By Gregory Wrightstone
Somebody should tell Gov. Shapiro that his state of Pennsylvania is doing very well environmentally. Overall, the weather has been getting better and agricultural production is up.
Nevertheless, he repeatedly attacks the producers and users of energy to address a supposed climate crisis. His administration is trying to keep Pennsylvania trapped in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), which the Commonwealth Court ruled an illegal tax. Recently, he proposed a new energy tax and the expansion of a program to force consumers to buy larger amounts of expensive and unreliable wind and solar power.
Shapiro’s angst may stem from predictions by the state Department of Environmental Protection that climate change induced by emissions of carbon dioxide would lead to extreme weather and environmental harm — including both floods and droughts — and would damage Pennsylvania’s $80 billion agricultural sector.
Yet, nothing could be further from the truth.
It is a fact that atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased since 1750 to 420 parts per million from 280. Most of that 50% increase is probably from CO2 emissions that began a steady rise with the Industrial Revolution and accelerated after World II because of vigorous economic growth.
However, almost nothing supports the popular claim that recent modest warming has been caused by carbon dioxide. In fact, geological evidence overwhelmingly indicates that this warming trend is simply another in a series of warming and cooling cycles operating since the end of the last glacial advance more than 10,000 years ago. Moreover, our current warming trend started more than 300 years ago, long before we began emitting CO2 in earnest in the mid-20th century.
To put the governor at ease, we turn to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s U.S. Historic Climate Network. Even though the network’s temperature record is biased toward the global warming narrative by both corrupted and manipulated data, it still offers reassurance that Pennsylvania’s climate has been becoming more benign since at least 1895.
Over the past 130 years, Pennsylvania’s average temperature has increased about one-half a degree Fahrenheit. Considering that cold is up to 20 times as lethal as heat, warmth is a good thing for anybody familiar with the Keystone State’s winters. Average maximum temperature has remained unchanged and the percentage of days above 100 degrees has declined significantly — by more than half.
As for the claim of increasing drought, since 1895, the state’s average annual precipitation has increased to 45 inches from 40 and the severity of droughts has decreased slightly but steadily.
Neither has flooding become more of a problem since the beginning of the 20th century. In fact, numerous data points around the state show fewer floods over time.
For example, the flood crests for the decades of the 2000s and 2010s are about 60% that of the 1900s and 1910s for the Allegheny River at Franklin, Venango County. Similar declines in flooding were recorded for the Ohio River at Pittsburgh, the Susquehanna River at Williamsport and for Bucks County, where George Washington crossed the Delaware and famously experienced a particularly harsh Pennsylvania winter.
As for agricultural health, food production in Pennsylvania and around the world is up, partly because of a warmer climate, which has increased the U.S. growing season by more than two weeks and lessened the threat of killing frosts in the late spring and early autumn. Also contributing to better crop yields are the fertilization effect of more CO2 and the use of fertilizers derived from foolishly maligned fossil fuels. This boost in productivity has enabled farmers to support 8 billion people, 10 times the population of 300 years ago.
An overall greening of Earth that has been widely attributed to modern warming and high concentrations of atmospheric CO2 is unsurprisingly reflected in Penn’s woods. Since 1955, the state’s standing timber has increased fivefold. Worldwide, tree cover has grown by more than 2 million square kilometers, a 7% increase.
So, with all the good news, why the pressure to increase energy prices and subsidize favored industries at a cost of billions of dollars? The purported answer is to quench the fever of an allegedly overheating planet.
Well, consider that the calculated theoretical heating that would be averted by 2100 if Pennsylvania eliminated all emissions of carbon dioxide would be 0.008 degrees Fahrenheit, an amount too small to measure.
Gov. Shapiro should heed the caution to first do no harm because his climate prescriptions are sure to damage the interests of people who need abundant, affordable energy.
This commentary was first published at Broad + Liberty on April 30, 2024.
Gregory Wrightstone, a Pennsylvania native, is a geologist; executive director of the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Va.; and author of “Inconvenient Facts: The Science That Al Gore Doesn’t Want You to Know” and “A Very Convenient Warming: How modest warming and more CO2 are benefiting humanity.”
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I moved away from The Keystone State in 1965; one among many doing so.
The place hasn’t been worth a plugged nickel since.
Not as bad as New York, but that’s not saying much.
Any change is evil by definition, according to the Green Blob. Who cares the Little Ice Age was an era of famine, plague, and war?
..and the Little Ice Age was a regional event only,
Shapiro is a Democrat. Explains everything—in the same leaky green boat as Biden and AOC.
Polls say that 40 percent of Republicans support the so-called “climate” agenda and two-thirds of Republicans under 30 support it. The politicians are going where the votes are.
No doubt some survey came up with that- but I don’t believe it.
This is an impressive ratio. What does it means in terms of tonnage?
Is it increasing the risk of wild fires?
Forrests have a hugely positive impact on local climate because they moderate the temperature range. If this growth is widespread then any temperature increase will be in the minimus not the maximums.
Interesting aspect — that tree growth since 1955.
Many small farms existed in prior years and much timber cut. There was an early cut and then from the western part with streams flowing into the Allegheny River (Clarion River being one) timber was cut and stockpiled behind check dams on many small tributaries. With spring melt the dams were breached and the young men floated the logs to Pittsburgh. Flatboats then carried people and goods to St. Louis and, from there, many boards became wagons and headed west.
The small farms could not support the large families (my grandparents had 8 children). Slowly, all up and down the ridges, young folks left the land. New owners often planted Scotch Pines for Christmas trees (partially harvested). Strip mines for coal were recontoured and, again, trees planted. If one knows the tell-signs of this infilling it is visible on aerial images.
From the above article:
“Shapiro’s angst may stem from predictions by the state Department of Environmental Protection that climate change induced by emissions of carbon dioxide would lead to extreme weather and environmental harm — including both floods and droughts — and would damage Pennsylvania’s $80 billion agricultural sector.
“Yet, nothing could be further from the truth.”
(my bold emphasis added)
Ahhhhh, well . . . a great American journalist, essayist, satirist, and cultural critic, H.L Mencken (d. 1956), said it best:
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
I am of the firm belief that this quote should be chiseled in granite in foot high letters above the doors leading into the White House, the US Capitol building, and the buildings in each state where taxpayer “representatives” meet to draft legislation.
Of course, it will never happen.
Why? They must know that quote by heart since they use panic every day to maintain control.
Why? So that the public (especially voters) visiting said buildings will know the real truth.
That term- “extreme weather” – is dumb. Maybe “severe weather” but not extreme. I doubt my high school English teacher would have approved.
>> However, almost nothing supports the popular claim that recent modest warming has been caused by carbon dioxide.
Well of course the additional CO2 is a significant contributor global warming, about 1°C per doubling. Or about half a decree in the last 150 years or so, there is just nothing alarming about it and all those models assuming high feedback sensitivities lack independent verification.
“1C per doubling” is all assumed correlation
There is no proof of any causation, we started warming long before any increase in co2
Plus, is increasing CO2 a cause or effect given that historical temperature increases lead CO2 increases
From the above article:
“However, almost nothing supports the popular claim that recent modest warming has been caused by carbon dioxide.”
In fact, the scientific data that is being collected—including that from paleoclimatology proxies of CO2 and temperatures—is amassing evidence that global warming CAUSES increases in global atmospheric CO2 levels, not the other way around.
Both may be true- but even if that’s true, we don’t know the initial cause for this. Until it’s better understood- it’s foolish to declare a climate emergency and establish net zero policies. That’s too drastic a solution for a fairly mild problem- which may prove to be a mild benefit.
Actually, Vostok ice cores show atmospheric CO2 concentration changes both lead and lag global temperature rise. Leads because changes in CO2 concentration directly cause changes in the atmospheric greenhouse effect and lags because global temperature change causes CO2 to be driven out of the oceans into the atmosphere by planetary warming, or absorbed due to planetary cooling..
I gently suggest that you look at the many paleoclimatology proxies that exist beyond just the Vostok ice cores, most of which show increasing temperatures lead to increasing atmospheric CO2 levels.
Ice core data has been challenged on many levels as to having good temporal resolution for various scientific reasons related to gas diffusion/outgassing through ice as a function of time, as well as for the difficulty in (a) measuring minute concentrations of gases in progressive layers and (b) accurately establishing the exact age of any given layer of ice in any given ice core.
Also, ice cores don’t provide any data prior to about the last million years.
“additional CO2 is a significant contributor global warming”
Do you have any scientific evidence to back up that claim ??
You know…. actual measurements, NOT theory and models and “consensus”. !!
Yes, exactly, but I would add that “beyond a certain concentration, currently believed to be about 200 ppm, CO2 is saturated in its ability to contribute further atmospheric warming as a greenhouse gas”.
Atmospheric CO2 concentrations are never ‘saturated’. That’s a fallacy. Consider Venus, which has atmospheric CO2 concentrations of around 95%, and a very strong greenhouse effect.
That’s your proof that “atmospheric CO2 concentrations are never ‘saturated’ “???
Did you consider that Venus receives much higher solar insolation by dint of being closer to the Sun than does Earth?
Did you consider that the orbital eccentricity of Venus (0.007) is smaller than that of Earth currently (0.017), leading to Venus having a far more constant solar heat input than does Earth?
Did you consider that Venus has no surface water oceans to regulate atmospheric temperatures via a hydrological cycle and heat storage in global liquid water mass?
Did you consider that with 100% cloud cover (75–96% being sulfuric acid droplets), there is no “atmospheric window” to allow the surface heat of Venus, including that generated from its interior via radioactive decay, to radiate directly to space, totally unlike the situation on Earth?
Beyond these facts, I gently suggest you examine recent scientific papers—most notably those authored by Wijngaarden and Happer—that demonstrate that CO2 has effectively reached its asymptotic limits in inducing LWIR warming of Earth’s atmosphere.
. . . that, or cite your own scientific research that counters their arguments.
The latest science is that CS ranges from 2.6C to 3.9C, with a mean value of 3C. 1C has never been suggested by the research
Really???
“The debate about the role of clouds in climate change is part of a larger concern about feedbacks in warming the world. It has long been clear that the “greenhouse effect” of doubling CO2 in the atmosphere will directly raise global temperatures by about 1 degree C.”
— https://e360.yale.edu/features/why-clouds-are-the-key-to-new-troubling-projections-on-warming
“The radiative forcing caused by a doubling of atmospheric CO2 levels (from the pre-industrial 280 ppm) is approximately 3.7 watts per square meter (W/m2). In the absence of feedbacks, the energy imbalance would eventually result in roughly 1 °C (1.8 °F) of global warming. That figure is straightforward to calculate by using the Stefan–Boltzmann law and is undisputed.”
— https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_sensitivity
Ooops.
This is to be expected from politicians, bureaucrats, and academics who are on the Climate Crisis bandwagon, so it’s important that sites like WUWT posts articles like the above to refute these sky-is-falling claims because we’re very unlikely to see them in the mainstream media. After all, leftist governments and environmental organizations would be likely to withhold their funding and donations if the real facts weren’t suppressed or withheld entirely.
Being an Australian I had to look up why Pa is called the ‘Keystone’ state.
Ironically, I also found out that “Pennsylvania is sometimes referred to as the Coal State, the Oil State, and the Steel State”
Not any more, I presume
First, it was called Penn’s Woods. Until the trees were cut.
Our Forests as Our Foundation: The History of Penn’s Woods. – Noll’s Forestry Services (nollsforestryservices.com)
Nice to see a referral to a forestry firm- having done that for half a century. 🙂
PA has lots of natural resources.
The first oil well in the US was in PA.
Lots of coal and iron ore and, so a thriving steel industry. (Labor cost had a big part in killing the later. China’s labor cost were much lower.)
Is Heating in PA still part of the housing code?
Same for Wokeachusetts, but this idiotic state claims its average temperature has gone up something like 3.5 degrees! I don’t know how it could be that different from PA.
Must be all the heat generated by the true believers at Hahvard that you often refer to 🙂
I have it on good authority that the Johnstown Flood of 1889 was caused by CO2. So, Shapiro is on target!
The CO2 Coalition? Good grief. That’s like hiring a anti-vaxxer for medical advice on how to protect your kids from measles.
Dem mayors and even some governors are playing the Party line for big climate grants and future promotion potential. It has little to do with helping people or providing services.
Not sure if you can attribute the growth of timber in PA to climate change. The change in logging practices and the protection of forests is the biggest reason in the increase in timber. There was heavy logging until the 1930’s when much of PA was bald and eroding. The other reason is the rise of the forestry service as a profession at Penn state in the 1930’s.
Agreed there is nothing wrong with the climate in PA….the water is cleaner than ever, fish are good, ag is booming and so is fracking and NG which should be booming even bigger.
The summers remain mild and the winters are snowy. Someone born in 1900 (my Grandfather in Western PA) and if he was still alive today would not have noticed a difference in climate unless someone told them….maybe he would have noticed the relatively mild winters in the past couple of decades and would have been glad for the break from record snow years (1993, 1996 and 2010). My Grandfather who passed away in 1996, a life long union/democrat said this about about ‘global warming’, “fear sells votes” “American History is full of charlatan chicken littles” He said the same thing about the “global cooling” scare of the 1970’s, UFO’s of the 60’s and 70’s and alien abduction of the 1980’s.
Thanks CO2 and mostly natural gas derived fertilizers for boosting our agricultural output.
Of course we still have willing and able farmers doing the hard work.
Wish we still had the thousands of skilled miners, steelworkers, fabricators, garment makers, etc…and the reliable cheaper coal and nuclear generators that supported them.
Governor Shapiro–stop the madness!
Allow us to build again.