OPINION:
Efforts to clear debris left by the latest natural disaster to strike Florida are in full swing. Images from Hurricane Milton’s wrath are grim, but not quite as bad as they might have been had the tempest not moderated before making landfall on the Sunshine State’s western coast.
Cue the politicians and activists assigning fault to humanity for the suffering of those affected by these calamities. Former Vice President Al Gore and Bill Nye “the Science Guy” have recently weighed in, crediting climate change for recent events.
As Hurricane Helene neared, Vice President Kamala Harris did the same in her debate with former President Donald Trump: “Well, the former president had said that climate change is a hoax. And what we know is that it is very real. You ask anyone who lives in a state who has experienced these extreme weather occurrences.”
The Democratic nominee also points to a gaggle of scientists who agree that technological progress causes extreme weather.
These esteemed investigators of natural phenomena take federal funding to carefully investigate climate change. Naturally, they conclude our use of fossil fuels has offended nature so much that she has been striking back with greater fury.
What a surprise that the conclusion fits the narrative of the politicians writing the checks.
According to the National Weather Service, no modern hurricane has surpassed the deadly blow that leveled Galveston, Texas, in 1900. It’s not clear how the alarmists can blame SUVs for warming the planet into a frenzy 80 years before the Jeep Grand Cherokee, the first mainstream SUV, made its debut.
Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and last month’s Helene are the only recent storms among the top 10 fatal mainland disturbances. The rest happened between 1881 and 1957 — hardly eras of peak carbon dioxide output. We can’t say whether storms are worse now than they were in earlier days, because no one recorded what happened.
A 2017 study published by Cambridge University attempted to address that problem. Researchers used indirect evidence preserved in sediment and determined hurricanes of at least Category 4 intensity triggered storm surges on Alabama’s Gulf Coast around the years 900 and 1200. If the indigenous people had reduced their carbon footprint back then, their huts could have been saved.
Today’s climate shamans recommend the United States surrender its energy industry to appease the menacing clouds above. At the same time, we’re not supposed to build the hydropower dams or nuclear energy reactors, the most climate-friendly alternatives to fossil fuels.
Anyone who fails to appreciate the wisdom of surrendering domestic energy production and relying on countries that hate us for energy is branded a “climate denier” and excoriated as a rube. Yet the climate change crowd counts geoengineering enthusiasts among its ranks who spend their days devising crackpot schemes such as blotting out the sun to chill the planet.
Harvard University has a well-funded team thinking about something that was once a comic plot devised by the sinister Mr. Burns in the animated series “The Simpsons.” Weather isn’t as simple as a two-dimensional cartoon. It’s the outcome of complex interactions caused by the sun’s rays striking a spinning globe.
Attempts to predict what the weather will be like a week from now, much less 30 years hence, are futile. Those suggesting that bills before Congress or White House proposals can prevent bad weather are as ignorant of history as they are of science.
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