“It’s flat-earthers like Obama who refuse to acknowledge the problematic nature of contradictory data. It’s flat-earthers like Obama who cite a recent Alaskan heat wave — a freak event in one place at one time — as presumptive evidence of planetary climate change. It’s flat-earthers like Obama who cite perennial phenomena such as droughts as cosmic retribution for environmental sinfulness.”
– Charles Krauthammer, “Obama’s Global-Warming Folly.” Washington Post, July 4, 2013.
The late Charles Krauthammer was a wise voice in a public policy hothouse. His views on Obama-era climate-change policy ring true today–and demonstrate prescience.
After providing key quotations from Krauthammer, I revisit James Taylor’s rebuttal to the critical backlash generated by the Washington Post piece.
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“The economy stagnates. Syria burns. Scandals lap at his feet.…
Continue Reading“If the current pace of the buildup of these gases continues, the effect is likely to be a warming of 3 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit [between now and] the year 2025 to 2050, according to these projections…. The rise in global temperature is predicted to … caus[e] sea levels to rise by one to four feet by the middle of the next century.”
– Philip Shabecoff, “Global Warming Has Begun.” New York Times, June 24, 1988.
Climate exaggeration (in the long Malthusian tradition) creates a paper trail and data points for falsification. Some 30 years ago, temperature- and sea-level–rise predictions were made that are in the news. As the predictions near the beginning of the forecast period, the skeptics of alarmism are well on their way to yet another victory.…
Continue Reading“Some organizations and governments now appear likely to endorse an abatement strategy, largely for symbolic reasons, a strategy that will prove to be both costly and ineffective…. Until there is much better and broader understanding of this issue, a rush to judgement on the optimal response to the increase in global temperature is the greater danger.”
– William Niskanen, 2008
[Editor note: This completes a six-part series on the climate views of the late William Niskanen, taken from his Fall 1997 symposium essay, “Too Much, Too Soon: Is a Global Warming Treaty a Rush to Judgment?” as well as his 2008 postscript. Previous posts are:
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Conclusion (1997)
Scientists have been correct to alert political officials about the possibility that a continued increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide may increase average global temperatures. …
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