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 |  Subject: Panic-monger Time magazine says Manila under threat; 500 scientists reject ‘climate emergency’  Wed Oct 02, 2019 9:06 pm | |
| SEVERAL developments on the climate front impel me to turn again to climate change in my column today in order to assess their implications.
First, Time magazine online has listed Manila as one of six regions/cities that face the gravest risks from the climate crisis.
Second, 500 scientists, engineers and professionals have sent the United Nations secretary-general a declaration, saying, “There is no climate emergency.”
Third, a research study has uncovered 50 years of failed doomsday predictions.
Countries/cities most under threat
In its report last week, Time wrote:
“Climate change is expected to affect every country in the world, but its impact will not be felt equally across all regions and some will be worse hit than others because of a range of different threats.
“Developing countries, places with widespread poverty, and countries with ineffective governments sometimes face the gravest risks from the changing climate, and are usually poorly equipped to find ways to prepare for and prevent environmental threats.
“Measuring the future impact of climate change is very challenging, because scientists’ climate change projections cannot be completely exact and because there are many different factors that come into play…. There are other non-climatic factors that also determine how severely a city or country will be impacted by climate change. Niall Smith, who analyzes the regions’ climate change vulnerability for the global risk consulting firm Maplecroft, tells Time that it’s also necessary to weigh in what’s happening politically and socially in a region to figure out if the country can prepare.
“‘The places with the least level of economic development are certainly in line to feel the impacts with the greatest degree, partially just due to their geographic fate — or their location — but more so based on the socio-economic and governance factors,’ says Smith.
“To get a sense of the challenges different regions are facing, Time spoke to experts about six countries and cities that will be be particularly affected by climate change.”
The six countries and cities, according to Time are:
1. Lagos, Nigeria – “Lagos is at ‘extreme’ risk on Maplecroft’s Climate Change Vulnerability Index. This is especially concerning because its population is expanding rapidly, and it is considered to be a major economic engine for the region.”
2. Haiti – “Climate change can be a ‘threat multiplier,’ says Christina Chan, the director of the World Resources Institute’s climate resilience practice. This is especially true for Haiti. The island nation is located in the ‘Atlantic Hurricane Basin,’ which means that it is vulnerable to hurricanes. In comparison to other projections on climate change, scientists are less certain about the link between climate change and hurricane frequency and intensity….”
3. Yemen – “Countries with weak institutions and governments are likely to find it especially difficult to adapt to climate change, says Smith. Since civil war broke out in Yemen in 2015, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed directly as a result of the conflict, but also due to the subsequent famine, poor sanitation and a lack of clean water.”
Both war and climate change will make water shortages and famine more likely.
3. Manila, Philippines – “The Philippines faces a high risk of natural disasters, including earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, and especially hurricanes. Manila, which is located along the coast, is also densely populated, which makes it more difficult to evacuate, requires more social services and makes it more challenging to rebuild after a disaster….
“However, Chan says that the Philippines is in fact on the ‘forefront of adaptation’ to climate change, and have designated part of their budget to making their country’s agricultural sector and infrastructure more resilient, and preparing to respond to future disasters.”
4. Kiribati – “Kiribati-Tarawa’s single paved road has collapsed because of the flooding from the sea. The people of Kiribati are under pressure to relocate due to sea level rise. Each year, the sea level rises by about half an inch. Though this may not sound like much, it is a big deal considering the islands are only a few feet above sea level….
“Rising sea levels mean that Kiribati may be wiped off the map entirely in the coming decades. The islands have even purchased 5,000 acres of land in Fiji in case they need to relocate.”
5. United Arab Emirates – “[T]he United Arab Emirates is facing many risks due to its location. Like Yemen and other neighboring states, the UAE is facing an ‘extreme risk’ of water stress, according to Smith, and will need to spend a lot more energy on cooling.
“Unlike many other countries facing these threats, however, the UAE is wealthier and is able to make sophisticated investments to blunt the impact of climate change. For instance, the UAE is working to produce its own fresh water, build temperature-controlled spaces, investments in green energy, and developing crops that can withstand hotter temperatures.”
No climate emergency
In an article published on September 29, the Washington Times reported that at the Global Climate Summit convened on September 23 by the UN, 500 international scientists, engineers and other stakeholders issued a declaration, saying: “There is no climate emergency.”
The European Climate Declaration, spearheaded by the Amsterdam-based Climate Intelligence Foundation (Clintel), described the leading climate models as “unfit” and urged UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to pursue a climate policy based on “sound science.”
“Current climate policies pointlessly and grievously undermine the economic system, putting lives at risk in countries denied access to affordable, reliable electrical energy,” said the September 23 letter signed by professionals from 23 countries.
Most of the signers hailed from Europe, but there were also scientists from the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South America.
“We urge you to follow a climate policy based on sound science, realistic economics and genuine concern for those harmed by costly but unnecessary attempts at mitigation,” the letter said.
The signers urged the world body to organize a meeting of scientists “on both sides of the climate debate early in 2020.”
The sheer number of prominent signers of the declaration, with scientific and engineering credentials, belied the alarmists’ contention that only a handful of fringe researchers and fossil-fuel shills oppose the climate-catastrophe “consensus.”
The US contingent was made up of 45 US professors, engineers and scientists, including MIT professor emeritus Richard Lindzen, Freeman Dyson of the Institute of Advanced Studies at Princeton, and Stanford University professor emeritus Elliott D. Bloom, as well as several signers formerly affiliated with NASA.
Six-point declaration
The declaration made six points:
1. Nature as well as anthropogenic factors cause warming.
2. Warming is far slower than predicted.
3. Climate policy relies on inadequate models.
4. Carbon dioxide is “plant food, the basis of all life on Earth.”
5. Global warming has not increased natural disasters.
6. “Climate policy must respect scientific and economic realities.”
Convincing climate-focused institutions like the UN to engage on such topics has been a struggle, said Guus Berkhout, professor emeritus of geophysics at Delft University of Technology and a Clintel co-founder.
Professor Berkhout said of the initiative: “We promote a scientific discussion at the highest level between both sides of the climate debate, but the mainstream refuses so far…They always come with the same arguments: they are right and we are wrong. Period!”
Indeed, the UN is moving full speed ahead on carbon neutrality, with policymakers, researchers and media outlets calling for increasingly urgent measures to combat the “climate crisis” and “climate emergency.”
In their letter, the Clintel network called it “cruel as well as imprudent to advocate the squandering of trillions of dollars on the basis of results from such immature models…
“The science is far from settled.”
50 years of failed predictions
The Cooperative Enterprise Institute, a libertarian think tank based in Washington D.C., has compiled a list of failed climate predictions, which it titled “50 Years of Failed Eco-pocalyptic Predictions.”
John Nolte, writing in the Breitbart, was especially crushing. He wrote on September 20:
“For more than 50 years climate alarmists in the scientific community and environmental movement have not gotten even one prediction correct, but they do have a perfect record of getting 41 predictions wrong.
“In other words, on at least 41 occasions, these so-called experts have predicted some terrible environmental catastrophe was imminent…and it never happened.
And not once — not even once! — have these alarmists had one of their predictions come true.”
https://www.manilatimes.net/2019/10/03/opinion/columnists/topanalysis/time-says-manila-under-threat-500-scientists-reject-climate-emergency/625430/
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