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.
Bigger threat is a huge tsunami. Historically there is evidence major ones do happen. Stopping fossil fuels won’t do a thing to save the coasts from a tsunami.
I worked on a Scientific Research drilling vessel in 1990 era, and we made a trip to the Arctic, at 82 deg North, above Iceland. There was a 6 story laboratory on board and about 50 scientists of various disciplines. The Core samples returned from the ocean floor at a depth maybe 50-250 meters below the sea floor, were full of the same creatures and plant life as now exists at the sea floor in the Amazon river basin in northern Brazil around the equator. This tells us that the Arctic was once tropical, and that there are cycles in temperature unrelated to human activity, always have been and always will be. The global warming phenom/obsession will likely one day to be found to be the biggest hoax perpetrated on mankind in history, and we are maybe closer to the next Ice-age than we are to catastrophic global warming. When did Gates become an Environmental expert and a Virus/vaccine expert anyways? He is rich and that is the only reason some gullible people listen to him. I’d rather take environmental or health advice from my local fisherman or taxi driver. Gates couldn’t even prevent a virus on his own invention…. 😉
It is simply called the authority fallacy.
If the catastrophic sea level rise was a genuine risk, there isn’t a bank in the world that would loan money on beachfront property.
Strangely, the biggest Agricultural manufacturer in the world, John Deere, was unable to make their own stuff work so they too have a long history of either stealing or attempting to steal, or using their market power to force/buy out those that got it right. From their first internal combustion tractor through to the satellite guidance they use today.
Could some wag with an artistic bent give us a photo of DC under water- with only the Capitol dome and the Washington monument rising out of the waves?
Give us something to look forward to, just in case they are right and we are wrong.
Plus the photo needs to show all the rats in Washington drowning, that would be a great image indeed!
25 years ago Algore was screaming we would all be 20 feet under water by 2020, well, here we are and sea levels are just about the same.
So the climate change cult keeps moving the goal posts, now it will be 30 years in the future when we will all be under 20 feet of water.
One question to the climate change cult: What is the ideal sea level?
Miami is about 1 foot above sea level, but you dont see people heading for the hills.
Ha ha….gates and his dumb chum Obama sound like a one string banjo warning about “sea level rise”. So what does Obama do – he goes out and buys a million dollar mansion close to the sea! Now Gates and Obama are either liears or very ignorant and stupid. Some say both.
Bill Gates – definition of an idiot savant.