Millions Died Thanks to the Mother of Environmentalism

On Jan. 24, 2017, PBS aired a two-hour special on Rachel Carson, the mother of the environmental movement. Although the program crossed the line from biography to hagiography, in Carson’s case, the unbridled praise was well deserved – with one exception.

Rachel Carson was an American hero. In the early 1960s, she was the first to warn that a pesticide called DDT could accumulate in the environment, the first to show that it could harm fish, birds, and other wildlife, the first to warn that its overuse would render it ineffective, and the first to predict that more natural means of pest control – like bacteria that killed mosquito larvae – should be used instead.

Unfortunately, the PBS documentary neglected to mention that in her groundbreaking book, Silent Spring, Carson had made one critical mistake – and it cost millions of people their lives.

Carson’s Literary Acclaim

On Nov. 1, 1941, Rachel Carson published her first book, Under the Sea-WindAlthough written for adults, the book had a child-like sense of wonder. Under the Sea-Wind told the story of Silverbar, a sanderling that migrated from the Arctic Circle to Argentina; Scomber, a mackerel that traveled from New England to the Continental Shelf; and Anguilla, an American eel that journeyed to the Sargasso Sea to spawn. “There is poetry here,” wrote one reviewer.

On July 2, 1951, Carson published her second book, The Sea Around Us. Two months later, The Sea Around Us was #1 on the New York Times bestseller list, where it remained for 39 weeks: a record. When the dust settled, The Sea Around Us had sold more than 1.3 million copies, been translated into 32 languages, won the National Book Award, and been made into a movie. Editors of the country’s leading newspapers voted Rachel Carson “Woman of the Year.”

In October 1955, Carson published her third book, The Edge of the Sea, a tour guide for the casual adventurer. The New Yorker serialized it, critics praised it and the public loved it: more than 70,000 copies were sold as it rocketed to #4 on the New York Times bestseller list.

Today, most people under the age of 40 have probably never heard of Rachel Carson. But in the early 1960s, almost every American knew her name.

Demonizing DDT

On Sept. 27, 1962, Rachel Carson changed her tone. Her next book, Silent Spring, which she called her “poison book,” was an angry, no-holds-barred polemic against pesticides: especially DDT.

The first chapter of Silent Spring, titled “A Fable for Tomorrow,” was almost biblical, appealing to our sense that we had sinned against our Creator. “There was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings. Then a strange blight crept over the area and everything began to change… the cattle and sheep sickened and died… streams were lifeless… everywhere there was the shadow of death.”

Birds, especially, had fallen victim to this strange evil. In a town that had once “throbbed with scores of bird voices there was now no sound, only silence.” A silent spring. Birds weren’t alone in their suffering. According to Carson, children suffered sudden death, aplastic anemia, birth defects, liver disease, chromosomal abnormalities, and leukemia – all caused by DDT. And women suffered infertility and uterine cancer.

Carson made it clear that she wasn’t talking about something that might happen – she was talking about something that had happened. Our war against nature had become a war against ourselves.

In May 1963, Rachel Carson appeared before the Department of Commerce and asked for a “Pesticide Commission” to regulate the untethered use of DDT. Ten years later, Carson’s “Pesticide Commission” became the Environmental Protection Agency, which immediately banned DDT. Following America’s lead, support for international use of DDT quickly dried up.

The Global Killer

Although DDT soon became synonymous with poison, the pesticide was an effective weapon in the fight against an infection that has killed – and continues to kill – more people than any other: malaria.

By 1960, due largely to DDT, malaria had been eliminated from 11 countries, including the United States. As malaria rates went down, life expectancies went up; as did crop production, land values, and relative wealth.

Probably no country benefited from DDT more than Nepal, where spraying began in 1960. At the time, more than two million Nepalese, mostly children, suffered from malaria. By 1968, the number was reduced to 2,500; and life expectancy increased from 28 to 42 years.

After DDT was banned, malaria reemerged across the globe:

  • In India, between 1952 and 1962, DDT caused a decrease in annual malaria cases from 100 million to 60,000. By the late 1970s, no longer able to use DDT, the number of cases increased to 6 million.
  • In Sri Lanka, before the use of DDT, 2.8 million people suffered from malaria. When the spraying stopped, only 17 people suffered from the disease. Then, no longer able to use DDT, Sri Lanka suffered a massive malaria epidemic: 1.5 million people were infected by the parasite.
  • In South Africa, after DDT became unavailable, the number of malaria cases increased from 8,500 to 42,000 and malaria deaths from 22 to 320.

Since the mid-1970s, when DDT was eliminated from global eradication efforts, tens of millions of people have died from malaria unnecessarily: most have been children less than five years old. While it was reasonable to have banned DDT for agricultural use, it was unreasonable to have eliminated it from public health use.

Costing Lives

Environmentalists have argued that when it came to DDT, it was pick your poison. If DDT was banned, more people would die from malaria. But if DDT wasn’t banned, people would suffer and die from a variety of other diseases, not the least of which was cancer. However, studies in Europe, Canada, and the United States have since shown that DDT didn’t cause the human diseases Carson had claimed.

Indeed, the only type of cancer that had increased in the United States during the DDT era was lung cancer, which was caused by cigarette smoking. DDT was arguably one of the safer insect repellents ever invented – far safer than many of the pesticides that have taken its place.

Carson’s supporters argued that, had she lived longer, she would never have promoted a ban on DDT for the control of malaria. Indeed, in Silent Spring, Carson wrote, “It is not my contention that chemical pesticides never be used.” But it was her contention that DDT caused leukemia, liver disease, birth defects, premature births, and a whole range of chronic illnesses.

An influential author can’t, on the one hand, claim that DDT causes leukemia (which, in 1962, was a death sentence) and then, on the other hand, expect that anything less than that a total ban of the chemical would result.

In 2006, the World Health Organization reinstated DDT as part of its effort to eradicate malaria. But not before millions of people had died needlessly from the disease.

Reprinted from The Daily Beast.

COLUMN BY

Paul A. Offit

Paul A. Offit is a professor of pediatrics and director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He is the author of Pandora’s Lab: Seven Stories of Science Gone Wrong (National Geographic Press, April 2017).

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Climate Facts In One Minute

The Left is notorious for burying information beneath thousands of pages to hide the truth behind climate change. The recent 4,000-page AR6 Climate report from the UN’s IPCC is a case in point.

Wouldn’t it be nice to get the straight facts without having to sort through countless hours or pages of alarmist spin?

Well, look no further. CFACT’s new YouTube series the “Morano Minute” lays out climate facts and analysis while it pokes fun at the hypocrisy and lies of the Green Left – all in just one minute!

Hosted by CFACT’s own Marc Morano, editor of Climate Depot, the series is already making waves.

Recent segments cover how Virginians are fighting against a new climate law destined to make Virginia more like California’s failed energy grid. Other videos eviscerate the media’s attempt to blame the disastrous fall of Afghanistan on climate change, poke fun at environmentalists’ “climate religion,” and lay bare the hypocrisy of climate alarmists using the armadillo as a mascot for both warming today and cooling back in the 1970’s.

Are you itching for truth in a world where there’s nothing but political spin?

Watch the Morano Minute, share with a friend, and let’s debunk the lies of the Green Left together!

RELATED VIDEO: Peter Temple On Climate Change The Big Picture

EDITORS NOTE: This CFACT column and video is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

STOP National Heritage Areas! Or Death by a thousand cuts.

When I first learned of a plan to create a National Heritage Area (NHA) in NW Florida, I learned it would supposedly create economic development through historic and cultural tourism and would showcase our historic sites. That didn’t sound concerning.  Then I discovered that it would encompass 14 counties, be funded through your hard earned tax dollars, be operated by a non-elected, non-government entity and be associated with the National Park Service.  That is when alarm bells went off.

National Heritage Areas are pork-barrel programs with the very real potential of impacting the private property rights of those landowners located within the NHA boundaries.

Most people that I’ve talked to know nothing about National Heritage Areas, or have even heard of a NHA.  That is including people who live in existing NHAs

WHAT ARE NATIONAL HERITAGE AREAS?

According to the National Park Service (NPS), “National Heritage Areas (NHAs) are designated by Congress as places where natural, cultural, and historic resources combine to form a cohesive, nationally important landscape….NPS partners with, provides technical assistance, and distributes matching federal funds from Congress to NHA entities. NPS does not assume ownership of land inside heritage areas or impose land use controls” National Park Service website.

The first NHA was established in 1984. There are currently 55 National Heritage Areas scattered throughout the country.  Each NHA receives up to $700,000 per NHA per year of your hard earned federal tax dollars via the National Park Service.  Their enabling legislation claims there is a “sunset” where they are self sustaining financially and do not require your taxpayer dollars.

So far, none of the 55 NHAs have become self-sustaining and instead are a perpetual drain on the federal budget, with the older NHAs receiving reauthorization for more years-worth of our tax dollars.  Watch the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands testimony of June 15, 2021.  See the Congressmen as well as the Dept. of the Interior/National Park Service representative and others talk of a looming “crisis” where 30 of the 55 NHAs sunset on 9/30/2021 and they all desperately need re-authorization into the future to obtain more of your taxpayer dollars.  They are supposed to be self sustaining but they are NOT.

Add to that the fact that the National Park Service is over $18 Billion (with a B!) behind in repairs and maintenance of the park system.  The alliance of NHAs has a chart on their web site bemoaning that the federal government has only provided them with 33% of the promised funding.  So, they promise communities money, but the NHA doesn’t receive it, so what makes you think the community gets it?

In the testimony, they said, “we are a great bargain!  You gave us $20 million last year and we earned over $80 million in matching funds.”  We are to believe they are bringing in more money than Congress is giving them yet they want more of your tax money.  Something does not add up. If that is true, they are self sustaining and do not need federal – meaning your wallet – support.

Currently before the 117th Congress is HR1316/S 1942, a bill to standardize National Heritage Areas and create the National Heritage Areas System that will now include National Trails, National Rivers and all the other cats and dog programs under the NPS.   This will expand this program and, of course, require more of your federal tax dollars.

We must urge Representatives Rutherford, Cammack, Waltz, Diaz-Balart, Bilirakis, Steube, Salazar, Scott, Mast, Gaetz and Dunn as well Senators Scott and Rubio to vote NO on  HR1316/S1942 and any other NHA legislation.  It is up to us to tell them to reject National Heritage Areas.

The Great Setup!

Typically, NHA enabling documents contain language that, according to proponents, is designed to protect private property rights by allowing property owners to refrain from participating in any planned project or activity within the heritage areas, not requiring any owner to permit public access to property and not altering any existing land use regulation, approved land use plan, or other regulatory authority.

In practice however, local government officials can be and are pressured by the NHA management entity to pass zoning laws and regulations not otherwise needed in order to support the NHA management plan. This is known as regulatory taking.  In regulatory taking, you still own the property and pay taxes on it, but you aren’t reimbursed for any loss of use or value through restrictive zoning and ordinances passed by local and county governments to support the NHA management plan.

“National heritage areas are preservation zones where land use and property rights can be restricted. They give the National Park Service and preservation interest groups (many with histories of hostility toward property rights) substantial influence by giving them the authority to create land use “management plans” and then the authority to disburse federal money to local governments to promote their plans.” National Center for Public Policy Research, 2007 letter sent to congressional leaders and pertinent committee members.

So, whether by design or not, NHAs are the Great Setup for government to impose new infringements on your personal property rights.

NHA NEGATIVE IMPACTS

So you may wonder if and where negative impacts have occurred in conjunction with National Heritage Areas. If you ask the National Park Service they will tell you there have been no negative impacts or complaints.  But it’s not true. Here are just a few of the examples I’ve found.

In their own words!

  1. If you don’t think the Interior Dept and NPS consider the NHA under their control consider this from the National Environmental Policy Act Guide for National Heritage Area Management Plans: Section 2 Environmental Compliance:

“Since NHA management plans are approved by the Secretary of the Interior, the approval is considered a Federal action and, therefore, federal environmental laws including NEPA and other laws, such as Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) and Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), must be followed.”

  1. The official management plan for the Blackstone River National Heritage Corridor, prepared by the Center for Rural Massachusetts, University of Massachusetts, Amhearst, declares: “At some point, a sufficient level of concern is reached along with a growing concern that voluntary, non-regulatory measures are themselves insufficient to ensure that environmental, cultural and historic resources are adequately protected against indiscriminate and inappropriate development.”
  2. “As a first step, each of the jurisdictions within the Heritage Area that has not already done so will need to recognize the JTHG National Heritage Area and related parks, trails and sites in its comprehensive plan and identify its resources and qualities as a priority for conservation and preservation in the county. The JTHG Partnership will work to ensure that all counties participate in NHA initiatives and recognize the NHA in their plans.” Journey Through Hallowed Ground National Heritage Area Management Plan, July 2012

Examples of NHA impact

“In Wheeling, the legislature designated the downtown area as a National Heritage Area in October 2000 when it passed the Wheeling National Heritage Act (WNHAA). This act created the Wheeling National Heritage Area Corporation (WNHAC) to manage and redevelop the area. In 2002, The WHNAC proposed to convert 90 percent of downtown Wheeling into a ‘Victorian-themed outlet mall.’ This plan would have condemned properties and transferred them from their present owners to private retail businesses chosen by City officials (Berliner 2003). Fortunately, the West Virginia Supreme Court ruled the financing of the plan unconstitutional in May 2003.” Unleashing Capitalism: Why Prosperity Stops at the West Virginia Border and How to Fix It, Russell S. Sobel, Ph.D. Editor, Chapter 7, Edward J. López, Carrie B. Kerekes, George D. Johnson.

“When Augusta Canal NHA was undergoing initial approval, the National Park Service urged the House Resources Committee to withhold federal funds from Augusta Canal until a commitment was shown by those overseeing the creation of the NHA to implement stricter zoning laws and even create a state park.” Great National Land Grab, Peyton Knight, 2003

(Former) Deputy Director of the National Park Service, Donald Murphy, testified before the Senate Subcommittee on National Parks that one of the things the Park Service does when administering National Heritage Areas is survey land that would be suitable for future National Parks or National Park expansions. National Heritage Areas, The Land Grab Continues, Tom DeWeese, October 2012

“My county literally tried to ban cattle fencing in the middle of cowboy country. They zoned everything outside of the city as a park, at the same time they tried to join an existing NHA neighboring us.”   Angel Cushing, via email, 8/19/2021, Lyon County, KS.

Folks, we have a National Property Rights Crisis. Here is a summary of reasons to be very concerned about NHAs:

  1. CONCERNS ABOUT NATIONAL HERITAGE AREAS INFLUENCE ON PRIVATE PROPERTY RIGHTS NHA claim they protect private property rights.  History has shown that local government officials are pressured by the NHA management entity to pass zoning laws and regulations not otherwise needed in order to support the NHA management plan. Private property owners can lose the right to use and enjoy their properties as they see fit.  This often results in a loss of value.
  2. LACK OF TRANSPARENCY NHAs are often created without citizens knowledge and certainly not by public vote.  NHA boundaries are created without the public’s consent. No notification is given to landowners of the creation of the NHA or of NHA management entity actions.
  • NO PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY A private group or organization will manage the NHA. They not accountable to the public for their management actions. They are not elected and therefore, if you don’t like what they do, you can’t vote them out.  You cannot submit a Freedom of Information Act Request to find out what they are doing.
  1. MORE GOVERNMENT BUREAUCRACY The National Park Service oversight for the NHA adds another layer of government bureaucracy.
  2. SOLUTION LOOKING FOR A PROBLEM Local, state and federal regulations and programs, grants and private nonprofits already exist to promote the economy and preserve history and heritage.  NHAs duplicate those efforts.
  3. CONTINUOUS DRAIN ON TAXPAYERS None of the National Heritage Areas in existence have become self-sufficient and are chronically dependent upon additional federal funding at taxpayer expense.  30 of the 55 are begging Congress for reauthorization before their free taxpayer money runs out 9/30/2021. 
  • FIX OUR NATIONAL PARKS FIRST National Heritage Areas funnel resources away from the National Park Service’s main mission of taking care of already existing national parks. NPS money is better spent toward maintenance and repair backlogs of over $18 BILLION according to the website Smart Asset. 
  • NHA—THE ANTITHESIS OF FREE MARKET, LOCAL INITIATIVE AND CONTROL The initial push for a NHA is fueled by the desires of a special interest group or groups or a federal agency. It is sold as a community benefit to facilitate “economic development” but the NHA’s “economic development” is choosing and promoting businesses that fit their management plan.

What can we do to stop National Heritage Areas?

Here is my bottom line:  In my opinion, I do not trust the Congress or the NPS to operate this program in a manner that protects our private property rights in the long term.  We have a National Property Rights Crisis.  I don’t want any more National Heritage Areas.

NHAs are established via a federal law.  Typically, one or more US House Members and one or more US Senators in the Proposed NHA will sponsor bills creating a NHA.  If passed, it goes to the President where it is signed into law.  The key is to stop NHA legislation before it reaches Congress.  We must convince House Members and Senators that there is widespread public opposition to any NHA.  We must not only convince them not to sponsor a bill but to reject co-sponsoring or voting for any NHA bill.  Right now, there are efforts in Florida to create the Nation’s Oldest Port NHA in the area around St Augustine.  Congressman Rutherford of Jacksonville has introduced H.R. 2107, the Nation’s Oldest Port National Heritage Area Act.  Co-Sponsors (Rs): Cammack, Waltz, Diaz-Balart, Bilirakis, Steube, Salazar, Scott, Mast, Gaetz, Dunn.  Tell them all to vote NO on any bill authorizing or funding a National Heritage Area.

Sign our “Stop FL Panhandle Maritime National Heritage Area” petition.  (This site hosts multiple petitions so please make sure to find ours) Visit:  https://www.petitions.net/stop_panhandle_nha

Visit our web site:  www.StopNHA.com    and Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/StopNHA

Don’t underestimate word of mouth.  Talk to everyone you know about this important topic.  They can contact us via the facebook page to arrange meetings with interested citizens.  Have them demand Congressmen oppose this.

Contact Information for US House Members from Florida and US Senators from Florida

Their Phone:

  • Senator Rick Scott: C. 202 224-5274
  • Senator Marco Rubio: C. 202 224-3041
  • Representative Matt Gaetz (FL CD 1): C. 202 225 4136;
  • Representative Neal Dunn (FL CD 2): D.C. 202-225-5235
  • Representative Kat Cammack (FL CD 3): D.C. 202 225-5744
  • Representative John Rutherford (FL CD 5): C.   202-225-2501
  • Representative Michael G. Waltz (FL CD 6): D.C. 202 225-2706

Their Email:

Their Twitter:

Their Facebook: 

  • Senator Rick Scott: https://www.facebook.com/RickScottSenOffice
  • Senator Marco Rubio: https://www.facebook.com/SenatorMarcoRubio
  • Representative Matt Gaetz (FL CD 1): https://www.facebook.com/CongressmanMattGaetz
  • Representative Neal Dunn (FL CD 2): https://www.facebook.com/DrNealDunnFL2
  • Representative Kat Cammack (FL CD 3): https://www.facebook.com/RepKatCammack
  • Representative John Rutherford (FL CD 5): https://www.facebook.com/RepRutherfordFL
  • Representative Michael G. Waltz (FL CD 6): https://www.facebook.com/MichaelWaltzForCongress  or https://www.facebook.com/michael.waltz.18

©Lane Watkins. All rights reserved.

FAIR AND BALANCED AWED NEWSLETTER: We cover COVID to Climate, as well as Energy to Elections.

Welcome! We cover COVID to Climate, as well as Energy to Elections.

Note 1: Each issue now has a link, so it’s simple to share on social media. We’re also hoping that the new Newsletter format makes it easier to read.

Note 2: Our two recent powerful reports on COVID-19 are here and here.

Note 3: Please watch this thought-provoking short video:

Have You Heard the Buffalo Paradox? — and then pass it on!


— This Newsletter’s Articles, by Topic —


COVID-19 — Therapies:

Ivermectin is effective for COVID-19 when used early. Analysis of 65 studies

Directories of Physicians who may prescribe Ivermectin: here, here and here

Overcoming the Blockade — Getting Ivermectin Prescriptions Filled

I-MASK Early Outpatient Treatment for COVID-19

Report: The FDA COVID-19 Drug Approval Process: Remdesivir vs Ivermectin

Report: India’s Ivermectin Blackout – The Secret Revealed

Video: Dr. Campbell discusses COVID-19 response by India

Misleading clinical evidence and systematic reviews on ivermectin for COVID-19

Doctor Cites Early Treatment as Reason for Success with 6,000 Covid Patients

NIH doesn’t recommend ivermectin as some members have conflicting financial interests

Pfizer’s Study For COVID-19 Drug That’s Suspiciously Similar to Ivermectin

Merck says its new COVID-19 pill reduces the risk of hospitalization and death

Fluvoxamine data for COVID-19 Treatment

COVID-19 — Vaccines:

FDA Panel Member on COVID Vaccines: Heart Attacks Happen 71x More Often

80% of COVID-19 deaths in August were people who had been vaccinated

30,305 people died within 21 days of having a Covid-19 Vaccine in England

Essay: Vaccine Damage And Deaths Are Becoming Widespread

Censorship: YouTube is blocking all anti-vaccine content

Pfizer Admits: Israel is Massive Experiment for mRNA Gene Therapy Shots

Two predictions – one from a skeptic, the other a vaccine advocate

Short Video: COVID-19 Vaccine Data From Singapore

Short Video: Israel’s Alarming Data

Short video: Inadvertent intravenous injections

COVID-19 — Vaccine Mandates:

Response: We Would Get a COVID-19 Vaccine, IF…

NY Court Recognizes Irreparable Harm to Health Care Workers

Some Resources to Stop Mandatory Vaccinations

Acquired immunity as a legal challenge to COVID-19 vaccination mandates

Study: Durable and broad immune memory after SARS-CoV-2 infection

Study: Acquired COVID-19 immunity in the US vs vaccinating people

Army Doctor Calls on Pentagon to Ground ALL Pilots Who have had COVID Shots

NC Hospital Suspends Nearly 400 Employees For Refusing COVID Vaccine

Most NY healthcare workers fired over mandate won’t get unemployment insurance

NYC Mandatory School Vaccine Policies are Struck Down by the Courts
Short video: ”Constitutional County” Chautauqua County Legislature

Video: Norway DROPS All Restrictions and Chooses to Live with COVID-19

House Republicans Introduce Health Freedom For All Act

COVID-19 — Models and Data:

Are Face Masks Effective? The Evidence.

Interview with Jessica Rose, PhD — VAERS: What do the Data Tell us

Study: COVID-19 Vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals have similar viral loads

CDC Allows Hospitals to Classify Dead Vaxxed People as “Unvaccinated”

Safety Signals for COVID Vaccines are Loud and Clear

Does Alabama’s football stadium tell us the risk of dying from a COVID-19?

Covid-19 Vaccine Ingredients

COVID-19 — Misc:

Report: Scientific Observations about the Medical Establishment’s Handling of COVID-19

Pandemic: Political and economic consequences underneath a false flagged health banner

The Spartacus Letter

Short video: Have You Heard the Buffalo Paradox?

A detailed list of retracted COVID-19 papers and studies

Letter to Earlham College Administrators

Looking for a rapid COVID-19 test? A few things to know before you buy one

Fox guarding the henhouse? Yes, indeed!

Report: The Masked Ball of Cowardice

Video: Special Investigation — What Really Happened in Wuhan

Greed Energy Economics:

Short video: The Great Texas Freeze of 2021

Europe’s energy crisis goes from bad to worse as Russia keeps firm grip on supply

New legislation would set Michigan wind turbine tax table

Renewable Energy Health and Ecosystem Consequences:

Crippling Cost of Ontario’s Obsession With Wind Power: 71% Increase in Power Bills

Slaughter of the seabirds

Wind Energy:

Conservation group backs permanent moratorium on Great Lakes turbines

Turbine Noise Nuisance Case Uncovers Wind Industry’s Culture of Lies & Deceit

New Documentary: Headwind”21

The List of Wind Energy Rejections the Sierra Club Doesn’t Want You to See

Wind turbine collapses hours before official launch

Solar Energy:

Solar trade woes cast a pall over Biden’s climate goals

Thirst for renewable energy creates a rural conundrum

The Backyard Battle for New York’s Climate Future

Vermont Does Something Right about Solar

Nuclear Energy:

Fukushima studies show wildlife is doing nicely without humans

Fossil Fuel Energy:

How cheap fracking was killed by Green lies and Russian propaganda

Fossil Fuels are a strategic asset

It Looks Like America’s Energy Future Is Still Going to Be a Gas

China rations electricity amid coal shortages and climate push

The Next Plandemic – China’s Faux Energy Crisis

Misc Energy:

Are Big Electric Utilities But A Circle of Corruption Today?

Clean Electricity Performance Program A Corporatist Takeover

Looming European energy crisis: A lesson in averages that won’t soon be forgotten

Australia’s big Tesla battery sued for not helping during coal power station failure

Energy efficiency savings rival total Wind & Solar generation

Manmade Global Warming — Some Deceptions:

Climate narcissism

Climate change gets the blame for simple bureaucratic failures

South Pole posts most severe cold season on record

Stossel Sues Facebook Alleging Defamation Over Fact-Check Label

US Election:

Election-Integrity.info (10 major election reports by our team of experts, plus much more!)

Manchin Senate Election Bill (S2747)

Testimony against the Restoring Voting Rights Act

Special Report on the 2020 Presidential Election Results, Part II

Senators Propose to Take Away Freedoms in So-Called “Freedom To Vote Act”

Billions hidden in $3.5 trillion bill to tilt election scale

US Election — Arizona:

Arizona Audit Report: Key Findings

Full Maricopa Audit Documents

Commentary on the Maricopa Audit Results

Video: Bannon post audit analysis 9-26

US Election — Other State Issues:

The PA GOP Offers Another Election “Reform” Bill That Does Nothing To Fix Elections

RNC Challenges Vermont Legislation Giving Voting Rights to Non-Citizens

Wisconsin Sure Has a Lot of 124-Year-Old Registered Voters on Its Rolls

US Politics and Socialism:

Biden’s UN Talk: Something transparently obvious that most will miss

How Russiagate Became a Story of Old Friends in High Places

Short video: Trump was Right About Clinton & Russia Collusion!!

The Audacity of this Man: Trump

Vowing to Protect Rights, NY County Goes ‘Constitutional

Religion Related:

SUPERIOR: Christianity is dying and being replaced by cult of coronavirus

There is No Salvation in Woke Theology

It’s not Catholic to say getting the COVID shot is ‘gift of love’

Education Related:

Short excellent video: A History Teacher’s Warning

Science and Misc Matters:

Science journals have been corrupted by China

US and China Battle for Critical Rare Earth Metals

There Are Far More Defensive Gun Uses Than Murders

The Maps That Steer Us Wrong


Please use social media, etc. to pass on this Newsletter to other open-minded citizens…

If at any time you’d like to be added to (or taken off) the distribution of our popular,  free Newsletter, simply send me an email saying that.


Note 1: We recommend reading the Newsletter on your computer, not your phone, as some documents (e.g. PDFs) are much easier to read on a large computer screen… We’ve tried to use common fonts, etc. to minimize display issues.

Note 2: For recent past Newsletter issues see 2020 Archives & 2021 Archives. To accommodate numerous requests received about prior articles over the twelve plus years of the Newsletter, we’ve put together archives since the beginning of the Newsletter — where you can search by year. For a detailed background about the Newsletter, please read this.

Note 3: See this extensive list of reasonable books on climate change. As a parallel effort, we have also put together a list of some good books related to industrial wind energy. Both topics are also extensively covered on my website: WiseEnergy.org.

Note 4: I am not an attorney or a physician, so no material appearing in any of the Newsletters (or the WiseEnergy.org website) should be construed as giving legal or medical advice. My recommendation has always been: consult a competent, licensed attorney when you are involved with legal issues, and consult a competent physician regarding medical matters.

Copyright © 2021; Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (see WiseEnergy.org).

VIDEO: Drilling Into The Truth Behind Fracking

Few things have been demonized by the liberal media as much as the process of hydraulic fracturing, aka “fracking,” for oil and natural gas.

To counter the Left’s misinformation on the subject, CFACT has produced a new video of our Conservation Nation YouTube series titled: Drilling into the Truth Behind Fracking. You can watch it here. CFACT’s own Gabriella Hoffman does an excellent job explaining the fracking process, dispelling misconceptions, and telling the story of those working in the field.

I encourage you to watch the video and share with your friends and family to educate them on the facts!

Fracking led to America’s world-leading CO2 emissions reductions of recent years (if that’s your thing) while also fueling our prior energy independence (until Biden came along, that is).

Fracking achieves the environmentalist’s goal of emissions reductions without heavy-handed growth of government while also fueling human prosperity. Of course, the Left would hate it.

Claims from radical greens that fracking harms health or contaminates ground water are completely unfounded. Fracking proved that technological innovation from the free market is the best solution to our energy future.

Watch the new Conservation Nation video with Gabriella Hoffman, share with your friends, and help us dispel fracking myths.

AWED Newsletter: Covering COVID to Climate, as well as Energy to Elections

Welcome! We cover COVID to Climate, as well as Energy to Elections.

Note 1: Each issue now has a link, so it’s simple to share on social media. We’re also hoping that the new Newsletter format makes it easier to read.

Note 2: Our two recent powerful reports on COVID-19 are here and here.

Note 3: Please watch this thought-provoking short videoDon’t Take The Bait — and then pass it on!


— This Newsletter’s Articles, by Topic —


COVID-19 — Therapies, Ivermectin:

Ivermectin is effective for COVID-19 when used early. Analysis of 64 studies

Directories of US Physicians who may prescribe Ivermectin: here, here and here.

US Pharmacies that will fulfill an Ivermectin prescription: here and here.

I-MASK Early Outpatient Treatment for COVID-19

Short video: Joe Rogan and Ivermectin: Should COVID-19 Be Politicized?

Study: Ivermectin: a drug with indicated efficacy against COVID-19

The Truth About Ivermectin

Time for an Honest Dialogue about Treating COVID-19

India’s Ivermectin Blackout – Part III

India Announces State is COVID-19 Free Using Ivermectin

Ivermectin, ‘Noble Lies,’ and Whom Do We Trust?

Video: Indian Bar Association vs WHO

COVID-19 — Therapies, Misc:

‘Get Sicker’: Anatomy Of A Failed Policy

Doctor Warns: Feds May Ration Monoclonal Antibodies

Pfizer is testing a drug to treat COVID-19 infections

COVID-19 — Vaccines, General:

Medical Boards’ Message to Physicians: Keep Quiet on Vaccine or Risk Loss of License

Nobel Prize Winner Reveals – COVID Vaccine is ‘Creating Variants’

COVID-19 vaccine boosters unnecessary, say FDA advisers resigning over issue

FDA panel deals massive blow to Pfizer’s COVID booster vaccine

Why Don’t They Believe Us?

Short video: Use common sense to do a COVID Data Comparison in 3 countries

COVID-19 — Vaccine Adverse Health Effects:

Exclusive Summary: COVID-19 Vaccine Concerns

Red Cross warning: COVID-vaccinated humans are INELIGIBLE for donating plasma

CDC Reports of Injuries, Deaths After COVID Vaccines Hit New Highs

News Station’s Appeal For Stories About COVID Deaths Gets an Unexpected Response

Doctor reports a ‘20 times increase’ of cancer in vaccinated patients

COVID-19 — Some mRNA Vaccine Concerns:

Long-Term Dangers Of Experimental MRNA Shots

Study: Some effects of mRNA vaccine on immune system

Report: DNA/RNA Vaccines: “Can They Alter Our Own Genetic Codes”

COVID-19 — Vaccine Mandate:

Biden announces vaccine requirements, impacting tens of millions of Americans

Members of Congress and Their Staff Are Exempt From Biden’s Vaccine Mandate

The Totalitarian Roots of Vaccine Mandates

MD Report: COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates Are Now Pointless

NY Hospital stops delivering babies due to mandate resignations

Hospital staff must swear off Tylenol, Tums to get religious vaccine exemption

Video: How Are Forced Covid Vaccinations Different From The Mark Of The Beast?

COVID-19 — Vaccine Mandate Lawsuits:

NY Health Workers Get Federal Court Relief from Compulsory Covid Vaccines

NY Health Care Heroes File Lawsuit Against Shot Mandate

Judge refuses to temporarily block state’s COVID vaccine mandate

Biden’s Vaccine Mandates Must Be Opposed Through Every Legal Means Available

Republicans Threaten Lawsuits Against Biden Vaccine Mandate

COVID-19 — Models and Data:

Statistics and Research: Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19) [Our World in Data]

Excellent: Six COVID-19 facts we’re in danger of forgetting

Open Letter from Healthcare Professionals

130+ UK Doctors: Failed COVID Policies Caused ‘Massive’ Harm

Every death caused by COVID-19 vaccines will be blamed on COVID-19

Public Health Scotland COVID-19 Statistical Report

Oregon Senators File Petition Calling for Investigation into CDC’s Willful Misconduct

Want to see what COVID strain you have? The government says no

New NIH Study: Analysis of the Effects of COVID-19 Mask Mandates

Infobank on Masks

COVID-19 — Misc:

Report: Scientific Observations about the Medical Establishment’s Handling of COVID-19

How the Pandemic Is Changing the Norms of Science

A simple strategy for defeating the COVID narrative

Senator Paul says new Wuhan documents show Fauci lied

The biomedical security state is determined to reduce every human to a QR code

Gaslighting Ivermectin, vaccines and the pandemic for profit

26 out of the 27 Lancet scientists who trashed theory that COVID leaked from a Chinese lab have links to Wuhan researchers

Short video: Australian Police Bash and Pepper spray 70-year old woman

Greed Energy Economics:

Energy Prices in Europe Hit Records After Wind Stops Blowing

We cannot afford to stop and start society based on the wind blowing

The High Cost of Wind, Solar and Battery Systems in North East US

UK electricity prices now most expensive in Europe (largely due to renewables)

Greenflation: Household bills to soar by more than £1,500 a year, analysts warn

Solar Project Sale Reveals Green Energy Sorcery

Renewable Energy Health and Ecosystem Consequences:

Report: Rise of the Eco-Right

Missouri’s largest wind farm isn’t running at night for fear of killing endangered bats

Wind industry faces its own green dilemma: landfills

EV Battery Fires Won’t Keep Pols from Putting You in Them

Wind Energy:

Wind turbine nuisance test case starts in Australian Supreme court

Oregon farmers allege violations at wind turbine project

Nuclear Energy:

Small Nuclear Reactors Will Power Our Future

China prepares to test thorium-fueled nuclear reactor

Nuclear Fusion: U.S. and China race to build world’s first commercial plant

Fossil Fuel Energy:

Companies lying about going to 100% renewables

Goodbye to Coal? Not So Fast!

California’s Grid Operator Asks Feds To Burn More Fossil Fuels To Avert Blackouts

Australia rebuffs Biden, Boris and the UN; vows to keep mining coal

Oil and Gas Industry Targeted by Democrats Out to Destroy It

Misc Energy:

Video: Blue Hydrogen. The greatest fossil fuel scam in history?

Environmentalism as Religion: Unpacking the Congregation

World’s biggest battery sidelined after “overheating incident”

EV Battery Fires do not bode well for projected sales

The Major Problem With EVs No One Is Talking About

China Making Itself An Energy Superpower As Biden Cowers

Manmade Global Warming — Some Deceptions:

Does China Really Believe in ‘Climate Change’?

Meteorologist: Media Writes “Climate Click-Bait” Stories Using Well-Known Formula

A recent Climate “fact-check” article makes multiple false and misleading claims

The Media Is Lying About Greenland and Climate Change

15 Years On, Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ has Proved to be Largely Inaccurate Tripe

Manmade Global Warming — Misc:

The Deep Optimism Manifesto

COP26 And Carbon Imperialism: A Showdown Looming

The climate debate in 15 minutes

Scientists “Statistically Significant” Cooling Trend Over Entire Continental Antarctic

US Election:

Election-Integrity.info (10 major election reports by our team of experts, plus much more!)

Real Progress Is Not What Progressives Have in Mind

Dems make it impossible for Sen. Manchin to support H.R. 4

Manchin’s election bill would nationalize no-excuse absentee mail-in ballots

Dark money gives top Dem lawyer ‘nearly unlimited funding’ for election lawsuits

Short Video: What You Didn’t Know About Mail-In Ballots

US Election — Arizona:

Arizona Audit To Be Released Sept 24th

Maricopa County and AZ Senate reach agreement

Election Fraud in Arizona

US Election — Other State Issues:

Texas Gov. Abbott signs election integrity bill, SB1, into law

California’s Audit-Proof Scheme to Steal Elections

NY Democrats Set to Gerrymander the GOP Out of Existence in the State

Mesa County (CO) Report #1 with Forensic Examination and Analysis

Other US Politics and Related:

Superior Short Video: Don’t Take The Bait

Short Video: What Radical Islam and the Woke Have In Common

Report: The $3.5T Spending Mistake

Clinton lawyer’s indictment reveals ‘bag of tricks’

We Are in a War for America’s Soul

Large Sections of the Border Wall Have Been REMOVED

NY Democrats Set to Gerrymander the GOP Out of Existence in the State

Virtue-Signaling Pastors On The Left And The Rapid Rise Of Communism

Education Related:

My University Sacrificed Ideas for Ideology — So Today I Quit

University Professor Resigns, says School is a ‘Social Justice Factory’

Why Free Community College Solves The Wrong Problem

Australians All Let Us Deplore

Science and Misc Matters:

Scientific Pretense vs. Democracy

Short video: Science Of Persuasion

Report: The Facebook Files


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Note 1: We recommend reading the Newsletter on your computer, not your phone, as some documents (e.g. PDFs) are much easier to read on a large computer screen… We’ve tried to use common fonts, etc. to minimize display issues.

Note 2: For recent past Newsletter issues see 2020 Archives & 2021 Archives. To accommodate numerous requests received about prior articles over the twelve plus years of the Newsletter, we’ve put together archives since the beginning of the Newsletter — where you can search by year. For a detailed background about the Newsletter, please read this.

Note 3: See this extensive list of reasonable books on climate change. As a parallel effort, we have also put together a list of some good books related to industrial wind energy. Both topics are also extensively covered on my website: WiseEnergy.org.

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Copyright © 2021; Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (see WiseEnergy.org).

Carbon Tracking Credit Cards

The ability to constantly digitally track and record what we do exposes us to the potential for monstrous abuse.

Witness the use of “social credit” scores by the Chinese Communist Party to intimidate and control.

Now they’re rolling out new CO2 tracking credit cards.  What could go wrong?

Marc Morano posted to Climate Depot that:

The new CO2 monitoring Mastercard called Doconomy debuted in order to enable “all users to track, measure and understand their impact by presenting their carbon footprint on every purchase.” The credit cards feature the slogan on them reading “DO. Everyday Climate Action” and have a personal pledge on the rear of the card boasting: “I am taking responsibility for every transaction I make to help protect the planet.” The Mastercards feature the UN “Global Climate Action” logo on them as well. 

This CO2 tracking credit card is voluntary, yet every day we see a new push to replace voluntary choices with government mandates.

Could we all be subjected to digitally monitored CO2 limits the next time President Biden “loses patience” with us?

EDITORS NOTE: This CFACT column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Myth That Hurricanes Are Getting Worse [Because of Climate Change]

Claims that hurricanes are becoming more frequent and far more powerful (and deadly) are rampant. But are they true?


In the wake of the destruction of Hurricane Ida, President Joe Biden this week traveled to storm-ravaged areas of New Jersey and New York to deliver a “code red” climate change message to the world: extreme weather poses an “existential threat” to humanity.

“The threat is here. It’s not going to get any better. The question is can it get worse? We can stop it from getting worse,” Biden said in the New York City borough of Queens, where he met with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Gov. Kathy Hochul, Mayor Bill deBlasio and others. “This is everybody’s crisis.”

Biden was echoing what has essentially become conventional wisdom: climate change is making extreme weather much worse.

“Climate change has turbocharged severe storms, fires, hurricanes, coastal storms and floods — threatening millions,” the Washington Post recently reported. “Nearly 1 in 3 Americans experienced a weather disaster this summer.”

It’s a theme routinely trotted out after hurricanes. Following Hurricane Katrina, a devastating Category 5 hurricane that caused more than 1,800 deaths and some $125 billion in damage in 2006, research claimed Atlantic hurricanes doubled in the last century.

“These numbers are a strong indication that climate change is a major factor in the increasing number of Atlantic hurricanes,” said Greg Holland of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado.

The idea that humanity is beset by an increased number of “turbocharged” storms is a bit frightening. But is it true?

Before you take out a loan to build a storm shelter in your basement, it might be worthwhile to look at data from the American Meteorological Society recently published in the Wall Street Journal. The data show fewer hurricanes are landing on the continental US, not more.

“[D]espite what you may have heard, Atlantic hurricanes are not becoming more frequent,” explains Danish economist Bjorn Lomborg in the Journal. “In fact, the frequency of hurricanes making landfall in the continental U.S. has declined slightly since 1900.”

The WSJ is a respected publication, but it of course has a reputation for being right of center. So it’s important to note that Lomborg and the Journal are not out on a limb on this one. There is widespread consensus that hurricanes are not increasing in frequency.

“[A] new statistical analysis of historical records and satellite data suggests that there aren’t actually more Atlantic hurricanes now than there were roughly 150 years ago, researchers report July 13 in Nature Communications,” reported Science News.

The findings reported in Nature Communications were not an outlier. As The Economist reported in 2017 and the Washington Post reported in 2015, a plethora of research shows hurricanes are becoming less frequent, not more frequent.

That is only half of the story, however. While there is general agreement today that global warming is not causing more hurricanes, many scientists and media reports say storms are growing in intensity.

This claim, Lomborg argues, also is false.

“[No,] there aren’t more powerful hurricanes either. The frequency Category 3 and above hurricanes making landfall since 1900 is also trending slightly down,” Lomborg writes. “A July Nature paper finds that the increases in strong hurricanes you’ve heard so much about are ‘not part of a century-scale increase, but a recovery from a deep minimum in the 1960s–1980s.’”

Still, not everyone agrees with Lomborg and Nature. Some believe that the decline in the number of hurricanes is resulting in hurricanes that indeed are more powerful. But how much more?

Chris Landsea, tropical analysis forecast branch leader at the National Hurricane Center, said global warming likely added about 1 percent more power to Hurricane Michael, a Category 5 hurricane. That translated to 1 or 2 mph.

“That is a fairly small increase and most of the computer guidance by global warming models say maybe we could see 3 percent stronger by the end of the century,” said Landsea, speaking during a session on hurricane history in 2019. “That’s really not very much.”

The actual science of global warming and hurricanes seems fairly clear. Hurricanes are not landing more often on the continental US, but less often. It’s unclear if they are becoming more powerful, but if hurricanes are growing in intensity, it’s not by very much.

These scientific revelations are rather bland, and they seem a stark contrast to claims that extreme weather poses an “existential crisis” to humanity and headlines of “turbocharged” storms.

A person could be forgiven for asking: What gives? What am I supposed to believe? Is a weather apocalypse truly upon us?

If an extreme weather apocalypse is indeed upon us, it is one of many crises we’re told we face. There is no shortage of catastrophes and epidemics, judging from politicians, intellectuals, and media reports. Mass shootings. The coronavirus. The opioid crisis. Forest fires. The list goes on.

While it’s true conflict and crises are common elements of human history, it seems that our modern state of affairs is virtually constant crises. Why?

In his book Crisis and Leviathan, the economist Robert Higgs discusses this phenomenon. Higgs argues that crises are essentially food for the leviathan, a metaphor for the state coined by the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes and derived from a Biblical sea monster.

Higgs observes that crises have served as the catalysts for the greatest expansions of state power in modern history. The New Deal was the spawn of the Great Depression. The War on Terror and the Patriot Act were the offspring of the 9/11 attacks. And then there is the Pandemic of 2020. Unlike in previous pandemics, public health officials leveraged the full power of the state to attempt to tame COVID-19.

In each crisis, Americans were told the emergency actions taken were not just necessary, but temporary. History, however, shows that once a crisis has passed, “the fattened leviathan continues to hold sway.”

Higgs’s thesis—that crises are the food that feeds the ravenous leviathan, slowly freeing it from the shackles designed to constrain it—calls to mind a meme popular on social media.

“If we let politicians break the law in an emergency,” it goes, “politicians will create an emergency so they can break the law.”

Another version of the meme would be this: Once crises are seen as a legitimate cause for extraconstitutional action, prepare yourself for an abundance of crises.

None of this is to say pandemics, extreme weather, shootings, and the like are not real or serious problems. They are.

But it’s important to understand that government is the cause of many of these problems, not the solution. The reality is government isn’t very good at solving simple problems, let alone highly complex ones. Indeed, climate-related deaths are at historic lows—not because governments routinely hit their CO2 reduction benchmarks (they don’t) but because free market capitalism has made human habitats exponentially more resistant to climate-related disasters.

“Better infrastructure, fed by improved technology and wealth, does more to protect lives and property than cutting carbon emissions,” Lomborg explains.

Global temps may indeed be edging upward, but the solution isn’t to give politicians and government bureaucrats the power to regulate the economy with Green New Deal-style legislation designed to curb bad weather.

The solution is to unleash the power of the free market and allow entrepreneurs to build humans a more prosperous and resilient world through human ingenuity.

COLUMN BY

Jon Miltimore

Jonathan Miltimore is the Managing Editor of FEE.org. His writing/reporting has been the subject of articles in TIME magazine, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes, Fox News, and the Star Tribune. Bylines: Newsweek, The Washington Times, MSN.com, The Washington Examiner, The Daily Caller, The Federalist, the Epoch Times.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Myth That Our Planet Faces an Overpopulation Crisis

Shortly after my wife graduated from college, she joined Zero Population Growth. Looking back, she tells me it was an emotional reaction fueled by reading Paul Ehrlich’s apocalyptic claims. In his book, The Population BombEhrlich wrote: “The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.”

Ehrlich’s book, despite being spectacularly wrong, influenced millions. Zero Population Growth has morphed into the Population Connection. Ehrlich is unrepentant and still claims the collapse of civilization is a “near certainty” in the not too distant future.

Ehrlich is not the only voice proclaiming the end is near. The UK’s “Optimum Population Trust (OPT) believes Earth may not be able to support more than half its present numbers before the end of the century,” The Telegraph summarized. The OPT movement has attracted followers such as David Attenborough.

In the US, Bernie Sanders recently vowed to support “empowering women and educating everyone on the need to curb population growth” as a response to climate change.

Moreover, James Lovelock advanced the Gaia hypothesis that Earth is one “self-regulating organism.” Lovelock forecasts the population of the Earth will fall to one billion from its current total of over seven billion people. Given Lovelock’s cheerfulness about such carnage, it is easy to see why Alan Hall, a senior analyst at The Socionomist, wonders whether “today’s drives to limit consumption and population” are ideologically related to the eugenics movement from the past century. In his essay “A Socionomic Study of Eugenics,” Hall writes in the Socionomist:

Circa 1900, influential intellectuals in Europe and the U.S. voiced concerns about uncontrolled procreation causing a supposed decline in the quality of human beings. Today, similar groups voice concerns about uncontrolled population growth and resource consumption causing a decline in the quality of the environment…Today’s green advocates brandish images of an overrun, dying planet.

Today, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is working to aid the lives of children living “in extreme poverty.” In his book, Factfulness, the late professor of international health Hans Rosling, reports on critics of the Gates Foundation who reject such efforts. “The argument goes like this,” Rosling writes. “If you keep saving poor children, you’ll kill the planet by causing overpopulation.”

In the face of advocates for such beliefs, no wonder Hall asks us to reflect on whether we “will make the cut” if those seeking to cull humanity are successful.

We’ve all heard the SparkNotes version of Malthusian predictions of doom caused by overpopulation. Malthus thought food production could not keep pace with population growth. In his 1798 “Essay on the Principle of Population,” Malthus anticipated the suffering that awaited humanity.

The power of population is so superior to the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race. The vices of mankind are active and able ministers of depopulation. They are the precursors in the great army of destruction; and often finish the dreadful work themselves. But should they fail in this war of extermination, sickly seasons, epidemics, pestilence, and plague, advance in terrific array, and sweep off their thousands and ten thousands. Should success be still incomplete, gigantic inevitable famine stalks in the rear, and with one mighty blow levels the population with the food of the world.

Unlike Ehrlich and others, Malthus had reason to be a pessimist in his lifetime. If Malthus had been writing history or predicting the near future, he would not have been far from the mark.

“The good old days were awful,” observes Johan Norberg in his book Progress: Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future. The year 1868 was one of famine in Sweden. Norberg shares this powerful testimony of a survivor remembering back to his childhood.

We often saw mother weeping to herself, and it was hard on a mother, not having any food to put on the table for her hungry children. Emaciated, starving children were often seen going from farm to farm, begging for a few crumbs of bread. One day three children came to us, crying and begging for something to still the pangs of hunger. Sadly, her eyes brimming with tears, our mother was forced to tell them that we had nothing but a few crumbs of bread which we ourselves needed. When we children saw the anguish in the unknown children’s supplicatory eyes, we burst into tears and begged mother to share with them what crumbs we had. Hesitantly she acceded to our request, and the unknown children wolfed down the food before going on to the next farm, which was a good way off from our home. The following day all three were found dead between our farm and the next.

Sweden was so poor back in the 19th century, Norberg observes, that “it was poorer, with shorter life expectancy and higher child mortality than the average sub-Saharan African country.”

The population of Sweden in 1868 was a bit over 3.5 million. Today Sweden’s population is almost 300 percent larger. Is Sweden more overpopulated today than it was in 1868?

Norberg writes, “In 1694, a chronicler in Meulan, Normandy, noted that the hungry harvested the wheat before it was ripe, and ‘large numbers of people lived on grass like animals.’”

Today people live like animals in North Korea. They, too, eat grass and bark off trees.

Geographically, North Korea is almost 25 percent larger than South Korea. The population of modern South Korea is about double the population of starving North Korea.

Overpopulation is relative to the ability of an economy to provide a decent standard of living, adequate nutrition, and minimize the impact on the environment. Using that measure, North Korea, with more land and fewer people, is overpopulated compared to South Korea. Nineteenth-century Sweden was overpopulated compared to today’s Sweden.

If you think South Korea, with its more modern economy, inflicts more harm on the environment than the poor economy of North Korea, you would be wrong.

In North Korea, some rivers run black from uranium mining.

The poor people of North Korea “harvest forests for fuel and to make fields during a succession of famines… Some people resorted to eating bark,” the Scientific American noted earlier this year. The result has been widespread deforestation and a denuding of the landscape.

Ecologist Margaret Palmer visited North Korea, and she saw the “entire landscape was lifeless and barren.” She saw a Malthusian nightmare:

Emaciated looking farmers tilled the earth with plows pulled by oxen and trudged through half-frozen streams to collect nutrient-rich sediments for their fields.

“We went to a national park where we saw maybe one or two birds, but other than that you don’t see any wildlife,” Palmer said.

Dutch soil scientist Joris van der Kamp reports on the North Korean environmental collapse. “The landscape is just basically dead. It’s a difficult condition to live in, to survive.”

Van der Kamp added, “There are no branches of trees on the ground. Everything is collected for food or fuel or animal food, almost nothing is left for the soil.”

Elon Musk dreams of colonizing Mars, but he can find in North Korea a dead landscape with warmer temperatures, more oxygen, and minuscule travel costs compared to the Red Planet. When communism collapses in North Korea, capitalism will terraform the country at an inestimably small fraction of the cost of terraforming Mars.

Based on its ability to support its human population and protect its environment, sparsely populated North Korea is one of the most overpopulated countries in the world.

Norberg explains what Malthus got wrong.

[H]e underestimated [humanity’s] ability to innovate, solve problems and change its ways when Enlightenment ideas and expanded freedoms gave people the opportunity to do so. As farmers got individual property rights, they then had an incentive to produce more. As borders were opened to international trade, regions began to specialize in the kinds of production suited to their soil, climate and skills. And agricultural technology improved to make use of these opportunities. Even though population grew rapidly, the supply of food grew more quickly.

The more specialization and exchange, the wealthier and better fed a growing population will be. In countries like North Korea, Venezuela, and Mao’s China, central planning leads to reduced specialization, which leads to starvation. As Matt Ridley explains in his book The Rational Optimist:

[I]f exchange becomes harder, [people] will reduce their specialisation, which can lead to a population crisis even without an increase in population. The Malthusian crisis comes not as a result of population growth directly, but because of decreasing specialisation. Increasing self-sufficiency is the very signature of a civilisation under stress, the definition of a falling standard of living.

Ridley explains that embracing specialization increases human ingenuity and increases the possibility that more people “can live upon the planet in improving health, food security and life expectancy and that this is compatible with cleaner air, increasing forest cover and some booming populations of elephants.”

In short, Ridley writes, “Embracing dynamism means opening your mind to the possibility of posterity making a better world rather than preventing a worse one.”

In their book, Empty Planet: The Shock of Global Population Decline, Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson have startling facts for those who believe the population will continue to explode.

No, we are not going to keep adding bodies until the world is groaning at the weight of eleven billion of us and more; nine billion is probably closer to the truth, before the population starts to decline. No, fertility rates are not astronomically high in developing countries; many of them are at or below replacement rate. No, Africa is not a chronically impoverished continent doomed to forever grow its population while lacking the resources to sustain it; the continent is dynamic, its economies are in flux, and birth rates are falling rapidly. No, African Americans and Latino Americans are not overwhelming white America with their higher fertility rates. The fertility rates of all three groups have essentially converged.

Looking at current trends and expecting them to continue is what Hans Rosling calls “the straight line instinct.” That instinct often leads to false conclusions.

Rosling explains why critics of the Gates Foundation’s efforts to save children are dead wrong.

“Saving poor children just increases the population” sounds correct, but the opposite is true. Delaying the escape from extreme poverty just increases the population. Every generation kept in extreme poverty will produce an even larger next generation. The only proven method for curbing population growth is to eradicate extreme poverty and give people better lives.

With better lives, Rosling writes,

parents then have chosen for themselves to have fewer children. This transformation has happened across the world but it has never happened without lowering child mortality.

In the past 20 years, “the proportion of the world population living in extreme poverty” has fallen by half. Rosling adds that already the “majority of the world population live in middle-income countries.”

When feverish dreams of doom are used to justify controlling the lives of others, restricting personal and economic freedom, expect more poverty and environmental degradation with real overpopulation like that of North Korea. It is capitalism and freedom that lift humanity out of poverty, vanquish overpopulation, and offer a sustainable future.

COLUMN BY

Barry Brownstein

Barry Brownstein is professor emeritus of economics and leadership at the University of Baltimore. He is the author of The Inner-Work of Leadership. To receive Barry’s essays subscribe at Mindset Shifts.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Watch Morano Out-Debate Climate Guy on Bongino on Fox

Marc Morano took on Democrat political consultant Kevin Walling on Fox’s Unfiltered with Dan Bongino and knocked him out.

Watch now at CFACT’s Climate Depot.

Team Climate hates to debate in a fair forum.  The reason?  Experts like Marc Morano confront them with the hard data that serves as anti–venom to their propaganda.

Here’s a sample from Marc:

“Even the United Nations admits floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, wildfires — either no trend or declining trends on climate time scales. NOAA says that hurricane landfalls are down since 1800, the busiest season, busiest decade…for major hurricanes was the 1940s, so we have a hurricane that hit — Ida…this is nothing short of lobbying using an extreme weather event, a bad weather event to lobby for your political goals. They’ve weaponized the weather and that’s what the Biden administration is doing. It’s what Chuck Schumer is doing, and it’s evidence-free because the more you look at the data there’s always records broken, there’s always extreme weather everywhere on the planet — that’s the norm, nothing unusual now from a climate time scale is occurring.”

Hard data shows deaths from climate are way down and that today’s weather is historically normal, which is anything but alarming.  Team Climate finds facts such as these terribly inconvenient.

That’s why they would rather censor than debate.

EDITORS NOTE: This CFAT column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

VIDEO: A Biblical Perspective on Climate Change

Last week, President Joe Biden visited New York to survey the devastation from Hurricane Ida. During his press conference, the president referenced a recent U.N. report that tracks climate change. According to the report, “Global surface temperature has increased faster since 1970 than in any other 50-year period over a least the last 2,000 years.” Not surprisingly, Biden used his remarks as an opportunity to advocate for expansive, big-government climate policies, claiming that worsening weather patterns merit a wide-ranging, government-led approach. Without a doubt, hurricanes, fires, and other extreme weather patterns are cause for concern. But how should Christians think about the climate? Yesterday, FRC President Tony Perkins addressed the topic on Washington Watch, offering his perspective on how Christians should approach debates over climate change.

According to Tony, President Biden is correct to note that the climate is changing. Extreme weather patterns are becoming stronger and more frequent. But unlike many in the broader culture who have become gripped with fear about the weather, Christians should approach the topic with a perspective informed by Scripture. And while it may surprise those unfamiliar with the Bible, God’s Word offers insight into how we should think about extreme weather.

First, Christians ought to remember the Bible’s teaching about creation. Genesis 1-2 teaches that God created the heavens and earth. The material creation — including mountains, oceans, deserts, and prairies — were created “ex nihilo,” meaning they were created out of nothing. In short, God spoke, and creation appeared. The doctrine of creation reminds Christians that God is the creator and has control over His creation. Furthermore, Paul explains in Colossians 1: 16-17, “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” Christians understand that God is the creator and sustainer of the world. This understanding undergirds a Christian perspective on the climate. Ultimately, God is in control of everything that happens in the world, and nothing occurs without His knowledge and permission.

Second, in Matthew 24, Jesus tells His disciples about events and changes that will occur as the end of time draws near. Specifically, Jesus mentions great storms and natural disasters, noting, “For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places” (Matthew 24:7). From Jesus’ explanation, we can draw an important conclusion, which is that while these changes are scary, we should not be alarmed. In fact, Jesus told His disciples that these events would occur so they would be sobered minded, not alarmist.

Third, it is important for Christians to recall that the Bible explains why natural disasters happen in the first place. In short, all evil and suffering can be traced to the fall of humanity into sin (Genesis 3). Man’s rebellion against God not only resulted in humanity’s spiritual and physical death but had implications for creation as well. As Romans 8:22 explains, “For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.” Sin not only affects humanity, but the whole of creation, and sin is ultimately behind the evil that ravages our lives.

Considering the wide-ranging effects of sin, Tony made an important point, noting:

Man is responsible for the changing climate. Our sin has corrupted the environment. It began in the Garden of Eden with the fall of man and the climate as only gotten worse ever since. But the solution is not bigger government that will take more of your money and more of your freedoms and promise more things that they cannot deliver on.

Significantly, climate change, natural disasters, war, famine, poverty, and civil unrest are part of living in a fallen world. Christians should care about these issues and do whatever is in their power to push back against the corroding effects of sin — wherever they appear. But followers of Jesus should not expect the government to be able to provide all the solutions and hand over their freedoms for a false sense of security. In fact, Christians need to be wary of those who want to use issues like the changing climate to take away freedoms and impose policies that will have harmful and unintended consequences.

Christians should not forget that God is the one who calms the storms and is Lord over the elements. As Tony reminded Washington Watch listeners,

If you and I take the warning that Jesus has given us, not to scare us but to prepare us for what is unfolding in the times in which we live, we will be better prepared to face them and to minister through them so that others might come to know the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and be free from their sin and experience life abundantly.

Ultimately, Jesus warned us that things would get difficult in the final days. But even as circumstances and events become more challenging, believers have an opportunity to point others to the hope of the gospel. While maintaining a posture of trust toward God and refusing to panic or surrender our basic rights, Christians can encourage others and strengthen our faith as we trust in Christ who is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8).

COLUMN BY

David Closson

EDITORS NOTE: This FRC column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

AWED NEWSLETTER: From COVID to Climate and Energy to Elections.

Welcome! We cover COVID to Climate, as well as Energy to Elections.

Note 1: Each issue now has a link, so it’s simple to share on social media. We’re also hoping that the new Newsletter format makes it easier to read.

Note 2: Our two new powerful reports on COVID-19 are here and here.

Note 3: For multiple reasons, we STRONGLY recommend that you read this Newsletter on your computer, not your phone!


— This Newsletter’s Articles, by Topic —


COVID-19 — Therapies:

Report: How Greed and Negligence Likely Killed 400,000± Americans

Ivermectin is effective for COVID-19 when used early. Analysis of 63 studies

Directories of Physicians who may prescribe Ivermectin: here and here.

Study: Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of COVID-19: A Systematic Review

Study: Review of the Evidence of the Efficacy of Ivermectin for COVID-19

Study: Ivermectin: a Nobel prize drug with indicated efficacy against COVID-19

Japanese Medical Chairman Doubles Down on Ivermectin

India’s Bar Association sues WHO scientist over Ivermectin

The unmistakable Ivermectin miracle in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh

Ohio Judge Orders Hospital to Honor COVID Patient’s Ivermectin Request

Study: AHCC as a COVID-19 Therapy

An extensive collection: COVID-19 Preventions and Treatments

The Triumph of Evil?

COVID-19 — Vaccines (Pfizer):

Document Reveals ‘Shocking’ Terms of Pfizer’s International Vaccine Agreements

FDA approves Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine

FDA Caves Under Immense Corruption

The Curious Case Of FDA’s Approval Of Comirnaty

Dr. Malone: Pfizer Covid Injection “Approval” a Treacherous Gaslighting Campaign

Major law firm confirms FDA deceived America with its confusing ‘approval’ of Pfizer vax

COVID-19 — Vaccines (Other):

Study: Natural Immunity 13x More Effective Than Vaccines

15 Studies: Natural immunity from prior infection is more robust than COVID vaccines

Study: Imperfect Vaccination Can Enhance the Transmission of Highly Virulent Pathogens

Study: Spike-antibody waning after second dose of some vaccines

Study: Vaccinated healthcare workers carry 251x viral load of unvaccinated

COVID-19 Mandates Will Not Work for the Delta Variant

UK data destroys entire premise for vaccine push

Dr. Robert Young Finds Graphene Oxide, etc in All Four Vaccines

Doctors and Lawyers Assess Blood Smears from People Who Have Had Covid Injections

Dr. Christina Parks’ Testimony on the Unscientific Foolishness of ‘Vaccine’ Mandates

Report: UK Data Destroys Entire Premise for Vaccine Push

31 reasons why I won’t get the COVID-19 injection

COVID-19 — Models and Data:

Study: Majority Of Masks Only 10% Effective Against Virus

OSHA suspends requirement for employers to report vaccine injuries

Study: The SARS-CoV-2 spike protein subunit S1 induces COVID-19-like acute lung injury

Report: SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern and variants under investigation in England

COVID-19 — Misc:

Report: Scientific Observations about the Medical Establishment’s Handling of COVID-19

Article: A Scientific Assessment of the Medical Establishment’s Handling of COVID-19

Breaking Down Medical ‘Fact-Checking’ Propaganda

Two High-Level FDA Officials Quit Over Biden Administration Meddling

The BEST COVID Summary on the Internet

Report: A science in the shadows

Wind Energy:

Minnesota Court Rules Natural Gas More Environmentally-Friendly than Solar or Wind

Wind turbine makers struggle to profit from wind energy boom as costs rise

Turbine noise goes on trial

Group files lawsuit against US offshore wind project

Trump adviser involved in Offshore Vineyard Wind opposition

Nuclear Energy:

Germany Flirts With Power Crunch in Nuclear and Coal Exit

New school year, new Classroom Resources for Navigating Nuclear!

The dubious Senate proposal to bail out nuclear powerplants

Support for Nuclear Power for Pueblo Colorado – PRO 2021

Misc Energy:

Forget Net Zero: Fossil fuels will constitute 50% of global energy mix by 2050

America’s energy going into the future is …

Antarctic Sea Ice “Rebound” Surprises Scientists

The Afghanistan Fiasco Reflects an Energy Problem

We just gave China a chunk of the global Lithium supply + more rare-earth metals

Manmade Global Warming — Some Deceptions:

The Greatest Scientific Fraud Of All Time — Part XXVIII

Video: Demystifying the Atmospheric Greenhouse Effect

Greenhouse saturation research could kill the “climate emergency”

A complete list of things caused by global warming

China’s emissions go up, while Trudeau insists Canada’s must go down

Fact check: Just how harmful is methane?

Study: Mixing Proxy and Measured Data

Media Can’t Handle the Climate Truth

Manmade Global Warming — Misc:

Short video: Big Trouble in the Tropical Troposphere

Carbon Dioxide Has Reached a Point of Diminishing Returns

Sooking and Sniveling for Climate Justice

China warns US: Back off or we’ll sink climate cooperation

Biden rebuffed as US and China fail to reach climate agreement

Fossil-Fuel Interests Are ‘Carbon Shaming’ Climate Advocates

US Election — HR4:

Why H.R. 4 Imperils Free and Fair Elections

African American Leaders Warn That H.R. 4 Does Not Continue Civil Rights Legacy

Nancy Pelosi’s Next Bad Voting Bill

HR 4: Unconstitutional, Last-Ditch Effort to Federalize Elections

House Democrats Pass Bill To Steal Elections The Old-Fashioned Way

The Top-10 Reasons H.R. 4 is Bad for Voters

US Election:

Election-Integrity.info (10 major election reports by our team of experts, plus much more!)

Should Unelected Judges And D.C. Bureaucrats Draw Congressional Voting Districts?

Sidney Powell, et al Ordered To Reeducation Camps For Daring To Challenge Election

US Election — Other State Issues:

Missing Ballots in Three States Exceed Joe Biden’s Victory Margins

AG’s office says Maricopa County must provide routers to Senate ‘audit

Investigators Bust 240 Leftist Operatives in Georgia

NC Lawmakers fire AG for refusing to appeal felon voting ruling

Voter fraud concerns mounting in tight California recall election

California Man Found With 300 Unopened Recall Ballots and Forged Licenses

Nevada County Quietly Deletes 83% of Voters from Its 2020 Voter Rolls

US Politics and Socialism:

Short video: Questioning my own Leftist Ideology

Social Justice is Not Justice

This Nations’Expanding Dependence State

US Politics and Afghanistan:

Open Letter from Retired Generals and Admirals Regarding Afghanistan

Taliban to rely on Chinese funds, spokesperson says

Biden’s Fake Victory Lap

Is China really eyeing Afghanistan’s mineral resources?

Taliban vow to tackle Climate Change

Video of Taliban checking US military helicopters left behind

Afghanistan Didn’t Fall: It Never Existed

Other US Politics and Related:

AGENDA: Grinding America Down

Govt Misinformation: How Congress Can Get Agencies to Address the Problem

NYS County Passes Constitutional County Resolution

Civil Society Is All But Totally Corrupted by Our Ruling Class

Science and Misc Matters:

You Are Living in the Golden Age of Stupidity

The Emotional and Mental Health Benefits of Playing Card Games

Please use social media, etc. to pass on this Newsletter to other open-minded citizens…

If at any time you’d like to be added to (or taken off) the distribution of our popular,  free Newsletter, simply send me an email saying that.


Note 1: We recommend reading the Newsletter on your computer, not your phone, as some documents (e.g. PDFs) are much easier to read on a large computer screen… We’ve tried to use common fonts, etc. to minimize display issues.

Note 2: For recent past Newsletter issues see 2020 Archives & 2021 Archives. To accommodate numerous requests received about prior articles over the twelve plus years of the Newsletter, we’ve put together archives since the beginning of the Newsletter — where you can search by year. For a detailed background about the Newsletter, please read this.

Note 3: See this extensive list of reasonable books on climate change. As a parallel effort, we have also put together a list of some good books related to industrial wind energy. Both topics are also extensively covered on my website: WiseEnergy.org.

Note 4: I am not an attorney or a physician, so no material appearing in any of the Newsletters (or the WiseEnergy.org website) should be construed as giving legal or medical advice. My recommendation has always been: consult a competent, licensed attorney when you are involved with legal issues, and consult a competent physician regarding medical matters.

Copyright © 2021; Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (see WiseEnergy.org).

Think COVID-19 Lockdowns Were Bad? Climate Lockdowns Could Be Next

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, governments introduced lockdowns and other restrictions, with clear social and economic consequences. But there are growing signs the world could see more lockdowns in the future — for climate change.

The initial months of the pandemic starting in March 2020 saw the vast majority of states impose stay-at-home orders and other restrictions. The majority of states also introduced mask mandates and social distancing requirements, along with limits on public gathering, and many of these policies were in effect for months.

It is evident that lockdown policies had widespread social and economic consequences. The closure of schools kept more than one billion children out of school globally, and studies suggest a lack of in-person schooling has dramatically reduced academic performance.

Suicide and drug abuse also spiked during the pandemic, and some countries like Japan even created government agencies to address an epidemic of loneliness that has worsened over the past year. The pandemic and subsequent restrictions caused millions of U.S. small businesses to close down, often permanently, and the U.S. economy has struggled to fully recover amid other economic issues such as inflation.

In spite of these concerns, scientists and climate activists have pointed to the supposedly positive impact of COVID-19 lockdowns on the environment. A steep decline in social and commercial activities led to huge reductions in carbon emissions and other climate metrics, NBC News reported.

The Department of Health and Human Services established a new office late in August to make climate change a public health issue. During the pandemic, public health agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued broad policy changes ranging from general health recommendations to the federal eviction moratorium.

Under a potential climate lockdown, governments and public health bodies could exercise similar authority to enforce sweeping changes to environmental and energy policy. This could entail extreme energy-saving measures such as limits on private-vehicle use, consumption of animal products and fossil fuel drilling.

study published in Nature Climate Change in March found that carbon emissions fell by around 2.6 billion metric tons in 2020. Researchers concluded a pandemic-scale lockdown once every two years would lead to an equivalent decline in emissions over the long-term.

Climate policy experts told the Daily Caller that climate lockdowns are not a far-fetched scenario and warned the Biden administration’s focus on climate change as a public health issue could lead to similar restrictions on American public life.

“If climate activists were allowed, they would take us from COVID lockdowns straight into climate lockdowns,” said JunkScience.com founder Steve Milloy. “Now that they’ve seen arbitrary lockdowns successfully imposed under the guise of a “public health emergency,” they can’t wait for federal, state and local declarations of a climate emergency to achieve the same sort of dominance over us.”

“Treating climate change as a health issue is ridiculous,” added CO2 Coalition executive director Greg Wrightstone. “Climate alarmists seek to exert government control over energy production and use it to advance an upside down world view.”

“The Biden-Harris administration wants to turn the attention of every federal agency to climate change,” noted Competitive Enterprise Institute energy director Myron Ebell. “Requiring the Department of Health and Human Services to waste valuable resources on climate change rather than on protecting and improving people’s health is criminal lunacy.”

COLUMN BY

VARUN HUKERI

General assignment and analysis reporter. Follow Varun on Twitter

RELATED ARTICLES:

Biden Eviction Moratorium ‘Likely Unlawful’ And Will ‘Almost Certainly’ Be Challenged In Court, Legal Experts Say

Childhood Obesity Skyrocketed During Pandemic Shutdowns, New Study Finds

WSJ: Media Can’t Handle The Climate Truth

The Democrat-media-complex can’t handle the truth. Period.

Climate change is the greatest political fraud in history.

Media Can’t Handle the Climate Truth – WSJ

If, after four decades, scientists see less warming and lower emissions, isn’t that good news?

By Holman W. Jenkins Jr., Wall Street Journal, Sept. 3, 2021:

If “news” is about how today differs from yesterday, the press missed a lot of news in the long-awaited new report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that was issued a few weeks ago.

After 41 years of promoting a fuzzy and unsatisfying estimate of how much warming might result from a doubling of atmospheric CO2, the world’s climate science arbiter has finally offered the first real improvement in the history of modern climate science.

Through five previous U.N. assessment plus their predecessor, the 1979 Charney Report, the likely worst-case was a rise of 4.5 degrees Celsius. This came from averaging the result of inconsistent computer climate simulations about which the IPCC knew only one thing: They couldn’t all be right and perhaps none were. In another departure, the U.N. panel now says the dire emissions scenario it promoted for two decades should be regarded as highly unlikely, with more plausible projections at least a third lower.

The report also notes, as the press never does, the full impact of these emissions won’t be manifested until decades, even a century, later. The ultimate likely worst-case effect of a doubling of CO2 might be 4 degrees, but the best estimate of the “transient climate response” this century is about 2.7 degrees, or 1.6 degrees on top of the warming experienced since the start of the industrial age.

You might not wish this on your least-favorite planet, but compare it with media coverage of the U.S. National Climate Assessment in 2018, which paraded as a nearly foregone conclusion a temperature increase of 6.1 degrees.

No, the new report isn’t a reason to stop worrying about climate change, on the unlikely assumption that your previous level of worry corresponded to the actual science. But if you’ve been buying the media’s exaggerations, you can relax quite a bit.

The words most quoted in the press weren’t found in the U.N. report or even its executive summary. They were the claims of a pair of U.N. officials that the report heralded a “code red for humanity” and, even more devoid of meaning, that “no one is safe” from a warming planet.

In reality, no creature makes the whole planet its home but picks those zones it finds most equable. Even with technological help, humanity is present, and thinly so, on 20% of the earth’s land surface. The boundaries of this presence will shift in response to a changing climate, as they have in the past.

By now, though, the press and the climate science impresarios know each other too well, thus scripted idiocies abound. This week’s massive rainstorm in the Northeast reflexively was described as a consequence of climate change. Never mind that heavy rains always happened and, in any case, climate policy can’t be a solution for a New York City storm-drain system designed not to withstand a five-year storm, let alone a 100-year storm.

Or take the U.S. government’s claim that July was the hottest month on record. Unmentioned in any news report that I could find, the margin of error in this measurement was 10 times as large as the purported difference over the previously claimed hottest month of July 2016.

Imagine the news industry was still able to discern news. If the latest in a 40-year succession of climate forecasts differs from its predecessors in finding temperature change and emissions not as bad as previously projected, this would qualify as news. That is, to a media not wedded to the senseless assumption that climate science can only produce a succession of ever more dire discoveries……

Read the rest.

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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Biden Wrong On Fires and Ida

Hurricane Ida brought powerful wind and rain to Louisiana and drenched the Northeast.

Devastating fires have consumed California forests and burned people out of their homes.

Politicians and pressure groups, from President Biden on down, rushed to capitalize on people’s heart-rending losses, and exploit them to push the global warming narrative.

President Biden said,

“The past few days of Hurricane Ida and the unprecedented flash floods in New York and New Jersey is yet another reminder these extreme storms and the climate crisis are here.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said,

“Global warming is upon us, and it’s going to get worse, and worse, and worse, and that’s why it’s so imperative that we pass the two bills.”

Embattled Governor Gary Newsom, speaking on the Caldor and Dixie fires, vowed to,

“continue to lead on climate change, and that is our resolve and commitment to take a backseat to no one in this country in terms of our commitment to radically change the way we produce and consume energy.”

There is a chorus of voices conflating our weather with climate in ways scientific data does not support.

Hurricane Ida strengthened over a warm Gulf of Mexico.  Yet there is no trend that shows the Gulf warming in a meaningful way.  This is U.S. government data. Could any number of wind turbines, solar panels, or electric vehicles have meaningfully altered this temperature data, or for that matter Hurricane Ida?

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE NOAA GULF OF MEXICO TEMPERATURE CHART

Similarly, California rainfall always varies greatly from year to year.  Here, for example, is the precipitation data for San Diego.  Rainfall is low this year, yet not as low as many other years, some over a century ago.  Who truly believes that taxes, redistribution or energy mandates could have meaningfully brought more or less rain?  Would that even be desirable if they could?

CLICK HERE TO VIEW SAN DIEGO ANNUAL RAINFALL 1850-2020 

When Hurricane Katrina struck, New Orleans flooded, not because of climate change, but because aging levies and pumps failed.  We spent the last sixteen years improving the levies and pumps.  This year they held.  That’s what genuine “infrastructure” investment looks like.

CFACT stands with everyone who has suffered loss from fire, wind or flood.  Count on our thoughts, prayers and action.

We must manage our forests better, harden the New York City Subways against storm surge and rain as required, and continue to ensure our noble first responders have the equipment and planning they need to protect us.

There has always been extreme weather and always will.

Exploiting the suffering caused by nature’s fury to push radical redistribution and climate policies is shameful.

COLUMN BY

Craig Rucker

Craig Rucker is a co-founder of CFACT and currently serves as its president.

EDITORS NOTE: This CFACT column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.