To the Editor:
I am one of the many who are called deniers and right wingers and extremists for questioning climate science data and claiming that the climate change industry is enriching itself, seeking new grants and funding with its scare tactics and whose strategy is to redistribute from the rich to the poor.
Over the last 50 years I have heard it all before — DDT, Silent Spring, Malthusian population explosion, no minerals left, no food, silicone, alar, the list goes on and always proven to be untrue. I have no doubt that climate indeed changes — it always has and it always will. Nor do I doubt that humans influence the changes somewhat. I also believe that the earth warmed just a tad over the last 150 years.
What I am skeptical about is how to place my faith in people who render certain the apocalyptic end result of climate change and what we need to do now to constrain it. All manner of politicians and agenda-driven people demand my fealty, call me a denier and dumb and want my immediate attention and money because their data show they are correct. Yet their own data constantly changes, is biased, is sometimes concocted or concealed and lacks a scientific consensus or protocol.
If both sides would come together and be transparent and build upon solid evidence then we would go a long way in determining what exactly needs to be done and at what cost. If we suppose that future temperature ranges that have been forecasted are indeed true, that gap in the range is clearly the difference between spending vast amounts of money wastefully or using money wisely. Decarbonizing the world and allowing people to suffer at higher prices, even though China and India and others won’t agree, is not useful. Marching through the streets of New York City to secure a binding treaty when the largest emitters are not showing up is a fool’s errand.
Impeding economic progress in the name of saving us all from carbon which may or may not be consequential is silly. Thirty-one percent of the 115 million American households qualify for low income energy subsidies which by my simple and ignorant mind means they can’t afford current energy prices let alone the prices we would face by lowering carbon even more while the boom in fracking and shale is lowering prices.
Oh forgive me: we can decarbonize at zero cost to the consumer. I forgot. I am surrounded by people who rant about climate change but cannot tell me what the carbon dioxide makeup of the atmosphere is and cannot name one scientist. They are certain of their truth but cannot name any facts. They effuse their passion at cocktail parties but don’t even know what carbon dioxide is and how it is produced and what it does for plant life. The scientific community is so surrounded by advocacy of the dangerous and catastrophic result that it demands maximum urgency, regardless of cost. Some like Robert F Kennedy Jr. even suggest that deniers be jailed. Michael (Hockey Stick) Mann said that skepticism is a ‘’crime against humanity.’’ Others want ‘’climate Nuremberg trials.’’ Of course you don’t believe me, but you can look it up and/or you can famously agree with them.
Mr. Obama, now facing worldwide turmoil from Islamic jihadists who he recently called a ‘’JV team playing against Kobe Bryant,’’ is now telling us that the greatest threat to the world is climate change. Really? No one wants to explain the slowing down if not hiatus in warming which has now lasted more than 16 years and perhaps 26 years even as carbon emissions have increased by 25 percent. In late December a group of climate scientists got trapped in their own experiment when stuck in sea ice 1,500 miles south of Tasmania where record levels of sea ice growth occurred last year. They had to be helicoptered out. The new narrative is that warming is hidden in the oceans while producing no evidence. The Atlantic Ocean is to blame for the loss of heat. They cite natural variability, or this is too small a sample.
Whatever the answer, it has scientists puzzled. Puzzled? I thought they knew everything about the subject and we were supposed to believe them? Even the most ardent practitioners of alarmism are now backing off a little and suggesting that climate science is ‘’evolving,’’ better data is coming forward, the computational models are constantly changing to more accurately predict and even if we don’t know, it is better to be safe than sorry and buy insurance in the face of threats not yet determined.
No no, by all means if you want an honest and open debate, then stop slamming me and others who are well educated and well read as divining from gum wrappers and watching ‘’faux news.” Of course my opinion listed here is repercussive in nature, particularly on a liberal Martha’s Vineyard, and I eagerly await the insults that inexorably will arrive. The learned Mr. Keller comes to mind.
Andrew Engelman
Vineyard Haven