Manmade Climate Disruption – the Hype and Reality

The White House has released its latest National Climate Assessment. An 829-page report and 127-page “summary” were quickly followed by press releases, television appearances, interviews and photo ops with tornado victims – all to underscore President Obama’s central claims:

 Human-induced climate change, “once considered an issue for the distant future, has moved firmly into the present.” It is “affecting Americans right now,” disrupting their lives. The effects of “are already being felt in every corner of the United States.” Corn producers in Iowa, oyster growers in Washington, maple syrup producers in Vermont, crop-growth cycles in Great Plains states “are all observing climate-related changes that are outside of recent experience.” Extreme weather events “have become more frequent and/or intense.”

It’s pretty scary sounding. It has to be. First, it is designed to distract us from topics that the President and Democrats do not want to talk about: ObamaCare, the IRS scandals, Benghazi, a host of foreign policy failures, still horrid jobless and workforce participation rates, and an abysmal 0.1% first quarter GDP growth rate that hearkens back to the Great Depression.

Second, fear-inducing “climate disruption” claims are needed to justifyjob-killing, economy-choking policies like the endless delays on the Keystone XL pipeline; still more wind, solar and ethanol mandates, tax breaks and subsidies; and regulatory compliance costs that have reached $1.9 trillion per year – nearly one-eighth of the entire US economy.

Third, scary hyperventilating serves to obscure important realities about Earth’s weather and climate, and even the NCA report itself. Although atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have been rising steadily for decades, contrary to White House claims, average planetary temperatures have not budged for 17 years.

No Category 3-5 hurricane has made landfall in the United States since 2005, the longest such period since at least 1900. Even with the recent Midwestern twisters, US tornado frequency remains very low, and property damage and loss of lifefrom tornadoes have decreased over the past six decades.

http://townhall.com/columnists/pauldriessen/2014/05/10/manmade-climate-disruption--the-hype-and-reality-n1836216