Political Dreams and Nightmares

The great dream of progressive politicians is to find a problem whose solution appears to require unending increases in taxation or political control – preferably both – which produce no measurable progress on the problem. Ideally, the situation would be one in which the perception is opposite to reality – i.e., where the “solution” actually worsens the true situation.

Question: Who would do anything this nutty?

Answer: We would.

Question: So what problem are we trying to “fix?”

Answer: Climate Change

Since the 1990s the Greenies have been pounding the taxation/government-control drum to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions. Their premise is that CO₂ is a “greenhouse gas” which causes the earth’s climate to change. For a few years, warming did seem to be happening. That boosted former Vice-president Al Gore into a whole new career (and a considerable fortune) by preaching:

• That CO₂ is warming the planet;
• That increasing CO₂ levels will overheat the earth and make it uninhabitable; and
• That we’re all going to roast or drown unless we do something.

Climate Al predicted advancing doom, claiming that it was all “settled science.” He warned that we had little time to act, and he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his work. His film, An Inconvenient Truth, won the 2006 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Al was on a roll, and we were hangin’ on by a thread. Hardly anyone mentioned that he was a politician, not a scientist.

Eventually, though, real scientists noted that Al’s claims were based on selectively chosen data. He had omitted important facts like the Roman and Medieval Warm Periods (250 BC to AD 400 and AD 900 to 1300) when temperatures rose without any industry and (very few) trucks or automobiles to blame it on. He also failed to mention the Little Ice Age (AD 1450-1850), when global temperatures plunged, glaciers advanced, and canals froze over – giving Hans Brinker and his silver skates a venue – all without any human assistance. Dr. Gore’s famous “hockey stick” graph of global temperatures vs. time ignored these salient periods, which were caused by entirely natural conditions beyond human control.

Although one would scarcely realize it from current news reports, the fact is that the earth has not warmed over the past 25 years. This has turned global cooling into a new climate emergency. To illustrate this, consider a chronology of world-wide climate-events from February 2012 through March 2013, compiled by Geoffrey Pohanka. (http://isthereglobalcooling.com/ ) Mr. Pohanka argues the global cooling case, but readers should draw their own conclusions:

February 2012:

• Three weeks of record cold in Europe: temperatures 25^o C below normal; coldest February in 26 years; one of ten coldest in the last 150 years.
• China temperatures hit -50 ^o C (i.e., -58 ^o F); coldest winter in memory froze 40% of Mongolian livestock.

March 2012:

• Oregon and Washington had all-time record snowfalls.
• Second largest ice-extent on record in the Bering Sea.
• Huge snowfall in China killed 90,000 livestock.

April 2012:

• Sydney, Australia had coldest April 10^th in 80 years.

May 2012:

• UK had coldest May in 200 years.

June 2012:

• Sweden had one of its coldest Junes since records began in 1789.
• Seattle had third-coldest June in its history.

July 2012:

• Emergency in Argentina due to cold.
• A dozen people froze to death in Chile.
• Tasmania had record low temperatures.

August 2012: South Africa had snow in all 9 provinces – first time in recorded history.

September 2012: Extent of Antarctic sea ice was the largest ever recorded on Sept 12.

October 2012:

• Record cold gripped part of Austria; earliest snow in a century.
• Surprise snow hit central Germany.
• Heavy snow caught Muscovites unprepared.
• For only the second time in recorded history all Austrian provinces had snow in October.

November 2012:

• Early cold snap killed 14 in Poland.
• Hurricane Sandy caused record snowfall in Appalachians.
• Three tourists died from cold on the Great Wall of China, due to early snow.
• Early winter on three continents.
• Record snow around USA, including the Northeast.
• Globe seized by record cold: UK had coldest winter in 100 years; Arctic had record refreeze; snow in New Zealand.

December 2012:

• UK had coldest autumn since 1993.
• European deep-freeze killed hundreds.
• Record snow in Norway.
• Severe cold in eastern Europe: over 600 died from cold.
• State of emergency declared in Ukraine due to huge snows; 37 dead in 24 hours.
• Russia had strongest winter in decades: -50 ^o C temperatures; 125 people froze to death; snow up to 16 feet deep; motorists near Moscow trapped for days on highway during snowstorm – back-up extended 125 miles.
• State of emergency declared in Siberia; -61^o F temperatures.
• Massive cold front gripped Asia; northern India cold wave kills 25.
• USA had the most snow cover in ten years; record snow in Minneapolis.
• December had largest Northern Hemisphere snow cover ever recorded.

January 2013:

• Record cold in Asia: hundreds dead; coldest Bangladesh temperatures since 1960s.
• Russia buried under snow.
• Over 300 died from brutal cold in Eastern Europe.
• 29 died from cold in Mexico.
• Bermuda had record daily low temperature.

February 2013:

• Record New England snow.
• German winter temperatures dropping at rate of 6^o C per century.
• Alps cooling since 2000.
• Heaviest snowfall in a century hits Moscow.
• All-time low Northern Hemisphere temperature of -96^o F recorded in Oymyakon, Siberia.
• Japan had heaviest winter snow in recorded history.
• Germany had darkest winter in 43 years.

March 2013:

• November ’12 to February ‘13 ranked 4th largest worldwide snow in recorded history; second largest for the Northern hemisphere.
• Arctic sea ice largest in a decade.
• UK in deep freeze: many deaths from cold; coldest spring since 1963; UK gas rationing.
• Second coldest March in USA since 1969.
• Calcutta had coldest day in 100 years; record low March temperatures.
• Berlin had coldest March in 100 years.
• Germany’s coldest spring on record: late March temp of -33^o C was coldest March temperature in over 100 years.
• Climate models fail to predict brutally cold European temperatures.
• Thousands of animals buried alive in Ireland by snow drifts.

Most of the above news never reached the USA’s liberal-controlled Mainstream Media, and certainly not the tender ears of their listeners. Worldwide record-setting cold and snow didn’t fit the global-warming story-line then being peddled by liberal politicians and their media lapdogs. Many folks still thought we were going to roast or drown in rising oceans unless we sent all of our money to the government. The Politicians’ Dream Issue seemed reachable.

American environmentalists couldn’t understand the lack of interest in global warming shown by China, India and Russia. But the above reports, plus similar later accounts, showed why not: they were up to their hips in snow and freezing to death over there. Why would they want to cool things down even more?

In the USA, our Lord High Protectors of the Environment knew that global warming wasn’t happening, so they re-formed their blitzkrieg on fossil-fuels and America’s industrial economy as a campaign to stop climate-change. To support this move the pols continue to push “ruinously expensive “cures” for the humanity-threatening problem of “anthropogenic climate-change.” We’ve poured billions into industries which have no effect on the climate – wasting fortunes that our people need to live and prosper. Current estimates place the totals spent to stop climate-change at $1 trillion, including over $150 billion this year.

To “save the planet” President Obama launched a war on coal intended to make the price of electricity “skyrocket” (his term), and he tried to do the same for gasoline. He claimed it would protect the climate by lowering carbon-dioxide emissions. Much of the world knew the earth wasn’t warming, but The Big O charged ahead with plans to sacrifice our national economy on the Altar of Climate. What he couldn’t get by legislation he tried to achieve by executive order and Cabinet regulations.

The inmates were basically running the asylum. Unless we stopped them, we would all end up broke, pedaling rickshaws, freezing our butts off in unlit hovels, and cooking over smoky fires of dried buffalo poop. Climate-change has become the greatest hoax in history, and it looked like it was going to be America’s suicide-pact. Our saviors had us by the throat, and Hillary Clinton was going to finish the job.

Fortunately, a kind Providence brought American voters to their senses before the whole thing went to hell in a supermarket cart. In 2016 we elected a president who saw that the climate-madness had to be stopped if his vow to “make America great again” had any chance of succeeding. He undid Obama’s executive orders and regulations that had hurt our industries and stalled the economy. He brought the coal industry back from the dead. The booming shale oil industry redrew the world-map of petroleum and natural gas production. And Mr. Trump stopped American participation in the Paris Climate Accords. For the first time in our history, the USA became energy independent.

Some critics claimed that the Pohanka data (above) vindicated the climate-change theory. Others said those reports were outdated, and that current trends are different. But every time there’s another destructive hurricane – like recent events – or a bad snowstorm, or a spate of tornadoes, the Greenies renew their wailing about how we’re changing the climate with our gas-guzzling cars.

But it’s important to remember that “weather” has not the same meaning as “climate.” Those terms are now used interchangeably by reporters, pundits, politicians and even some scientists, but they are not the same thing. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

Weather = the state of the atmosphere at a place and time as regards heat, dryness, sunshine, wind, rain, etc.

Climate = the weather conditions prevailing in an area in general or over a long period.

Thus, weather is a component of climate, but climate is a larger concept. Climate in a locale can include a wide range of weather events over short time-spans, but those events don’t necessarily indicate that the climate is abruptly changing.

Climate can change, and has changed in some places, but only over long periods of time. Scientists argue over whether such change is actually occurring now, but the issue is far from “settled.” More to the point, there is no clear evidence that any human activity is causing the climate to change, if it is changing. Nor is there any scientific “consensus” on whether the change, if it is happening, will be good or bad.

Before Mr. Trump showed up we were trying to fight an economic war with one hand tied behind our back, while emerging economic powers like China ran rings around us. But sanity about climate, weather, the economy, trade and foreign affairs returned to some – but not all – government arms during his term.

Providence did not continue to smile after Good Old (Lunchbox) Joe took over. He turned politicians’ dream into a national nightmare with an all-out war on oil, gasoline, natural gas, gas appliances, and gasoline-powered cars. He “persuaded” Detroit carmakers to produce a million-plus electric-powered cars that are now sitting on dealers’ lots. Consumers are not buying them.

With so much money at stake, the climate-change issue is monster-mashing uncontrollably onward at the vanguard of American politics. Advocates of radical environmental policies are on a “long march” toward a political climate – hopefully led by Kamala Harris – that will resume their progressive destruction of the most successful economy in history. Only a fully aware American public can stop them.

If you haven’t bothered to vote yet, please turn off the TV and motor down to your polling place on Tuesday. And while you’re driving your comfy car you might offer a prayer that you’ll still be able to afford gas after the votes are counted. We’re playing for big stakes this time, and those rickshaws are really tough to pedal uphill.