For the editor:
Is climate change so bad that we need to spend billions of dollars to reach net zero by 2050?
The reality is that temperatures have only risen about 0.13°C per decade over the past 40 years, according to satellite data from the University of Alabama at Huntsville. There were similar temperature increases from the late 1800s through the 1940s, when carbon dioxide could not have been a factor. Between the two, temperatures plummeted from the 1950s to the 1980s, to the point that scientists feared a new ice age was about to begin.
These non-CO2-dependent cycles call into question the extent to which human emissions are causing rising temperatures.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is trying to justify its radical zero policy agenda with models whose predictions have increasingly diverged from actual temperatures over the past 30 years. Yes, we would probably be in trouble if global temperatures increased by 8.5 degrees by 2100, as their most extreme models predict.
However, actual trends in satellite data show only a 1.5°C rise per century, assuming current trends continue.
Additionally, most climatologists will agree that severe weather events such as tornadoes and hurricanes have not increased in number or severity due to CO2 emissions.
For example, 2018 had the fewest severe tornadoes in the United States since we keep records and from 2006 to 2015 we had the longest time on record without a Category 3 hurricane hitting the continent.
For more real facts on 30 different climate topics, read “Climate at a Glance 2022,” free from the Heartland Institute.
Daniel Murphy
North Andover
