“… It Deserves Attention”

Fracis Menton (aka the Manhattan Contrarian) just announced the release of the Department of Energy’s lengthy report, titled “A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate.” The Report bears the date of 23 July. The 29^th, however, appears to be the date when it was signed by Energy Secretary Chris Wright and officially released.

Today’s headline is how President Trump’s energy secretary, Chris Wright (who doesn’t deny that the climate is changing) began his letter to the “holistic picture of the messy reality of climate research—its many areas of uncertainty, disputes and unknowns,” reports The WSJ’s Kimberley Strassel.

Most people never hear about this complicated debate, since only a subset of scientists with the “correct” views are given voice.

There are a few noncontroversial findings from the report—based on peer-reviewed literature from recent years—that “might surprise Times readers,” reports KS, before she notes that there are risks as well as benefits to global warming.

One benefit includes greater agricultural productivity of three crops that are considered the world’s most important staple foods: rice, wheat, and corn (maize).

We still don’t know the extent to which human activity plays a role in warming, given natural variability, data limitations, uncertain models and fluctuations in solar activity. Models predicting what is to come remain all over the map. U.S. historical data doesn’t support claims of increased frequency or intensity of extreme weather. Climate change is likely to have little effect on economic growth. U.S. climate policies, even drastic ones, will have negligible effect on global temperatures.

Put Climate Change into Perspective

Secretary Wright has made a good move to rally the nascent climate right. For decades, conservatives have struggled in the climate wars, Ms. Strassel notes.

Early on, they disputed that the climate was warming, until that became difficult to maintain. They then focused on alerting the public to the extreme costs of the left’s agenda, which did at least stop Barack Obama’s legislative climate plan.

As the public grew more worried about the left’s apocalyptic “consensus” claims, the GOP pivoted to “all of the above,” allowing that renewable energy sources had a place alongside fossil fuels, only to be accused of lack of serious action.

Conservative thinkers, along with scientific rationalists, have tried to use data to break through the derangement. Conservative activists, still part of a cottage industry, have worked for years to continue highlighting the unseen science and the problems with the “consensus.”

• Bjorn Lomborg stresses cost-benefit analysis.
• Yoman work by Roger Pielke Jr.seeks to correct the excesses of the climate lobby.
• Steven Koonin, one of the authors of this report and a former Obama official, has long called for more open and active debate.

At the Manhattan Contrarian, Mr. Menton acknowledges his view that these thinkers are highly competent and accomplished, “which is a dramatic contrast to the lightweights and grifters who constitute essentially all of the mainstream climate science community.” “Most important,” continues Mr. Menton, “… they are all willing to acknowledge the limitations of the knowledge possessed by the scientific community about the world’s climate.”

The Report overall comes off as a fair and balanced assessment of risks and trade-offs, rather than what normally comes from climate academics and journalists, which are cheap attempts to use speculation and fake projections to scare you out of your wits.

Secretary Wright has a new approach: “To jump back into the science, challenge the notion of consensus (which is anathema to vigorous, probing science), re-inject forgotten factors into the debate (cost, competing priorities) and in general ensure Americans have the whole picture.”

To Debate: The Essence of Good Science 

Climate hysteria is one of the greatest threats to freedom in modern times (just think of the Joe Biden administration). Climate hysteria quickly became the justification for total power, chides KS:

If day-to-day human activity is causing the Earth to melt, the government must control the day-to-day: what we drive, what we eat, what products we buy, what industries exist (and don’t), where we live.

Anyone who disagrees with the regime’s reigning narrative—the collective requirement to address the “existential” threat—is branded the climate version of an “enemy of the people”: a “denier.” It’s corrosive.

This week, conservatives launched a new strategy, which gave Americans a bigger scientific picture, continues Ms. Strassel.

Long may that healthy, vigorous debate—the essence of good science—continue.

Francis Mention thinks that it is fabulous to see “the U.S. government finally listening to competent people and making some sense in the area of climate science.”

Time to defenestrate the charlatans, advises Mr. Menton

Read more about Chris Wright here.