Unsettling The Settled Climate Science

Global warming…. Not so hot.

It’s a climate puzzle that has vexed scientists for more than a decade and added fuel to the arguments of those who insist man-made global warming is a myth.

Since just before the start of the 21st century, the Earth’s average global surface temperature has failed to rise despite soaring levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases and years of dire warnings from environmental advocates.

Now, as scientists with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change gather in Sweden this week to approve portions of the IPCC’s fifth assessment report, they are finding themselves pressured to explain this glaring discrepancy.

This puzzle really isn’t that difficult to figure out, actually. Much of what has passed for established climate science in the past couple of decades has actually been based on projections and computer models, not on any empirically obtained data. In fact, it’s been almost anti-science, with presumptions being treated as fact before being proven. 

But the skeptics are knuckle-dragging flat earthers. Sure. 

The new IPCC report has the climate hysteria evangelists so nervous that they have begun trying to sweep it under the rug

Here is their conundrum: for the longest time, they’ve told us that the IPCC proclamations on climate are gospel. In fact, they are the gospel for the Climate Church. And anyone who didn’t listen was immediately branded an anti-science heretic. 

Now this very same group is about to say, “Yeah, not so much…” and those who have been holding it up as the paragon of all things climate change are forced to do things like make up a “hiatus”. 

In reality, there isn’t much backing up the claim that this is just a lull. In fact, a noted climate scientist (and IPCC member) says the panel may soon have to throw its projections out the window into the increasingly cool air.

If things continue as they have been, in five years, at the latest, we will need to acknowledge that something is fundamentally wrong with our climate models. A 20-year pause in global warming does not occur in a single modeled scenario. But even today, we are finding it very difficult to reconcile actual temperature trends with our expectations.

In a sane world, one could reasonably expect that the new evidence would be taken into account before proceding with any burdensome federal regulatory response. However, in a world where most of the federal government arrives at work each day in the same clown car, exactly the opposite is happening

We know that carbon pollution is the most prevalent heat-trapping greenhouse gas, warming our planet and fueling climate change. In 2011, power plants and major industrial facilities in the United States emitted over 3 billion metric tons of carbon pollution, which is equal to annual pollution from over 640 million cars. Annually in the U.S., carbon pollution from power plants accounts for one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions, or 40 percent of total carbon pollution, surpassing industrial sources or the transportation sector. That means power plants emit more carbon pollution than every boat, plane, train, and car in the U.S. combined.

With these facts in mind, and given our legal obligation to the American people, EPA is releasing a proposal to limit carbon pollution from future power plants.

Today’s proposal applies only to future power plants, and sets separate national limits for natural gas-fired power plants and coal-fired power plants.

So, even though the “heat trapping greenhouse gas” doesn’t appear to be heating anything up, it’s full speed ahead with the crippling regulatory burden. 

California has been experimenting with save-the-earth regulation for a long time and that’s going-if the polar bears will pardon the pun-swimmingly

President Obama’s first term was devoted to two things, for the most part: passing Obamacare and hemorrhaging taxpayer money on worthless green companies at a time when the economy was doing its Titanic impression. While we are all caught up in the looming Obamacare implementation fight and whatever is happening in Syria at this hour, Team Lightbringer remains focused on getting its executive overreach fix through the EPA. 

We also have an immigration reform battle coming up in the near future but the important thing to remember is this: this administration has a blatant disregard for the legislative process and, even when it seems like it is losing a congressional battle or two, it is usually hitting the back alleys to score some steroids for its Executive Privilege.