Lauderdale. BTW, so does Trump at Mar a Lago a bit further north in Palm Beach.
We monitor beach erosion, and just did a 7 mile restoration ( problem is prevailing currents sweep sand toward the Keys, so all the artificial IC boat inlets interrupt nature. At the present rate of rise, my lowest sub-basement garage spot will be wet oh, about 2200 maybe. Meanwhile, my place plus two garage spots continue to go up in value, a lot. Reality prevails.
‘A unified projection by the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact shows a three to seven inch increase in sea level in our region in the near term, and up to 24-inch rise by mid-century. This is a conservative estimate compared to some.’ (sea level rise, Fort Lauderdale).
(? is there actually a fort in Fort Lauderdale?)
Based on computer modeling.
Meanwhile, on the real actual Earth:
https://twitter.com/NickMcGinley1/status/1167552581511434241?s=20
To get a 24″ rise by mid-century, in 2050 the annual rate of rise would have to be about double that, or 48″ per century. That’s about 12 mm/year, or about 6 times the current rate.
Riiiiight …
w.
You asked, “(? is there actually a fort in Fort Lauderdale?)”
See History: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Lauderdale,_Florida
One thing RELIABLE about griff posts…
… they are always based on ignorance and always counter to REALITY
Poor little creature lives in a hallucinogenic-based fantasy world.
The reality is that if we could somehow stop the Earth’s climate from changing, extreme weather events and sea level rise would continue unabated so why bother. A bigger concern to those living near the water is whether the land is rising or falling and what is erosion doing. Those living near ocean cliffs have to be very concerned about rates of erosion. LIving close to the ocean can be very dangerous in terms of the possibility of huge waves caused by a number of possible events that have nothing to do with climate change. Rather that wasting money trying to stop Mother Nature from changing the Earth’s climate we would be a lot better off improving the global climate so we can better deal with extreme weather events and other possible calamities.
$1T/year mitigation is cheaper than several $T/year in prevention, especially when the prevention is probably useless and the $1T/year will never happen.
The tide around here runs 4.8 meters, 9cm means nada
Willis
thanks for the article.
The failure of SLR to accelerate should be the key quantitative evidence to falsify the whole CAGW scam.
i think it is important for WUWT readers to be aware of the official legislated sea level projections for their local area.
i think the following is the official projections for New York.
The low projection for Long Island is 2” for the 20s
Thus an annual rate of 5mm/yr for the lowest projection.
https://www.dec.ny.gov/regulations/103877.html.
Here in Melbourne, Australia SLR has been officially legislated to be 200mm above current (2010) levels by 2040. No ifs, but, maybes, the government has said 200mm. This requires 6.66mm/ yr, but after 10 years of less than 3mm/yr, SLR needs to accelerate to 8mm/yr
Oops, I stand corrected for New York the baseline is 2000/04 average, so low projection will probably be met.
The needed acceleration in SLR, just like the claim of accelerating temperature trends, is going to falsify the entire climate scam in less than 10 years.
There is more to sea level stands than just the thermosteric component.
I live 2000 feet from the Atlantic Ocean because I can’t afford to live 200 feet from the Atlantic Ocean.
Why would Bill Gates buy an island in Belize with an elevation of 9 feet above sea level? Does he expect that sea level rise will only affect the east coast of the US?
Аn аrtісlе рublіѕhеd оn ‘СNВС Маkе Іt’ rероrtѕ thаt Місrоѕоft со-fоundеr аnd bіllіоnаіrе, Віll Gаtеѕ, оwnѕ а рrіvаtе іѕlаnd іn Веlіzе
Тhе аrtісlе, рublіѕhеd уеѕtеrdау, gаvе а brеаkdоwn оf Gаtеѕ’ fоrtunе, whісh СNВС rесеіvеd frоm а glоbаl hіgh nеt wоrth іntеllіgеnсе аnd dаtа соmраnу, саllеd Wеаlth-Х. Тhе соmраnу ѕаіd thаt оf thе multі-mіllіоn dоllаr рrореrtіеѕ Gаtеѕ оwnѕ, hе hаѕ а рrіvаtе іѕlаnd іn Веlіzе саllеd Grаnd Воguе Сауе, whісh іѕ vаluеd аt аbоut $25 mіllіоn.
Тhе іѕlаnd, whісh іѕ rероrtеdlу thе lаrgеѕt іn thе Тurnеffе Аtоll, іѕ lосаtеd аrоund 24 mіlеѕ еаѕt оf Веlіzе Сіtу. Тhе еntіrе іѕlаnd ѕраnѕ аррrохіmаtеlу 400 асrеѕ.
https://www.breakingbelizenews.com/2019/04/27/bill-gates-owns-private-island-in-belize/
Apr 27, 2019
When you are as rich as Gates, you can mentally write off the cost of beach front property or an island as rent until you die, or decide to sell. It is all a matter of perspective.
Do you know why they call it “Microsoft”?
Gate’s is tiny and he can’t get it up
Anyone who believes that cows can manufacture carbon, oxygen and hydrogen to create CO2 and CH4 probably failed math anyway.
Yes. They have never explained its recycled gases not fossil gasses.
Yep… Flee the Coastal regions… so that we can buy them cheap…
That’s not a climate warning, that’s a billionaire real estate acquisition strategy…
Just like all those shutdowns and “organized riots” in the opportunity zones of big cities
under Democrat control… Make’em bankrupt, then buy them out at discount prices… and tax-free!
See the interview of Catherine Austin Fitts, “Planet Lockdown” (already banned by big-tech) for obvious reasons…
‘Without presenting a scrap of evidence to back up his claim’ – I think his book references the evidence?
What, you haven’t read the book? You just make assumptions about what is in it.
show us this evidence, ameoba-mind.
Or is it just another one of your fantasies.
If it does rise catastrophically what will happen is the peons owning property on the 3rd and 4th rows will then own much more valuable beach front property.
Bill Gates, as far as I can see, has never produced anything in his life, except misery. His “genius” consists of being handed information and technology by state, defence and corporate institutions, which he then pretends to market. Every single one of his “products” either spy on you, steal from you or depopulates your culture.
I especially like the story where he “started Microsoft in his mother’s garage”. Soenone is spending a lot of money telling us this entity is human, I wonder why.
It made him decide to buy a “small” mansion at the Del Mar ocean front https://www.prageru.com/video/only-climate-elites-get-to-have-mansions-by-the-ocean/?fbclid=IwAR235hvqs7LEaRyySFfVELlsq96XIWimTLWdbzmOnSEVgxcR0BqrqSCnzLI
“An alert commenter points out that despite his hype about seaside buildings being flooded, it didn’t stop Señor Gates from buying a house on the beach in lovely San Diego.”
OR, BARACK & MICHELE OBAMA…….(IN 2019) The Obamas Purchased a Martha’s Vineyard Mansion for $11.75 Million: The seven-bedroom estate sits on 29.3 waterfront acres.
That “waterfront” being the Atlantic Ocean.
https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/real-estate/a30169311/barack-michelle-obama-buy-marthas-vineyard-house/
To be fair, it would be easy for cities to blow another trillion a year. In fact, I predict it regardless of sea level.
Building 4th Generation nuclear as opposed to new-build gas-fired generation is strictly a public policy decision. Bill Gates is expecting the US Federal Government to become a major investor in his 4th Gen reactor technology demonstration project. From the Wikipedia article on TerraPower:
“In October 2020, the company was chosen by the United States Department of Energy as a recipient of a matching grant totaling between $400 million and $4 billion over the next 5 to 7 years for the cost of building a demonstration reactor of their “Natrium” design, which uses liquid sodium as a core coolant (this reduces the cost by having a non-pressurized primary loop). It then transfers that heat to molten salt which can be stored in tanks and used to generate steam for electricity production on demand, enabling the reactor to run continuously at constant power while allowing the electricity generation from the power station to be dispatchable.”
Every one of the 4th Gen SMR projects is using climate change as one of their principal justifications for developing their technology. Neither the NuScale SMR project nor the TerraPower project would be moving forward without government support.
Nor would the UAMPS customer for the NuScale SMR have chosen to go nuclear had the Utah state legislature not dictated that the state become carbon neutral by 2045.
Here in the US, every current project for developing 4th generation small modular reactor technology is relying to one extent or another on government support to build their first commercial-scale prototype plant.
So if you are Bill Gates and you need four billion dollars from the federal government to build that first TerraPower plant, you will be telling Biden-Harris whatever it is they want to hear about climate change.
I remember when it was fashionable to hate Bill Gates.
I wonder if his “greening” was a response to that?
Why do people with money think they know everything and can pontificate to the world?
Because even Bill Gates doesn’t have the several billions of dollars needed to build his very first commercial-scale TerraPower nuclear power reactor. See my comment above.
” Bill Gates, multi-billionaire inventor of the blue screen of death and Mr. Rogers impersonator ”
! LoL !
It is distressing that someone smart enough to have supposedly considered offering APL on the original PC ( like IBM did on its original 5100 desktop ) instead of the Basic he wrote would go over to the determinedly innumerate dark-side like he has .
The absolutely stupidest keynote talk I’ve ever seen was by Richard B. Alley at the 2017 NOAA/ESRL conference where he showed slides of Katrina to illustrate the danger of sea level rise .
This sick megalomaniac must go, somehow dissapear, vanish- or human lives will be in danger. He should be trialled in court.
What special knowledge do Gates, the Hollywood set, Billionaire ex fund managers..
have that convinces even the simplest of minds on global warming theory. I refuse to believe that most people buy this stuff. I do believe that the elite set wouldn’t know what to do with a math book. They think ‘proof’ and ‘truth’ are manufacturable
What you do with a math book is find an equation that can be misused to “prove” whatever you want.