Commentary: The Climate is trending upwards

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The planet’s warming because of emissions from land use change, fossil fuels, and other sources. Emissions are side effects of economic development ‘that has been overwhelmingly positive’. Emissions are declining in rich nations and will soon decline globally. The truth is that most trends relating to climate change and the environment are headed in the right direction.

Few of us die from disasters. We’re producing more food than ever. Emissions are going down. Those trends are going to continue, but you wouldn’t know it from the UN PR department, which aims to persuade people that we are in greater peril. It’s mass neuroticism.

The basis for such alarmism is sociological not scientific. It is driven by the need among secular people for purpose and meaning. The belief that you’re saving the world from Apocalypse appeals to Marvel moviegoers as well as mid-level career diplomats stuck in powerless UN jobs.

Emissions are going down thanks to the transition to natural gas and nuclear, which UN types have hotly denounced for decades — perhaps because tech changes underscores the irrelevance of UN bureaucrats whose only power is in issuing hysterical press releases.

The same is true of course for many scientists, journalists, policymakers, and activists. They try to block the use of natural gas and nuclear because those techs mean we don’t need UN reports, conferences, junkets, etc. Autonomous tech change means their careers are pointless.

The more emissions decline, the more pointless their existence, and the more they feel the need to terrify schoolchildren. Greta is what you get after decades of indoctrinating schoolteachers, journalists and others in the “educated” classes.

Ignorance about all of the most important trends when it comes to climate change — decarbonization, declining disaster deaths, rising crop yields — don’t result from the absence of information, but rather the repetition of misinformation, you know, “No one is safe.”

Is this what’s behind the widespread neuroticism that afflicts secular elites in rich nations? The material challenges have all been solved. We are resilient to weather in ways our grandparents could only dream of.

And yet we’re more neurotic than ever.

First, some context: humans are doing better than ever: – extreme poverty declined from 44% to 10% btwn 1981 – 2015; – infant mortality declined from 43% to just 4%! – Life expectancy rose from 40 to 70 – Human population growth rate has crashed; we’re having fewer children.

We are more resilient than ever: – Deaths from natural disasters declined over 90% – We produce 25% more food than we need — our largest surpluses in history And there is no scientific scenario for either of those trends to reverse themselves, even with high levels of warming.

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Wayne Creed

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