Part 22 - Contrary Opinions

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The constant fear-mongering of the climate disaster lobby is causing much anxiety but even the pessimistic scenarios of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggest that the average person will be 4.34 times richer by the end of this century. 

 Despite alarmist propaganda, there is no statistical evidence that global warming is clearly causing, or intensifying, wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, droughts and related natural disasters, or making them more frequent. And, our ability to mitigate them has improved. In the 1920's, annual global weather related deaths averaged 485,000 whereas the recent average was less than 9,000 (a 98% drop). Read 'Best things First' by Bjorn Lomborg. 

 More than 1,600 scientists signed the World Climate Declaration (WCD) noting that the actual warming observed is less than that predicted by the computer climate models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The models exaggerate the effect of greenhouse gases such as CO2 while ignoring the fact that CO2 is not a pollutant. It is an unreactive gas and a plant food that is vital to all life on Earth. When dinosaurs roamed the earth, the CO2 levels were 10 times higher than the present. They would not have survived with the current low CO2 level, because plants would not grow enough foliage fast enough to feed them.

The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) primarily uses data from Global Historical Climatology Network stations. And this data does show that 2023 July was the hottest month in the past 45 years by a quarter of a degree. But this may have been helped by an early and strong El Niňo, the eruption of Hunga Tonga in 2022 and record Canadian wildfires that spread smoke and CO2 over large areas of North America in 2023.  Also the solar cycles associated with sunspot activity may also contribute to atmospheric warming.

The Earth's climate is recovering from the last ice age and the disastrous Little Ice that ended only around 1850. NASA and NOAA have both pointed out that plant life is thriving in the slightly warmer climate with more CO2.

NOAA uses temperature data from 1218 U.S. Global Historical Climatology Network stations; a network that was established more than 100 years ago. Except that, 30% of these stations no longer provide data and NOAA is forced to estimate some temperatures. 

 Another problem is caused by the considerable increase in the U.S. population and the size of urban areas. This has created urban heat islands around stations that are typically warming faster than surrounding rural areas, thereby exaggerating global temperature increases. 

However, NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), using data from satellites, estimates that the average global temperature on Earth has increased at a rate of roughly 0.15 to 0.20°C per decade since 1975. That is less than 1.0°C to 2023.

 https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/world-of-change/global-temperatures


The Canadian Wildland Fire Information System reports there were 6,623 wild fires nationally in 2023, burning a record total of 18.4 million hectares (ha) (45.7 million acres) while emitting about 480 megatonnes of carbon into the atmosphere. This was about 23% of global wildfire carbon emissions in 2023.The below average number of fires in prior years, and poor forest management, almost certainly created the conditions for the record area burned 2023.

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⏰ Last updated: Apr 26 ⏰

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