“Climate emergency” declaration = endless dictatorship
By Alex Epstein
Do Not Declare a “Climate Emergency”
Rising CO2 levels are:
- Not dire: Humans are safer from climate than ever.
- Not temporary: They will rise for decades.
- Not in our control: We emit 1/7 of CO2—and falling.
“Climate emergency” declaration = endless dictatorship
- As many leaders obsess about summer temperatures that are predictably a little warmer than they used to be—given the gradual warming trend and El Nino year—we are hearing more calls for the Biden Admin to declare a “climate emergency.”This would be a catastrophic decision.
- A government “emergency” declaration is a temporary increase in power that should only be used if a problem meets 3 criteria:
- Dire: Unusually deadly
- Temporary: Of limited duration
- In our control: Actually solvable by our government
“Climate emergency” is none of these.
- 1: Rising CO2 levels are not direWhile “climate change”—humans impacting climate—is real, “climate emergency” is not. A world in which far more people die of cold than of heat is slowly becoming warmer—and our ability to master climate danger is rapidly increasing.¹
- The truth is that fossil fuels’ CO2 emissions have contributed to the warming of the last 170 years, but that warming has been mild—1° C, mostly in the colder parts of the world. And life on Earth thrived (and was far greener) when CO2 levels were at least 5 times higher than today’s.²
- Fossil fuels actually overall make us far safer from climate by providing low-cost energy for the amazing machines that protect us against storms, protect us against extreme temperatures, and alleviate drought. Climate disaster deaths have decreased 98% over the last century.³
- When we are evaluating the threat level of climate impact from our use of fossil fuels, we obviously need to incorporate our climate mastery ability—e.g., fossil-fueled cooling, heating, irrigation—which can potentially neutralize fossil fuels’ negative climate impacts.
- Even though we obviously need to factor in fossil fuels’ climate mastery benefits, many designated experts totally fail to do this.E.g., the UN IPCC’s multi-thousand-page reports totally omit fossil-fueled climate mastery! That’s like a polio report omitting the polio vaccine.
- With rising CO2 we must be evenhanded, considering both negatives (more heatwaves) and positives (fewer cold deaths). And we must be precise, not equating some impact with huge impact. “Climate emergency” claims are neither evenhanded nor precise when looking at rising CO2.
- Even though we obviously need to be evenhanded and precise with rising CO2, most designated experts ignore big positives (e.g., global greening) while catastrophizing negatives (e.g., Gore portrays 20 ft sea level rise as imminent when extreme UN projections are 3ft/100yrs).⁴
- What about damage from a changing climate?The trend of real (inflation-adjusted) weather damage is flat—despite many factors increasing vulnerability, like increasing coastal populations and bad incentives from government bailout policies.This is the opposite of an emergency.⁵
- The number of climate-related disasters also didn’t increase during the 21st century, when we have the most complete data coverage, despite factors making disaster declarations more likely, independent of climate change—e.g., population increases in vulnerable spots.⁶
- If the world continues using fossil fuels to provide reliable, low-cost energy to billions of people, the result will not be a climate crisis but continued manageable warming, significant greening, and a far better life for billions of people.
- We often hear that 97% of climate scientists believe our climate impact is dire—a “climate emergency.”But while most agree on some human climate impact, they certainly do not agree there is an emergency.See the following for a total debunking.
