Category: Climate facts

Despite fears stoked by careless media, global area burned each year is trending downward, not up

By Bjorn Lom­borg, Wall Street Journal, August 01, 2023

One of the most common tropes in our increasingly alarmist climate debate is that global warming has set the world on fire. But it hasn’t. For more than two decades, satellites have recorded fires across the planet’s surface. The data are unequivocal: Since the early 2000s, when 3% of the world’s land caught fire, the area burned annually has trended downward.

In 2022, the last year for which there are complete data, the world hit a new record-low of 2.2% burned area.… Read more

The fixes for heat aren’t complex, or at least they don’t need to be as complex as having various government agencies quixotically redesign the U.S. economy. Amazon will drop a fan at your front door in a day or two at most.

By Mark Naida, Wall Street Journal, July 15, 2023

The summer weather in Texas is remarkably consistent, and on weather apps it is usually presented as a frightening shade of red. The current outlook is a high of 101 to 104 degrees Fahrenheit for the foreseeable future. I don’t prefer it to be this hot, but like tens of millions of Americans who choose to live in a place with an unreasonable climate, I make do.… Read more

It’s wrong to claim that climate policy is the ‘only way’ to reduce fires. Prescribed burning, improved zoning and enhanced land management are much faster, more effective and cheaper solutions for fires than climate policy

By Bjorn Lom­borg, Wall Street Journal, Aug. 1, 2023

One of the most common tropes in our increasingly alarmist climate debate is that global warming has set the world on fire. But it hasn’t. For more than two decades, satellites have recorded fires across the planet’s surface. The data are unequivocal: Since the early 2000s, when 3% of the world’s land caught fire, the area burned annually has trended downward.… Read more

Costs for Canadians will far outweigh any benefits to the planet

By Tristan Hopper, National Post, August 21, 2023

If everything goes according to the wishes of Canada’s net-zero planners, in just 27 years this country won’t emit a single stray molecule of carbon dioxide.

Canada burns an average 100 million litres of gasoline every single day; that’s about 40 Olympic-sized swimming pools’ worth. It burns another 49 million daily litres of diesel. The country has almost 25 million registered vehicles powered by internal combustion engines. … Read more

Guilbeault’s attack on fossil-fuel-generated electricity will cost Canadians more for a lower standard of living and drag our federal finances further towards the abyss

By Adam Pankratz, Na­tional Post, August 22, 2023

Canada’s Minister of Environmental Magic, Steven Guilbeault, is at it again. His next trick, more daring than scaling even the tallest skyscraper, is to eliminate fossil fuels from Canada’s electrical grid by 2035. If rammed through, this latest government act of wand waving will cost Canadians more for a lower standard of living and drag our federal finances further towards the abyss. His plan is already encountering push back as it comes up against that which Minister Guilbeault hates most: reality.… Read more

Disastrous road-trip experience with electric truck turns Winnipeger off EVs

By Bradford Betz, Fox News, Aug. 11, 2023

A Canadian man is calling electric vehicles the “biggest scam of modern times” after his frustrating experience with an electric truck. 

Dalbir Bala, who lives in the Winnipeg area, bought a Ford F-150 Lightning EV in January for $115,000 Canadian dollars (around $85,000 U.S. dollars), plus tax. Ford said the Manufacturers Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) on the vehicle is $77,495 U.S. dollars.… Read more

The regulations reflect a government willing to fracture national unity, violate the constitutional division of powers, damage the economy and increase the cost of living of the public it was elected to serve

By Joe Oliver, National Post, Aug. 15, 2023

In March 2022, from its green perch high above us mere mortals, the federal government arbitrarily mandated a virtually unachievable net-zero national electricity grid by 2035, which will undermine electricity’s reliability and affordability and cost $54-billion.

With last week’s release of draft Clean Electricity Regulations (CER), Steven Guilbeault, minister of environment and climate change, supported by Jonathan Wilkinson, minister of energy and natural resources, set a policy table groaning with threats and only a few inducements.… Read more

‘Going Green’ is much more damaging to the environment than meets the eye

As a retired electrical engineer, I can tell you that unless your house has a 250 amp service entry cable and main breaker you have no business installing a 60 amp residential car charger. Typical line feeds are 100 to 150 amp service. In the summer with 60 amp Air Conditioning (2.5 tons and up) you could not charge your car and run your AC at the same time. Little would be left for appliances and lighting. That is the part they don’t tell you.

Tesla said it best when they called its battery an Energy Storage System.… Read more

State government more interested in stopping ‘climate change’ than dealing with immediate dangers

By Connor O’Keefe, Austrian Mises Institute, August 17, 2023

The most destructive natural disasters are never 100 percent natural. Human choices, land use, and government policies play a big role in how harmful hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, flash floods, and wildfires are to the affected communities.

And after catastrophes like the wildfire that destroyed much of the historic Hawaiian city of Lahaina on August 8, it’s worth taking stock of how much of the disaster was the result not of natural or accidental factors, but of policies and institutions that can be changed.… Read more

Today’s warming of 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2°F) has reduced GDP by less than 0.5%. That is trivial, considering real GDP has grown by more than 800% since 1950. And the same will be true of future warming.

By Steven E. Koonin, Wall Street Journal, July 7, 2023

Steven Koonin is a pro­fes­sor at New York Univer­sity, a se­nior fel­low at the Hoover In­sti­tu­tion, and au­thor of “Un­set­tled: What Cli­mate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Mat­ters.”

The journalist Michael Kinsley famously noted that “a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth.” By that standard, the White House committed a doozy in March when it released a paper on climate change’s effect on the U.S.… Read more