Editor's note: This column was co-authored by Tom Harris.
The latest example of journalist H. L. Mencken’s (1880-1950) observation about the real motive behind most political actions is on full display in the global warming debate. Menken said, "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."
This is the standard operating procedure of politics, but now it is at a fever pitch because the wheels have fallen off the climate change wagon.
Politicians chose the human-caused (anthropogenic) global warming (AGW) theory as the vehicle for their political agenda promoting global governance and world socialism. The problem is that, from the start, it was an unproven theory. The scientific method requires that scientists, acting in their proper role as skeptics, disprove the theory. The proponents actively chose to ignore any evidence that contradicted the AGW theory.
This included challenges about errors in the method and process from the few scientists who understood climatology properly. They got away with the deception as long as it involved what, to the public, were arcane academic issues. Now it is all catching up with them because the predictions they made using this science are proving incorrect. These predictions are the imaginary hobgoblins they used to menace the populace into believing their claims.
For example, we are often told that there are now more storms, more severe weather and how it is only going to get worse. This is false. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) data shows that for almost 142 consecutive months starting on Oct. 24, 2005, there were no major or moderate landfall hurricanes in the continental United States, the longest such period in records starting in 1851. A headline from the Weather Channel reports that “U.S Tornadoes Are Near a 13-Year Low in 2018.”
This pattern of reduced severe weather contradicts the original story from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and NOAA that global warming would cause more severe weather. In reality, climatology dictates that the global warming being forecast would create fewer storms. The reason is simple. Alarmists predicted more warming would occur in polar regions than in the tropics. If true, it would reduce the temperature difference between these air masses along a boundary called the Polar Front. It is where most severe weather occurs, including mid-latitude cyclones and tornadoes. Reduce the temperature difference, and you reduce the potential for severe weather. Now NOAA and the IPCC are scrambling to pretend they knew what was going on all the time.
NOAA was also wrong on their forecasts for hurricanes Florence and Michael. They presented them as monstrous, devastating, ‘never experienced before’ events, despite the fact that they were well within historic norms. They were able to do this because they collect and control the data. A critical example is wind speed. There are rarely any surface wind speeds available over the oceans, so they obtain them by flying through the upper levels of the hurricane, collecting the relevant data and then using a computer model to make a surface estimate. They consistently over-estimate the actual winds, always ensuring that it provides a higher Category in order to hype the event.
This is the same NOAA that consistently ‘adjusted’ the historical temperature record to support their AGW theory. It is the same NOAA that is a founding member of the IPCC. Their involvement was by design and is the biggest involvement of the ‘deep state’ in what has become a huge fake news story.
In reality, there is no increase in severe weather in the US or anywhere else in the world. Because of the Internet, more and more people are now aware of this. The lies and deceptions about AGW were apparent from the start to many scientists, and some did indeed speak out. Now a majority are aware of the evidence and the truth, which keeps emerging despite attempts to suppress it. It won’t be long before the public catches up and comes to understand that they have been completely misled on this, the greatest science scandal of all time.
Dr. Tim Ball is an environmental consultant and former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg in Manitoba. Tom Harris is executive director of the Ottawa, Canada-based International Climate Science Coalition.