The Allegedly Wise Close Eyes to Facts About Global Warming
(AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
The Allegedly Wise Close Eyes to Facts About Global Warming
(AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
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On March 2, the Wall Street Journal published an article by Princeton economist and former Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board Alan Blinder that includes this: “Climate change is the existential issue of our time. Nothing else poses a comparable threat to the continuation of human life on the planet.”
Putting aside Russia’s accelerating slaughter of Ukrainian civilians when Blinder’s article was published, his statement ignores facts that show that the benefits of global warming more than offset any harms that it may cause.

As environmental statistician Bjørn Lomborg reported on September 16, 2021, “Global warming now prevents more than 166,000 temperature-related fatalities annually.” His statement is supported by three studies that analyzed millions of deaths in numerous countries over recent decades and found that cooler temperatures kill several times more people than warmer temperatures.

Global warming, Matt Ridley has recently explained, also improves forest, grassland, and tree leaf growth and raises agricultural yields.

The facts regarding natural disasters also are positive. A 2021 EPA report admits that as the earth has warmed since the late 19th century, the number of hurricanes per year has not increased. An August 5, 2021 article by Bjørn Lomborg similarly details that the area burned by fires annually has decreased and most rivers flood less.

The most important fact regarding natural disasters, however, is that while the planet’s average temperature has risen by 1.12 degrees and its population has quadrupled from less than two billion to almost eight billion since 1920, the number of people killed each year by natural disasters has declined by about 90 percent.

Global warming also does not mean that air pollution is more harmful. Over the last three decades of warming, the global air pollution death rate similarly has declined by about 45 percent.

The bottom line is that facts show that global warming is more environmentally beneficial than it is harmful. As a group of eminent scientists — including Richard Lindzen of MIT and William Happer of Princeton —wrote in 2017: “Observations [over the last] 25 years … show that warming from increased atmospheric CO2 will be benign.”

Doomsday views like Blinder’s (and John Kerry’s) about global warming ignore these facts. They instead rely on speculative projections of global temperatures that their proponents call “models.” These are the same irretrievably flawed models that Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters – by Obama Department of Energy Under Secretary for Science Steven Koonin – shows are so poor that they cannot even reproduce the temperature changes of the 20th century.
One more fact: Alan Blinder’s article shows that he is blind to facts about global warming.
David M. Simon is a senior fellow at the Committee to Unleash Prosperity and a lawyer in Chicago. For more, please see www.dmswritings.com.


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