Cal Thomas: Prophecies of doom

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Thursday, November 29th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from member-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Next up: Cal Thomas on the government’s latest climate-change report.

CAL THOMAS, COMMENTATOR: Each time an end-of-the-world prophecy is delivered, we are told we must believe. Sometimes it’s a self-deluded preacher, sometimes a group of politicians, sometimes scientists.

Never mind how many of their prophecies have been wrong in the past. This time it’s real.

The latest prophecy of doom and planetary extinction comes from a government report issued last week. Like others before it, this report concluded that Earth is warming, humans are responsible, and we have only 10 years to fix the problem. But wait, haven’t we seen such deadlines before? And when they passed, we are still here with weather patterns behaving much as they have before?

The media and much of political Washington have accepted this flawed doctrine as truth. They claim climate change is “settled science” and many believe it. Why? Because unsettling comments from scientists with experience and knowledge in the field—scientists who lack a political agenda—are largely ignored.

ClimateDepot.com is my favorite resource for fact-based information that challenges the current narrative about climate change. It features knowledgeable scientists who don’t believe the dire predictions peddled as fact. Climate expert Roger Pielke Jr. notes billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer funded one of the main studies used in the recent government report.

Other scientists have criticized the methodology used to create the climate prediction models showing extreme and worsening weather patterns. The Cato Institute’s Patrick Michaels notes the report used an average of 102 models. Many of those predicted far more warming than we have actually experienced. Pielke also notes predictions of dire economic impact are based on the most extreme prediction contained in the report, not more moderate estimates.

So, what is the truth and how can we know it?

The Trump administration has promised to issue a separate report that will include “more transparent and data-driven information.” In the meantime, there’s plenty of information available from scientists skeptical of climate change not because of a political position but because the data doesn’t support the conclusions. We could all benefit from reading their work to balance out the hysteria.

We should also take note countries like France, where gas prices are now over $7 a gallon. French motorists are rioting over the gas tax President Emmanuel Macron imposed in an effort to minimize his country’s reliance on fossil fuels.

Those protests are an indication of how little the public is willing to tolerate even the smallest economic fluctuations. We would be wise to learn from it.

For WORLD Radio, I’m Cal Thomas.

(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) In this Nov. 26, 2018, photo, President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media before boarding Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington. 

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