In Part I misguided administration actions on all things climate change were partially listed. These paint the picture of incoherence and misdirection — efforts to hide the ball and deceive the public appear to be the every day mission of the Biden Administration. One cannot help but draw that conclusion as the administrative state seeks to regulate kitchen stoves, auto tire specs and even minute amounts of soot the circulate around the globe. But the EPA seems to believe U.S. action is the cure-all. The have the statistics to “prove” it.

As Mark Twain attributed to British Prime Minister Benjamin Disreali, “There are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies and statistics.” The damned lies, ummm, statistics associated with climate change are cases in point. Hottest days, hottest months, hottest years, increased climate deaths, increased property destruction, malnutrition, increased tornadoes, hurricanes, ice melt/polar bears, rising oceans ad infinitum are continually rained upon the public by politicos, greens media and science guys. In fact just prior to publishing this post, the following news items ran in newspapers and electronic media cross the U.S.

Globe breaks heat record for 8th month…Net zero becomes all dissonance and no cognition…Democrats energy subsidies to exceed $1trillion in next decade…Clean energy rules on chopping block (Arizona Corporation Commission)…U.S. LNG export halt leaves Europe with shortfall…

And then there is this telling narrative from the Wall Street Journal’s Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. on February 10 — “In the tapestry of self-delusion, John Kerry turns out to be the key Biden Administration figure. His hand-waving as climate envoy, his Potemkin pretense of brining Cjhina along, helped the administration tie up trillions now and in the future in U.S. climate policy. This money will remain tied up even though China’s predictable noncooperation guarantees that it will have no actual effect on climate.”

Despite his advocacy for a carbon tax, at least Jenkins purveys unvarnished objectivity on climate, Kerry and China. Below are more more unvarnished facts — these from Bjorn Lomborg that blow the “settled science” BS and gunsmoke away:

Hurricanes

“…the hurricanes of 2022 were close to unprecedented,– but only in their weakness. Globally 2022 had the second weakest batch of hurricanes in the era of satellite data (beginning in 1980). It also had the fourth-fewest strong hurricanes (category 3 and above) in the same period and the eighth-fewest hurricanes overall. Moreover, despite what we hear, hurricanes have not been growing stronger globally. The average energy per hurricane has remained constant in the satellite era. Contrary to what is commonly asserted, the frequency of hurricanes hitting the continental U.S. has not increased over the past 122 years. The best fit line actually trends slightly downward.”

Heat and Cold

“One of the most publicized effects of climate change is deaths caused by rising temperatures, especially during heat waves. Every summer we see the media in Europe and North America seize upon spikes in temperature to warn about the urgent need to tackle climate change. What we rarely hear is that cold also kills — and it kills many more. A July 2021 study in Lancet, Britain’s premier medical journal, showed that heat currently causes just over one percent of all global deaths, or almost 600,000 each year. Cold kills eight times as many — about 4.5 million people annually. Cold deaths are more frequent not just in cold areas but, surprisingly across the world…to address both heat and cold, we need access to plentiful and cheap energy — the opposite of what many climate policies would achieve.”

Polar bears

Newspaper ads declaring “There is no them without you” and the iconic Coca Cola ads featuring the ursine predator, with and without cubs, tug at the heartstrings. Here’s Mr. Lomborg, “Numbers tell a different story from what activists are selling. “The best data on polar bear populations come from the official assessments of polar bear-specialist scientists.The estimate the global population is somewhere between 22,000 and 31,000 nearly double the 1960s estimates. Numbers are up because polar bears used to be heavily hunted. Beginning in 1976 a partial hunting ban protected bears better, and the population recovered.”

Fire

“We can add wildfires to the list of natural disasters that are overhyped in climate coverage. Back in the early 1900s, about 4.2 percent of land worldwide burned every year. A century later, that figure had dropped to almost three percent. The decline has continued through the modern era with satellite measuring burn across the globe every day. These data are entirely uncontroversial. Even a report from the World Wildlife Fund chillingly subtitled ‘A Crisis Raging Out of Control’ concedes that ‘the area of land burned globally has actually been steadily declining since it started to be recorded in 1900’.”

Climate deaths

“If we were to assume that every heat-related death was caused by climate change (that’s 8,600 deaths a year) along with every other death caused by extreme weather (another 400 people) the toll doesn’t top 10,000. It pales in comparison with the 5,181,000 people who are killed by cold temperatures, or the 746,000 people who die from cancers. The most significant public health issue in the U.S. today is cardiovascular disease, which kills 923,000 per year. President Biden’s former climate adviser Gina McCarthy has declared that “climate change is the most significant public heath issue of our time.” Such is the drivel spouted by Biden, Kerry, McCarthy, Sanders, Markey, et al. Such disinformation is a sop to the Greens and a gross disservice to the citizenry.

The disinformation campaign is not without consequences. This from a Denver Post article in mid-2023. “Greenhouse gases are seeping into the atmosphere, warming the planet. Polar ice caps are melting raising sea levels and altering the chemistry of the planet’s oceans. Wildfires spark more frequently, burn hotter, spread faster and wider. Waterways like the Colorado River are dwindling. Deforestation threatens even the planet’s most wild forests and jungles. Mining operations scar and poison beautiful and even sacred landscapes, endangering the way of life for those living in the area. And so the paralyzing fear sets in, the anxiety and depression. These problems are indeed and existential threat, scientists repeatedly confirm…”

Note that this was a “news” story, not an editorial nor an analysis. The story went on to state that a 2020 survey by the American Psychological Association found that two thirds of Americans suffer from some form of “climate anxiety.” Another study published in The Lancet surveyed 10,000 people between the ages 16 and 25 in 10 countries and found that 59 percent of them were “very or extremely worried” about climate change. The story went on to examine ‘climate anxiety on campus at the University of Colorado, Boulder. one student was quoted, “We have a generation of 20-year-olds who, their whole life have been told that we’re 20, 30, 40 years away from global ecological collapse.” Indeed the drum major for this anxiety is the Swedish prima donna Greta Thunberg who bleats her anger and disgust all way up to the Nobel committee. Our world has raised a generation of young adults fed a steady diet of climate derangement, misinformation and propaganda.

Around the same time, in Montana’s capital a first-of-its kind trial had 16 plaintiffs ranging in age from 5 to 23 years old. Suing the state’s DEQ for not denying resource development permits, they said they were being harmed by wildfire smoke, excessive heat and other effects of climate change. They were represented by attorneys for Our Children’s Trust, an Oregon environmental group that’s filed similar suits in every state since 2011. None had reportedly reached trial.

For pure nuttiness, such exercises are hard to beat. The religion that is climate change threatens to unravel the fabric of democratic societies in pursuit of fantasy goals. Your “objective” media is johnny-on-the-spot to cover student angst, but AWOL when facts don’t fit their narrative.

Back to windsurfer, anti-war activist and erstwhile Lt. Governor/Senator/presidential candidate/Secretary of State/special envoy Mr. Kerry, and COP28 in Dubai. This from former White House climate advisor and EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy in a letter to the Wall street Journal. “…for the first time, after years of refusing to do so, China agreed last November to include all greenhouse gases in its new emissions reduction commitments, That laid the foundation for the global agreement at COP28 to transition away from fossil fuels. Now that China is supporting the agreement, it will need to reduce its coal usage, and we can all hold it accountable (insert guffaw here). History will show that Mr. Kerry’s dogged commitment to climate action will boost economies and build a more stable and democratic world that improves health and equity for all (insert snort and second guffaw here).” Also weighting in with a laudatory WSJ letter was Bill Nye, who signed his letter “The Science Guy.” His letter drew this response from reader James Fitzgerald, Chicago, “I take issue with your identifying Mr. Nye as ‘The Science Guy.’ Mr. Nye, the holder of a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering is no more the “Science Guy” than I am the “Sausage King of Chicago” or Kreskin was “Amazing.”

Mr. Kerry has led a colorful life –Swift boats, Navy medals over the White House fence, Massachusetts tax dodge by mooring his yacht in Rhode Island, following a marriage annulment marries a late Republican senator’s wife whom he met at an Earth Day soiree, flies private jets in climate grandee style to wine and cheese confabs around the globe. He then retires, declaring success as he departs the playing field.

That “success” empowers our adversaries, commits the U.S to “investments” of dubious value, and perpetuates the illusion that steps taken and monies spent will have a meaningful impact on world climate. His true success is in enabling the politics of climate change to subsume the science and reality. In the bargain our adversaries are empowered while our economy weakens.

Perhaps he’ll enjoy similar “success” as he moves “up” to a senior role in the Biden 2024 presidential campaign. He’d thenl have a hand in President Biden surpassing Harold Stassen’s record of political failure and futility. Stassen ran for the Republican presidential nomination and failed seven times. A loss as an incumbent President would be the capstone for Biden’s unparalleled record of policy failures. He and John Kerry could then shuffle off into oblivion together.