Pointless Panic

Current conversation regarding climate change is largely couched in terms such as “crisis”, “emergency” and “existential threat”. However, the use of these descriptors is political posturing, not scientific assessment. The General-Secretary of the World Meteorological Organization recently warned against climate alarmism and criticized the media for “provoking unjustified anxiety”. This political posturing is intended to increase public awareness and anxiety regarding climate change and build acceptance for the dramatic actions proposed by climate alarmists.

Against this raucous background, it can be difficult to dispassionately assess the current climate and its impacts on global civilization. There is always climate and climate change, as there is always weather and weather change. Global weather and thus global climate have always included temperature change, precipitation change, storm frequency and intensity change and numerous other changes. There is no official definition of normal global climate or ideal global climate. During the instrumental global climate record there have been periods of warming and of cooling, against a background of warming during recovery from the Little Ice Age. The warming early in the 20th century was followed by cooling from the 1940s through the 1970s, which was then followed by warming again through the end of the century and relative stasis early in the 21^st century.

The political posturing focuses on the increase in atmospheric CO₂ concentrations resulting from the use of fossil fuels, primarily since the middle of the 20th century. The increased CO2 is charged with being largely responsible for an increase of approximately 1°C over the past approximately 150 years. The increased CO₂ is also thought to be largely responsible for significant global greening over the same period and, to be partially responsible for progressively increasing crop yields globally.

Observations indicate that global precipitation and drought extremes, global heat and cold extremes, global storm frequency and intensity have declined over the period for which we have data. These are all good things, but they are not clearly attributable to any documented change in global climate. There have also been periods of extreme weather of various types, but these periods are of insufficient duration to be classed as climate or to be attributed to some change in climate.

There are no documented instances of people dying as the result of climate change. There are no documented instances of mass migration as the result of climate change. There are no documented climate refugees. There is no documentation of island nations lost to sea level rise driven by climate change. There are no documented instances of areas becoming uninhabitable due to climate change, nor are there any documented instances of areas becoming habitable due to climate change.

In the absence of documented instances of the situations listed above, it is ridiculous to assert that there is a climate crisis and it is pointless to create panic and demand dramatic action because of the alleged crisis. It is becoming increasingly clear that climate change activism is a means to an end unrelated to climate change, driven by a globalist / socialist / communist agenda.