To A Guilty Mother

'Every time we get in the car we contribute to climate change...I tell them that they have just lived through hottest decade ever recorded. I tell them recent flooding submerged 1/5 of land surface of Pakistan, washing away 7,000 schools. I tell them Arctic is melting, hurricanes are getting stronger, droughts are lengthening, & rainfall records are being shattered. By end of conversation, they're in tears'

Below is what I tell my kids who are much older than yours.

"Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts" – Richard Feynman

Question everything. Be especially skeptical of people who tell you the sky is falling. They have never been correct for we are still here.

Change is what the climate does. Always has, always will.

CO2 emitted from your vehicle does not pollute the air. CO2 is plant food and the Earth is currently at an historically low concentration of atmospheric CO2. More CO2 in the air increases crop yield and forest growth. This is why commercial greenhouse operators pump additional CO2 into their facilities. No need to feel guilty. Plants and humans are in a symbiotic relationship of oxygen and CO2 exchange. It is a nice arrangement for us both.

You will hear that we have just lived through the hottest decade ever. What people forget to tell you is that it has been hotter in the past in times like the Medieval Warm Period, The Roman Warm Period, the Minoan Warm Period and the Holocene Maximum. People will forget to mention that 450 million years ago in the middle of the Ordovician ice age CO2 concentration was at least 10x higher than it is today. The Earth is still here. There was no tipping point, no runaway global warming.  It was an ice age. People will also neglect to point out the poor state of the temperature records because of poor weather station siting and therefore results become biased over time by the Urban Heat Island effect. Cities are warmer than rural areas because of all the buildings, roads and heat generating equipment in urban areas. Rural stations indicate very little warming if any over the last century. The ‘dust bowl’ years of the 1930s are not talked about because they make contemporary heat look tepid by comparison. Don’t believe everything you hear. It may not be the whole story.

Pakistan has had many floods in the past and will continue to have floods in the future. There is evidence that floods are worse during cool periods. And if floods have occurred in the past when CO2 was in even lower concentration than today doesn’t that suggest that CO2 has nothing to do with them? There is research to indicate that neither floods nor droughts are getting worse during the current warm period. Floods are a disaster for people who experience them. Their danger is not to be denigrated and assistance for victims should be forthcoming. Unfortunately, they are a natural phenomenon that humans will continue to endure. They are not due to human induced CO2 in the atmosphere.

You will hear that the Arctic is melting. Sea ice melts every summer in the Arctic and does not contribute to sea level rise.. No need to panic. Polar bears have survived many ice ages and interglacials. All of the recent interglacials were warmer than the one we are in now. Contrary to popular belief the Greenland ice sheet is not melting in any unusual way. And CO2 has nothing to do with it. Ocean cycles do. Some Greenland glaciers are receding. Some are growing. Factors other than CO2 are at work. Greenland knows how to create icebergs. It happens all the time.

Hurricanes are not getting stronger or more frequent. The US has not been hit by a major (F3-F5) hurricane since 2005 the longest period of absence in the record. As CO2 has continued to increase exponentially the dearth of hurricanes is evidence that CO2 has nothing to do with hurricanes.

The same is true of droughts. They are not getting more frequent or of longer duration. The 1930s ‘dust bowl’ recounted in the novel The Grapes of Wrath lasted for a decade. Droughts were worse in the past and since CO2 concentration was lower then it is evidence that CO2 has nothing to do with it.

The same is true for rainfall. Actual rainfall patterns contradict what the models predict.

As CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has gone up instances of severe weather have gone down. These are the facts as gathered by government departments, like NOAA, who are charged with the accumulation of such statistics.

By end of conversation, they are skeptical and better equipped to evaluate contemporary scare stories.

Why terrorize your kids over CO2 induced global warming?

There is no CO2 induced global warming.

There is no need for guilt or fear. Weather will be what it will be.

Hot here, cold there.

Heat distribution not so rare.

Would you like to alter your view?