By Robert Bradley Jr.
“Al Gore was right about one thing when speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos: CO2 emissions continue to rise and show no sign of being affected by ‘climate policy’.” (Jenkins, below )
In less than 800 words, Holman Jenkins, a The Wall Street Journal opinion columnist (February 4 – 5, 2023), cut the whole global warming frenzy. Basically, it’s all over except for the screaming. Science is “looking up” (it never actually looked down), for reasons that Jenkins only considered partially. And ExxonKnew as an exposed PR stunt.
Below, I break down Jenkins’ post with subtitles and let his words speak for themselves.
The Al Gore problem
Al Gore was right about one thing when speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos: CO2 emissions continue to rise and show no sign of being affected by “climate policy.”
He did not mention his own contributions to this outcome, intervening in the early Obama years to turn climate policy into an excuse for protectionist pork crates, with no real effect on climate. Nor is he the lead author of a brand that enhances green ventilation that almost guarantees climate action will actually become a polarizing dead letter.
Nor does he mention his uncanny luck in the history books, which would have helped him die more kindly than he deserved as science has now painted a less tragic picture. more dire about our climate future.
Comment: Al Gore’s problem is that he’s a walking hypocrite, talkative (check out the energy usage in his manor) and his obvious exaggerations. For a decade or more, many people were on both sides of the debate trust he hurts his cause by being too public and flamboyant.
“ExxonKnew”
Climate journalism has proved the point, among his Alpine Vaudeville, by severely falling apart from a newly released Harvard Harvard study that allegedly revealed that Exxon 40 years ago predicted the heating up of today with “spectacular”, “astonishing”, “astonishing” accuracy.
The adjectives themselves were not included in the research, it was just biased, funded by activists at the Rockefeller Family Foundation. But timing is probably not an accident. In fact, Exxon’s results are identical to those of other scientists because it collaborated with them. Its findings are not hidden “behind closed doors,” as one report alleges. They have been published in peer-reviewed journals. Apparently, to achieve the desired results, the “Harvard” study also had to attribute to Exxon external research that its scientists only “reported”.
This re-reading builds on Rockefeller’s previous biggest success, paying journalists in 2016 to flaunt Exxon’s decades-long scientific efforts. Exxon was accused of “emphasizing uncertainty” when uncertainty is a significant scientific outcome. Regardless of what Exxon says, it is not marketable to policymakers at the time who are spending trillions of unspecified dollars to reduce future temperatures by 4.5 degrees Celsius, possibly by as much as 4.5 degrees Celsius. 1.5 degrees. However, this is the best guide science can provide in four decades. Rockefeller likes to highlight the $30 million Exxon has spent on climate skeptic think tanks. This amount, not scientific uncertainty or human desire for cheap energy, explains the failure to enact meaningful CO2 reduction measures. It’s all Exxon’s fault.
Okay, studies like this one funded by Rockefeller and served by provocateurs at the Harvard history department and Germany’s Potsdam Institute exist to exploit the shallowness of the media. They wouldn’t exist otherwise.
Comment: Putting old Exxon research into historical context refutes what the PR campaign is trying to convey. Exxon’s CO2 climate survey comes at a time when the global climate is cooling, and the Peak Oil and Gas Peak is the fear of companies. Climatology is a fledgling profession with predictions coming from behind-the-scenes investigation, not formal models.
Exxon did not study aerosol temperature compensation or the positive effects of CO2 concentrations, such as fertilization of crops and warmer winters. Meanwhile, solar energy, wind power and electric vehicles are not the sectors that offer the prospect of “energy transition”. (More arguments can be found This.)
Climate model
There are a lot of mistakes in hindsight. Climate modelers, if their forecasts are validated, cannot tell if they are correct for the right reasons. The study also juggled apples and oranges dangerously due to the difference between equilibrium and transient climate sensitivity.
Comment: I believe that climate models, by communicating misinformation, are worse than nothing.
Opportunity cost
More importantly, there’s nothing here that can offset Rockefeller’s philanthropic money pouring down the Greta Thunberg hole when the real need goes unmet. Never mind.
Comment: Don’t just waste charity work “when the real need is not being met.” The colossal waste is all the ‘climate dollars’ that could have been spent on resilience and adaptation. It is a resource misdirection involving government-coerced copying of electricity and transport networks. And that means less spending, smaller budget deficits and less currency inflation.
After 40 years, an authoritative United Nations committee, which shared the Nobel Prize with Mr Gore, has made real progress on the puzzle of uncertainty, not just narrowing the scope of consensus on possible climate outcomes, but more importantly a reduction in the estimated risk of worst-case warming.
The final results of the long-awaited Sixth Assessment Report in 2021-22 are not covered by the same newspaper that has gobbled up Rockefeller’s hatred of Exxon. It greatly enhances the likelihood that human society will weather the expected changes with ease. In turn, as I recently noted, scientists could usefully refocus on exogenous risks and geoengineering solutions should those outliers materialize.
Comment: Holman Jenkins’ interpretation of IPCC science is based more on the body of the report and less from the Policy Brief (biased)–and less from media exaggeration of the assessment 6th.
Jenkins will be happy to know that 1) recorded satellite temperature is showing much less warming than the model predicts; 2) the main line has against high-end warming models of the IPCC family; 3) temperature reproduction based on the fact that a warming of about 1.5C-2.2C doubles the amount of CO2 (see This, ThisAnd This) compared with the IPCC AR6 equilibrium climate sensitivity range of 2.0C-4.5C.
Public policy failed
Acclaim. This is progress. In the meantime, though, thanks to Rockefeller, Mr. Gore, and others, we’ve come to policy choice C— spending X trillion dollars on climate zero.
Comment: Have a real anti-CO2 campaign increase emissions? The low marginal cost of wind and solar power has destroyed the economics of nuclear capacity, causing premature shutdowns. Same goes for gas stations. And reliability/price issues from the intermittent, dilute energy source have fueled the burning of coal, oil, and wood around the world. Energy density rule.
Our obsessive focus on green energy subsidies pleases many components but encourages more energy consumption overall. After all, human energy needs are limitless if the price is right. Meanwhile, unused and even denigrated by the left is the only tool ever capable of meaningfully reducing the emissions pathway, the carbon tax.
Comment: Forgive Jenkins about his closet club, the CO2 tax. Does he know the “right” price? Are we willing to implement international trade barriers to prevent “leakage”? Government failure and analytical failure are more than negating “market failure” in this regard.
Oh good. Climate policy has effectively ended, and that could be fine. The energy machine will inevitably incorporate new technologies, including renewable energy; anyway there won’t be a big change in emissions from the path they’ve been on.
Comment: Worry about the “problems” of the next century into the next—and enjoy abundant, affordable, reliable energy in the meantime. And global warming could even be an insurance policy against global cooling caused by a chain of volcanoes or by natural forces of which we know very little.
Mr. Gore will continue his angry prophetic act. Politics will continue to fuel a sacred pork scramble. Climate journalism will balance on its nose whatever meme gets its way. And humanity will adapt to the climate it receives, which at present best predicts could be 1 to 2 degrees Celsius warmer over the next century.
Last comment: Global greening and other benefits from CO2 enrichment will continue and expand. The mitigation strategies of the United Nations, UK/EU and the Biden Administration have failed. The way forward is weather/climate prediction and adaptation, towards free markets and societal well-being, not global energy statistics.
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