More Fear and Costs on Climate Change

    According to the National Research Council (NRC), the Earth is warming at unprecedented rates, which will lead to floods, droughts, raging storms, and heat waves. A picture of a flooded street in Belmar New Jersey after Hurricane Sandy is included. The report goes on to say that these extreme natural events are related to US security. It doesn't say how this relationship exists, but it does recommend monitoring climate-change impacts on 12 to 15 countries because of this national security. In addition it also recommends that 50 or so other country should be watched because of potential humanitarian concerns. These items constitute the bulk of the report by Jeff Johnson in the November 19 issue of Chemical and Engineering News.

    Unfortunately, the NRC gives no reference supporting their conclusion of these impending disasters. Hurricane Sandy is used as an example, but no mention is made of a recent report on the Weather Channel that in the last several years, there was one other hurricane larger than Sandy. The report also does not mention the Hurricane of 1938, which devastated Long Island, New York, nor the drought that existed in the Southwest for several years in the 30s.

    In essence, we have the usual claptrap that extreme climate change is in progress and the implication that it is caused by carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. The government objective is to influence the public to approve a carbon tax in order to reduce such devastation. Note also that the national security issue has now been injected, which will require significant additional funding for "monitoring and careful selection of variables likely to affect climate change in some 12 to 15 countries, and the need to watch 50 or so other countries for humanitarian concerns brought about by climate change".

    I wonder how soon, if ever, we can expect some rational thinking on the part of government leaders. Climate change exists and has always existed. The basic causes are so large that the puny activities of man have little to no effect on climate. As climate change continues, it is man's obligation to adjust to the changes, not to try to influence those changes. As an example of futility, what would be man's chances of changing the relationship between night and day, which is distinctly a factor controlling climate?