Climate change seems to be a heated debate between the Left and Right. And both sides exaggerate their opinions. The Left believes, or at least pushes the belief, that the world is ending, and the Right thinks the Left is ridiculous. I tend to align with the latter because it is so easy to debunk the Left’s beliefs on this. However, name-calling or claiming that climate change is a façade will not persuade anyone. The fact is that climate change is real, but it is a normal part of the earth’s cycles. The question is not, “How do we prevent change?” The question is, “How do we adapt to change?” But first, let us examine the false claims of the Left.
Faced with extreme regulations to stop using fossil fuels almost immediately and other over-the-top moves toward “saving the environment,” we deserve to discuss the truth about climate change instead of just blindly making sacrifices that drastically affect our society. The term “existential threat” means that something will, without question, end life on earth for humanity as we know it if action is not taken to stop it. Is such a claim really warranted, or is this nothing more than an over-exaggeration that climate activists accept as absolute truth? Whatever it is, the propaganda is working. A survey in 2019 found that 48% of the world believed climate change would lead to the extinction of man. They claim that we only have so much time left to make changes before the greenhouse effects set in and become beyond human control.
Fact vs. Fiction
According to Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth, the world already ended in 2016. At the time of the film’s release in 2006, he claimed that Global Warming would cause oceans to rise, produce unbelievable heat, cause crops to fail, and bring death to many species within ten years. Well, 2016 came and went, and not much changed. Clearly, a lot of people’s opinions did, though. An Inconvenient Truth grossed over 50 million dollars as people ate it up. When 2016 came and went, Gore retried
with a second film, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, which grossed only 5 million dollars. People were starting to wake up.
But the claims of impending doom were not done yet. In his second film, he ends up digging himself into a deeper hole with outlandish claims of “I told you so.” He visits an area in Florida and talks about how high tides are now flooding the streets in this city. What he does not tell us is that those streets have always had flooding issues. This is nothing new. The film is filled with many other ridiculous claims, along with personal political opinions. Nearly ten more years have passed, and still not much has changed. In fact, they continue to claim that weather events are getting worse and more devastating because of global warming. In reality, this is only fearmongering to hide the truth that death and destruction from weather events have significantly decreased over time.[1] Gore also refuses to publicly debate any skeptical scientists regarding his claims about climate change,[2] probably because he is personally aware of how fragile his arguments are.
Oceans Rising
As exaggerated as these claims sound, there is some truth to them. Climate change is real, just not the Left’s definition of climate change. Here is the first fact: Yes, the glaciers in the north are melting, but that does not mean the oceans will rise. These glaciers are nothing but blocks of ice floating in the oceans. If they melt, nothing will happen to the water levels. The ice’s displacement of water has already occurred, which is how the ice floats.
This is called buoyancy. Therefore, there is no extra water as the ice melts. According to Archimedes’ principle, an object immersed in a fluid will experience an upward buoyant force equal to the weight of the fluid displaced, which also causes the ice or even a ship to float.[3] The volume of the displaced fluid is the same as the volume of the object if it was fully immersed in the water. This includes the portion of the volume above the surface, such as the part of the iceberg extending above the surface of the water. The magnitude of the buoyant force is also the same as the weight of the displaced water. Because of this, the object neither rises nor sinks.[4]
Therefore, the melting glaciers floating in the ocean have zero impact on oceans rising or falling unless you argue that they are more susceptible to evaporation, in which case ocean levels would be going down. Admittedly, this would be more catastrophic than rising oceans. Arguably, you could say that the increase of ships in the oceans and the numerous ones that have sunk over the years have a direct correlation with humans causing the oceans to rise, but that would be an infinitesimal volume increase.
The glaciers in the north have no impact on the oceans rising because there is no land at the north pole. Then surely Antarctica would have an impact since the ice is melting off of a land mass. Right? After all, Al Gore said in 2009 that there would be no more ice in the Arctic by the year 2013.[5] While it may be true in theory that ice melting from Antarctica would cause sea levels to rise, the ice in Antarctica is actually expanding, as seen in NASA satellite imagery.[6] In just one year alone, from 2012 to the dreaded 2013, the ice expanded from 1.67 square miles to 2.25 square miles.[7] To explain the videos of the melting ice used in the film, we simply look at how the more the ice expands north in the winter, the more there is to melt in the summer. Looking at this from only one side, the climate crowd can easily exploit the extra melting ice and cry wolf. However, this is still sea ice bringing us right back to Archimedes’ principle.
A part of the widely spouted claim about the oceans rising involves the claim that whole islands are underwater. Let us assume this claim is valid for a moment. Over the earth's history, oceans have risen and fallen over and over, but the amount of water has never changed – just its location. During the past century, the oceans have been rising on average about a centimeter a year.[8] Take the ten-year prediction model, which is a total of approximately four inches of water. If an island is now underwater, nothing that could not survive in the sea was living on it to begin with. It would have been nothing more than a sandy beach that probably found itself submerged during high tide daily.
Maybe this is why Obama has no concern about his mansion on Martha’s Vineyard. Assuming the house is about 30 feet above sea level, about average for ocean-front property, and the house is at least 20 feet tall, it would take 1,524 years to be fully submerged in the ocean, assuming that the ocean does not start going back down. I would venture to say that there is not enough water in all the world’s rivers and lakes to raise the oceans that much, considering they account for only 0.036 percent of the world’s water. The polar ice caps and glaciers make up only 1.6 percent of the world’s water. Compare that almost 2 percent to the oceans’ 70 percent of the world’s water. Truly, it could only take God to flood the world, which he promised never to do again.
Numbers aside, there are also anecdotal facts that cannot be ignored. Those who have lived their lives on the coast, such as myself, have seen no change in the ocean’s height other than the daily tide going up and down. The jetty is at the same spot above the water, the piers are at the same spot above the water, and the homes are no more at risk of being underwater than they were 30 to 50 years ago.
Extensive Heat
There is significant concern from those who buy into the climate change hysteria that we are heading into a period of extensive heat that could destroy plant life, animals, and even us. Yes, it is possible that the planet could increase in heat exponentially, but it is not the threat that the climate extremists think it is, nor does humanity have any significant impact on its cause. The earth has had many temperature cycles throughout its life.
We are currently exiting an ice age, the same ice age that caused the dinosaurs to go extinct. What was it like during the time of the dinosaurs? The world was a tropical rainforest full of life where it is theorized that the excess of carbon that activists are concerned about made things like plants bigger which then created more oxygen through photosynthesis to make animals (dinosaurs) bigger. When the carbon went down, so did the oxygen and the earth’s giants could not survive. So, while some creatures and plants of today’s earth might perish, life will grow exponentially. In fact, the heat is a good thing.[9]
For most crops, heat can actually help create a healthy yield, whereas the cold will stunt or kill crops. Certain crops require colder weather, and unfortunately, those may go extinct. But trying to change the world over one or two crops or even an animal that cannot survive in a warmer environment is not worth making the lives of men difficult simply to slow the inevitable warming process. Even if the heat on earth went up significantly, it would not kill all life. The world would just become like a rainforest, a place thriving with life.
Additionally, the wildfires that are supposedly caused by this heat are actually healthy for the soil. Some plants, especially trees, do better in the reenergized soil caused by the fires. In California, it used to be the practice to allow wildfires to burn through certain areas and allow for deforestation.
Now, because of the increased population, housing, and regulations that no longer allow the cleanup of dry materials, firefighters are tasked with putting out the fires instead of just controlling the burn. This has led to what appears to be an increase in wildfire death and property damage. They claim that it has to do with global warming and that there is nothing they can do, but nothing has changed about the fires. We have only added more fuel to burn. Arguably, you could say that man has caused man’s problems. Unfortunately, California’s governor Gavin Newsom refused to do controlled burns, which would eliminate much of the damage caused by these fires.
As a part of this propaganda, Madonna, Leonardo DiCaprio, and other celebrities shared photos of the Amazon burning and claimed that the earth’s lungs were on fire. Besides the fact that it turned out most of the photos were not even of the Amazon, the Amazon’s output of 20% of the earth’s oxygen does not actually contribute to the world’s oxygen supply. This is because the abundant life in the Amazon consumes a lot of oxygen that it puts out. Therefore, the entire Amazon could burn down, which it is not, and it would not affect the amount of oxygen left in the world. In addition, parts of the Amazon have been burning for a very long time. Those photos mean nothing.
Earth naturally changes from cold to warm and back again throughout its cycles. This, of course, is such a slow process that humanity has known more ice than heat. Many creatures have come and gone on this planet, and many will come and go as adaptation to the natural change takes place. Trying to stop this natural change would be like trying to stop God from moving. It is not our place to interrupt the natural order, nor can we.
Cold also outweighs heat when it comes to death. It is 20 times more likely that someone will die from cold than heat.[10] A simple reason for this is that many diseases and viruses cannot survive in the heat. In addition, it is easier for humans to adapt to hot weather than cold – no wonder the majority of Canadians live on the southern border of their country.
Wildlife
Many people have all sorts of concerns for animals, and it is warranted but also ill-placed. For example, in the area of Michigan called the Upper Peninsula, they have a wolf problem that terrorizes the locals. They want permission to hunt these wolves, but the environmentalists down in Detroit, detached from the situation, vote no on this request to allow northern Michiganders to protect their families and property. They care more about dangerous animals than the people who have to deal with them.
In the Congo, the citizens constantly contend with local wildlife, such as baboons and hyenas that come and eat their crops. The government protects the wildlife. The owner of a sweet potato farm who consistently loses her crop to baboons lives in constant fear because she knows she will be arrested if she shoots the animals stealing from her, but her family will starve if she does not. [11] But, again, those making the decisions are far removed from the problem. Bureaucrats care more for what could be considered pests than human lives.
Then there is the lone catalyst that leads to environmentalists causing interruptions in our everyday lives. When marine biologist Christine Figgener filmed a turtle having a plastic straw pulled out of its nose that ended up going viral, the world went crazy, and cities and large companies alike started banning plastic straws. Because one turtle somehow got a straw stuck up its nose, we can no longer use plastic straws in our society. Ironically, only 1% of plastic straws actually end up in the ocean.[12] This was never a significant issue to warrant such a drastic change.
There is also a big push to remove all plastic from our world to save the animals. Except that anyone who thinks this is forgetting history. Plastic and petroleum products actually saved many animals when they were invented. Whales were saved when their oil was no longer needed to light lanterns or their baleen to make products. Turtles were saved when their shells were no longer needed to make things like combs. Elephants were saved when their ivory tusks were no longer needed to create things like piano keys. The list goes on. While sea life ingesting plastic is obviously bad, we need to remember the lives plastic has saved. Animals like these that were hunted for their resources have prospered under the influence of petroleum and plastics. We have a waste disposal problem, not a plastic problem.
Inconsistencies
The dreaded heat wave has not always been the topic of concern. In 1970, climate activists were claiming that there would be an Ice Age by the year 2000.[13] Believe it or not, this was the widely accepted consensus among the scientific community. If you questioned it, you were considered a science denier. Sounds familiar? Once the “party of science,” always the “party of science.” The funny thing about the Left and science is that they think that much of the contention is Christianity versus science when it comes to climate change, COVID concerns, and especially creation. What history shows us, however, is that science finds its origins in Christianity. Early scientists like Isaac Newton were actually strong Christians. They believed in intelligent design under God but began the study of science to understand God’s design. It is really today’s men of science that the Left believes in, not science itself.
The double irony behind the predicted ice age is that 2000 was the hottest year in recorded history and was six years prior to the release of An Inconvenient Truth. The film came out at a time when temperatures were basically going down, not up.[14] There is also another prediction that we will have a mini-ice age by 2030.[15] At the same time, there are claims that Florida will be completely underwater by 2060.[16] The highest point in Florida is about 345 feet above sea level.[17] Based on the one-centimeter average rise in the sea level, only the first foot and a quarter of Florida would be underwater by then, assuming there is no fluctuation. If you live right on the water, you might have some extra flood damage, but the state will be fine for at least 10,515 years. The only thing real about any of this is the inconsistency. Are we freezing or warming? Which is it?
Illogical Actions
Many people have the misconception that eliminating fossil fuels and replacing them with batteries will immediately improve the environment. At some point in time, this may become true, but we are not there yet. The problem is that how we create those batteries and charging them causes more emissions than a gas-powered vehicle. Based on the current manufacturing process of electric car batteries, one car battery can emit up to 74% more CO2 than the production of an efficient conventional car. All the batteries are manufactured in factories powered by fossil fuels at this point in time, except for one Tesla Gigafactory for batteries in Nevada, which uses solar power. Because of the way these batteries are created, an electric car can produce 20% more CO2 than a conventual car can over a lifetime of driving.[18]
These batteries also cannot be recycled, making them large additions to landfills when they eventually die. While switching to electric power sounds like a nice idea for the environment, the world is not yet ready to flip the switch. Yes, we could possibly get to the point where everyone has an electric car, but the need for fossil fuels is still required to manufacture and produce the energy we need. The real focus needs to be on replacing the power grid before replacing things like vehicles can take place.
Another illogical action is the stubborn refusal by California’s bureaucrats to fix the drought easily. Plenty of water in the northern part of the state just flows as runoff into the ocean. If redirected to the rest of California, there would not be a water shortage. But the environmentalists continue to get in the way because doing this could kill the delta smelt fish. Why? Because apparently, this two-inch fish is not a strong swimmer and could go extinct. For a group that believes so strongly in evolution, they sure do not want natural selection to take its course. Inconsistently, they will allow people to suffer to save a fish, but they have no problem killing birds and bats with wind turbines placed in wind highways.
During the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, Barack Obama flew out to lecture on behalf of the United States. He spent most of his speech blaming the Republicans during his own administration and Donald Trump for hindering what he put in place to prevent climate change. He blamed Trump for leaving the Paris accords, the same accords that did nothing to stop one of their members, China, from increasing its carbon emissions.[19] This all came after Obama purchased a multi-million-dollar home right on the beach on the small little island off of Massachusetts known as Martha’s Vineyard. If whole islands are going underwater, this seems like a pretty poor investment choice. But as we already established, he probably knows better.
Ignoring The Real Solution
There is a lot of pushback against producing our own natural gas and a goal to eliminate its use entirely from our world. The Left’s policies have caused inflation in gas prices and damaged any industry that relies on gas. A simple gas-powered machine used for cleaning, painting, gardening, etc., will cripple a company if it is rendered useless with no electric equivalent to take its place. Eventually, an electric equivalent may exist, but the Left wants us to drop all use of fossil fuels now. They care more for their virtue signaling within their climate war than the citizens affected by these policies.
The fact is that when it comes to our own gas and oil needs, we have all sorts of methods for clean extraction, much cleaner than the methods used for extraction in other countries. These are the very same countries we buy from because, “Hey, at least the environment is clean in the United States. Right?” It remains to be seen if we even need to purchase oil from other countries. For the first time in at least recent history, if not ever, the United States was a net exporter of oil under Trump.[20]
Even fracking is a lot cleaner than the environmentalists want us to know. A documentary called Gasland came out in 2010 and created an image that fracking was terrible for citizens and the environment. It did a great job convincing a lot of people with footage of a man who had fracking near his house light the water from his facet on fire. Scenes from the film have since been debunked, and studies found that flammable gases have been documented in water supplies across the world well before fracking was a thing. The filmmakers were presented contradictory evidence to their findings, and they ignored them in their film. The fact is that fracking is an exponentially cleaner and safer process than other methods.
Nuclear power has been demonized as this terrible destructive concept associated with the nuclear bomb. While there are obvious similarities, they could not be farther from each other. Nuclear power is one of the cleanest energy sources we have ever found. One nuclear plant can power several large cities. The notion that nuclear could cause a catastrophic event is also a myth. In America and some countries, these plants are built to collapse in on themselves and have when they’ve failed, creating a self-containing mechanism. The likelihood of this happening, though, is extremely low. Nuclear energy can also be recycled for more energy after use. It is the second-largest source of low-carbon electricity in the world behind hydropower but generates significantly more energy. California was ahead of the game once with its nuclear power, but it was all shut down by Governor Jerry Brown. Had he not shut down all of California's current and planned nuclear power plants because of his ties to big oil, California would currently be 100% independent on clean nuclear power with plenty of energy to spare for the rest of the country.
Sadly, environmentalists are moving us in the wrong direction. They are doing more harm than good for a weak claim that the world might be ending. From the Christian perspective, if the world was indeed at its end, there is nothing man could do to stop God’s plan. This is the main reason Christians have no concern for climate change. I am sure the environmentalists have sincerity in their beliefs, but they also acknowledge that they are exaggerating their claims. In their eyes, if a lie can make a difference in the world, then it is a good lie. This is where morality starts to waver.
We need to focus on keeping the earth healthy for humanity, not on keeping the earth healthy for the earth. Men are not the problem, and therefore they should not have to be punished for enjoying the gift of the world. Earth was created for humanity. Yes, we are tasked with being the keepers of the earth, but not at the cost of our fellow mankind. Policy should be to save earth for man, not to save earth from man. Saving the earth for other things while man suffers as "the problem” is a big reason why this entire movement has so much pushback.
This has been an excerpt from History vs Leftist Myths: America’s War on Information. To read the full chapter on this subject as well as other controversial topics, please check out our book available on Amazon. Your Amazon review is also greatly appreciated.
Sources
[1] Bjorn Lomborg, “We’re Safer From Climate Disasters Than Ever Before,” The Wall Street Journal, Associated Newspapers, November 3, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-activists-disasters-fire-storms-deaths-change-cop26-glasgow-global-warming-11635973538.
[2] Stephanie Mott, “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth To Power ‘Self-Serving, Questionable Claims’,” Movieguide, Movie Reviews, August 31, 2017, https://www.movieguide.org/reviews/movies/an-inconvenient-sequel-truth-to-power.html.
[3] “Archimedes principle and melting sea ice,” The University of Arizona, Academic, 2015, http://www.atmo.arizona.edu/students/courselinks/fall15/atmo170a1s3/1S1P_stuff/melting_ice_sea_level_rise/Archimedes_melting_ice.html.
[4] The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Archimedes’ principle,” Britannica, Dictionary, https://www.britannica.com/science/Archimedes-principle.
[5] TED, “New thinking on the climate crisis | Al Gore,” YouTube, Videos, April 8, 2008, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUO8bdrXghs&t=381s.
[6] Natasha Vizcarra, “Unexpected Ice. Sea ice in the Southern Ocean defies predictions,” NASA Earth Data, Research Publication, April 22, 2014, https://earthdata.nasa.gov/learn/sensing-our-planet/unexpected-ice.
[7] Maria-José Viñas, “Arctic Sea Ice Update: Unlikely To Break Records, But Continuing Downward Trend,” NASA, Research Publication, August 23, 2013, https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/arctic-sea-ice-update-unlikely-to-break-records-but-continuing-downward-trend.
[8] The Ocean Portal Team, “Sea Level Rise,” Smithsonian, National Museum of Natural History, August 5, 2019, https://ocean.si.edu/through-time/ancient-seas/sea-level-rise.
[9] Katia Moskvitch, “Dinosaur Era Had 5 Times Today's CO2,” Live Science, Research Publication, March 24, 2014, https://www.livescience.com/44330-jurassic-dinosaur-carbon-dioxide.html.
[10] Doyle Rice, “Study: Cold kills 20 times more people than heat,” USA Today, Associated Newspapers, May 20, 2015, https://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2015/05/20/cold-weather-deaths/27657269/.
[11] Michael Shellenberger, Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All, Harper, an Imprint of Harper Collins Publishers, June 30, 2020.
[12] Condor Ferries, “Plastic in the Ocean Statistics 2020-2021,” Condor Ferries, Blog, 2021, https://www.condorferries.co.uk/plastic-in-the-ocean-statistics.
[13] Grumpy Old Man 2020, “Leonard Nimoy Predicts An Ice Age Back In 1979. Fascinating!,” YouTube, Videos, July 16, 2021, https://youtu.be/NQSBn50o_8M
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[14] Amarillo, TX Weather Forecast Office, “Year 2000 Weather Review,” National Weather Service, Meteorology Research, September 18, 2016, https://www.weather.gov/ama/2000_weather_review.
[15] James Temperton, “Mini ice age could bring freezing temperatures by 2030,” WIRED, Associated Newspapers, July 13, 2015, https://www.wired.co.uk/article/mini-ice-age-earth-sunspots.
[16] Richard Luscombe, “Will Florida be lost forever to the climate crisis?,” The Guardian, Associated Newspapers, April 21, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/21/ florida-climate-crisis-sea-level-habitat-loss.
[17] John Englander, “Florida is Not Going Underwater,” John Englander, Blog, June 22, 2020, https://johnenglander.net/florida-is-not-going-underwater-anytime-soon/#:~:text=Florida's%20high%20point%20is% 20345,212 %20feet%20(65%20meters).
[18] Niclas Rolander, Jesper Starn and Elisabeth Behrmann, “Lithium Batteries' Dirty Secret: Manufacturing Them Leaves Massive Carbon Footprint,” Industry Week, Associated Magazine, October 16, 2018, https://www.industryweek.com/technology-and-iiot/article/22026518/lithium-batteries-dirty-secret-manufacturing-them-leaves-massive-carbon-footprint.
[19] Post Editorial Board, “China’s actions show its climate pledges are meaningless,” New York Post, Associated Newspaper, April 2, 2021, https://nypost.com/2021/04/02/chinas-actions-show-its-climate-pledges-are-meaningless/.
[20] Bradley Olson, “U.S. Becomes Net Exporter of Oil, Fuels for First Time in Decades,” The Wall Street Journal, Associated Newspaper, december 6, 2018, https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-becomes-net-exporter-of-oil-fuels-for-first-time-in-decades-1544128404.
[21] Office of Nuclear Energy, “5 Fast Facts about Spent Nuclear Fuel,” Energy.gov, Research Publication, March 30, 2020, https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-nuclear-fuel#:~:text=That's%20right!,%2C%20such%20as%20 France%2C%20do.
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