California Democrats promote climate propaganda supporting Biden’s flawed “extreme heat” campaign

Guest essay by Larry Hamlin

The Orange County Register ran an editorial by Democratic State Senator Bob Hertzberg and Assemblywoman Luz Rivas which relied on numerous flawed climate claims in support of Biden and the Democrats national “extreme heat” propaganda campaign that is debunked in WUWT articles here and here.

The Register article notes that “high temperatures” that occurred in Woodland Hills last year are examples of  “extreme heat” that is increasing and caused by climate change as addressed in their comments below: 

“We both proudly represent communities in the San Fernando Valley, and our neighborhoods felt the brunt of these extreme heat phenomena. Woodland Hills hit a record 121 degrees last year, the highest temperature ever recorded in Los Angeles County. These extreme heat events will only worsen, as the California Energy Commission expects the state to experience an average of 40 to 53 extreme heat days by 2050.”

“This is just one example of the direct impacts our changed climate is having on our neighborhoods. It’s not headline-grabbing like the other natural disasters our state is facing, but deaths from extreme heat exceed that of any other weather events.” No data is provided to support this supposed claim.

Apparently, Hertzberg and Rivas don’t know that climate scientists around the world have always used measurements of  “temperature anomaly” not “absolute temperatures” to address national, regional and global climate temperature change trends.

All anyone needs to do is Google “temperature anomaly” to understand the significant difference between “absolute temperature” versus “temperature anomaly” measurement data that climate scientists rely upon to address climate related temperature changes as noted below.

What do temperature anomalies mean?

Temperature anomalies are useful for deriving average surface temperatures because they tend to be highly correlated over large distances (of the order of 1000 km). In other words, anomalies are representative of temperature changes over large areas and distances.

Why do we use temperature anomalies?

Anomalies more accurately describe climate variability over larger areas than absolute temperatures do, and they give a frame of reference that allows more meaningful comparisons between locations and more accurate calculations of temperature trends.

NOAA measurements of temperature anomaly data across the contiguous 48 U. S. States (Parameter: Maximum Temperature Anomaly; Time Scale: 1-Month; Months: All Months) using its most reliable USCRN temperature anomaly measurement data system establishes that the U.S. is not experiencing increasing “extreme heat” as presented and established below using NOAA temperature anomaly data which clearly shows that the nations maximum temperature anomaly measurement data has no increasing trend and in fact has declined since temperature anomaly peaks in years 2006 and 2012.

NOAA maximum temperature anomaly data for the 48 contiguous states proves that the U.S. is not experiencing increasing “extreme heat” trends and Democrat claims otherwise are unsupported by scientific data. Democrats are improperly trying to use localized-weather absolute temperature events to define national, regional and global climate temperature change behavior which is scientifically invalid.  

Additionally, the Democrats alarmists claims of increasing heat waves occurring across the U.S. because of climate change are unsupported by Biden’s own EPA data which shows that the U.S. in not experiencing increased occurrences or intensity of heat waves based on EPA’s 125 years of extreme heat event trending data across the U.S. from 1895 through 2020 as shown below. (Biden’s Democrat driven climate alarmist politics drove EPA to try and conceal this data as exposed in a prior WUWT article.)

Additionally Democrats propaganda claims that increasing heat related death rates are occurring across the U.S. because of more heat waves (which have been shown to be false) are unsupported by EPA’s own data which shows that U.S. heat related deaths rates (underlying and contributing cause of death) are declining.

Even more embarrassing for the Democrat’s “extreme heat” shenanigans is that EPA data shows that cold related deaths (underlying and contributing cause of death) are increasing as shown below. Furthermore, comparing the latest year EPA rates of heat and cold related deaths in the U.S. reveals that cold related deaths are nearly twice (5.5 deaths per million versus 2.9 deaths per million) that of heat related deaths.

The Democrat’s deliberate concealment of extensive, long time period and highly relevant NOAA nationwide temperature anomaly measurement data as well as EPA nationwide annual heat wave index data and EPA heat and cold related death rate data while highlighting and hyping local temperature weather outcomes to attempt to justify their claim that the U.S. is experiencing increasing “extreme heat” and heat related death rates are scientifically invalid and represents nothing but climate alarmist political propaganda

The Register article goes on to hype the usual Democrat claims that California is “fighting climate change” through politically contrived schemes such as planting trees mandating electric vehicles, etc. as noted below. (The article fails to mention the state’s mandated costly $25+ billion, unreliable blackout plagued and bureaucratically onerous renewable energy schemes.) 

“Urban tree planting is one of the most noticeable and beneficial actions we take as a state. Trees are our best natural first line of defense against climate change. They not only provide crucial shade to playgrounds and sidewalks to protect kids against harmful heat, they also trap carbon and help clean our air.”

“Beyond climate resiliency, we’re investing in California’s transition to clean electric vehicles. The budget provides incentives to manufacturers and buyers to make electric vehicles more affordable and accessible, while also investing in crucial infrastructure like charging stations in more communities of color.”

“California is fighting a two-front war: on one end, we’re working to cut down our carbon emissions to protect future generations, and on the other, we’re battling a climate already changed so we can protect families from its deadly effects.”

These political schemes are completely irrelevant to global energy use and emissions with this reality hidden and concealed from the state’s residents by Democrats.     

The U.S. and EU who have been driving the UN IPCC climate alarmism political campaign for over 30 years have now completely lost the ability to control global energy and emissions outcomes through the IPCC’s flawed climate model contrived schemes.

In 1990 the year of the first UN IPCC climate report the world’s developed nations led by the U.S. and EU were accountable for nearly 58% of all global energy use and 55% of all global emissions. But that dominance in global energy use and emissions by the developed nations changed dramatically and completely disappeared over the next 15-year period.     

The world’s developing nations led by China and India took command of total global energy use in 2007 (controlling more than 50% of all global energy use) after dominating total global emissions in 2003 (controlling more than 50% of global emissions). 

In year 2020 the developing nations controlled 61% of all global energy use and 67% of all global emissions with these nations clearly on a path to further increase these commanding percentages in the future. The developing nations have no interest in crippling their economies by kowtowing to the western nation’s flawed model driven climate alarmism political propaganda campaign with the developing nations having announced to the world that they are fully committed to increased use of coal and other fossil fuels. 

In year 2020 the developing nations consumed 82% of all global coal use with China alone consuming 54% of the world’s coal. China was the only nation in the world that increased both energy use and emissions in pandemic year 2020.

The U.S. and EU have not contributed to the increasing level of global emissions over the last 15 years. In fact, these nations reduced emissions during this time period by many billions of metric tons. Yet global emissions have continued to dramatically climb ever higher by many more billions of tons driven exclusively by the increased use and unstoppable growth of fossil fuel energy by the world’s developing nations. 

Assertions by U.S. and EU politicians that massively costly, horrendously onerous and bureaucratically driven reductions of emissions will “fight climate change” along with bizarre claims of supporting a “net zero” future are ludicrous, disingenuous and represent nothing less than completely fraudulent proposed schemes.

California plays an absolutely irrelevant and non existent role in “fighting climate change” since any actions it takes are so minuscule (as shown below in millions of metric tons) they have no consequence at the global level where emissions continue to climb ever upward by many billions of metric tons (as shown below) driven exclusively by the world’s developing nations lead by China and India. 

It’s time for the developed nations to stop their scientifically incompetent, globally irrelevant, real world inept and purely politically driven flawed climate model alarmist propaganda campaign.

For more than 4 decades the UN IPCC climate reports have emphasized the use of global monthly temperature anomaly measurement systems increasing trends to hype to the world that global CO2 emissions are driving global temperatures ever upward and demanded that global nations must damage their economies by undertaking massive renewable energy expenditures to reduce energy related CO2 emissions while destroying their availability of reliable and economic coal and natural gas energy resources. 

The UK and EU are now facing severe energy reliability, availability and high out of control costs as a results of their actions toward this UN IPCC approach and yet global emissions continue to climb ever upward driven by the world’s developing nations led by China and India.

The media in the U.S. is largely ignoring the UK and EU massive energy reliability and cost debacle brought about because of excessive mandates for use of costly unreliable renewables and failure to develop and utilize their regional resources for natural gas through fracking technology.

This strategic failure has resulted in huge increases in UK and EU natural gas prices versus the U.S. (which pursued fracking technology despite objections from Democrats and achieved energy independence prior to the debacle of the Biden Presidency) as shown in the graph below.

The 5 major global temperature anomaly measurement systems (UAH, RSS, GISS, NOAA, HadCRUT) have all shown declining monthly temperature anomaly trends for 5+ years since early year 2016 and yet these clearly apparent anomaly declines remain unaddressed by the climate alarmist community that seems deaf and dumb to these trends as well as to the energy debacle that is now underway in the UK and EU.

Biden and the Democrats have undertaken a deliberate political campaign to ignore global “temperature anomaly” data that directly addresses climate change related temperature impacts and instead have attempted to substitute discussion of “absolute temperatures” in its place fully knowing this approach is scientifically flawed and invalid. This scientifically flawed climate alarmist political campaign has been undertaken because national, regional and global temperature anomaly measurement data trends do not support climate alarmist claims of continually increasing temperature anomaly climate change as discussed below.  

The global monthly temperature anomaly measurement trends of all 5 systems (UAH, RSS, HadCRUT, GISS and NOAA) are shown below with all updated through August of 2021.

The declining monthly global temperature anomaly measurement trends since 2016 of the UAH, RSS, HadCRUT, GISS and NOAA global temperature measurement systems reflected above are more clearly shown below for the 5+ year period from 2016 through 2021.

Additionally, the global CO2 atmospheric concentration as measured by the Mauna Loa Observatory is also shown for the period form 2016 through 2021 showing global CO2 levels have continued their upward climb during this 5+ year period while global temperature anomaly measurements have experienced declining trends unaddressed by the climate alarmist media community.

Biden and the Democrats are deliberately ignoring scientifically valid national, regional and global temperature anomaly data which is not supporting their climate alarmist political story of ever increasing global temperatures (as scientifically determined through use of measured temperature anomaly data systems) and instead are conducting a political campaign trying to substitute scientifically invalid absolute temperature measurement propaganda in place of well-established climate science temperature anomaly measurement data.      

California Democrat politicians need to stop concealing the states massively costly but complete irrelevance in global energy and emissions outcomes that is clearly obvious to the rest of the world and instead start addressing relevant issues that have some opportunity for beneficial outcomes for the people of California.