“No challenge is more urgent than the changing climate.” This is what we are told by Climate Week NYC, a week-long event from September 21-28, hosted by the Climate Group, a nonprofit organization aiming to achieve net zero “carbon” emissions globally by 2050. Climate Week NYC mistakenly assumes that human emissions of carbon dioxide cause the supposed climate emergency.
If their message were “No challenge is more urgent than climate alarmist policies,” they might have been right, but as it is, climate change is almost entirely natural, and real-world data show that no disaster is on the horizon. The only thing that could lead to a crisis is crippling our economy with climate policies that force unreliable renewable energy technologies and totalitarian restrictions on our way of life.
Climate Week NYC will be a hub of climate alarmism with speakers promoting radical changes to avert the non-existent threat. Some of their focus is on adaptation to climate change, which is, of course, sensible. However, much more emphasis is put on swaying policy-makers to make vast changes to our society to “stop climate change.”
One of their most glaring errors is the notion that a warming world will cause environmental and health disasters. They say that “climate change is exacerbating air pollution, heat stress, and the spread of infectious diseases” and that during the week, they will explore “the impact a warming planet may have on an already strained healthcare system.”
Political scientist and president of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, Bjørn Lomborg, explains how cold weather causes many more deaths than hot weather. For instance, in Europe, there are six times more cold-related deaths than heat-related deaths. While heatwaves can lead to serious health problems, the cold generally has far more dire effects. This was explored in the 2021 study “Global, regional, and national burden of mortality associated with non-optimal ambient temperatures from 2000 to 2019: a three-stage modelling study” in the UK medical journal The Lancet. For every heat-related death, it was found that there are nine times as many related to the cold.
So if the world warms, we will obviously have more heat-related deaths, but this will be more than compensated for by the reduction in deaths due to decreased cold exposure. Global warming, regardless of whether or not humans cause it, will generally benefit humanity. For instance, the authors of CO2 Science, in reference to various other studies showing similar results, state:
...in a warming world, the number of lives saved as a consequence of the alleviation of the cold-day killing effect likely will far exceed the number of lives lost as a consequence of the intensification of the hot-day killing effect... the net effect of an increase in temperature is a reduction in human death rate.
Moreover, with access to reliable, inexpensive electricity for heating and cooling, the dangers associated with both excess heat and cold will drastically reduce. But if the climate activists have their way, we will be forced to use intermittent, unreliable, and costly wind and solar power rather than dependable fossil fuels. This will be a catastrophe, with those living at and below the poverty line unable to power their homes. Cheap energy is needed for developing nations in particular, and if air conditioners are not available during heatwaves, we will continue to see heat-related illnesses and death.
On longer time scales, periods of warmth have always been better for humanity. As seen in the graph below from The CO2 Coalition, prosperous times, such as during the Minoan Warm Period, the Roman Warm Period, and the Medieval Warm Period, occurred during periods of higher temperatures. During these periods, civilizations advanced in science, technology, art, and farming. “Dark Ages” can also be seen, corresponding to cooler temperatures and stunted prosperity with smaller crop yields, difficulties in transportation of goods, and sickness.
A warming planet is not just good for human health, but the environment as well. In addition to plants thriving with increased levels of carbon dioxide, they also benefit from warmer temperatures. This includes warmer oceans. For instance, as explored in ecologist Patrick Moore’s book Fake Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom, corals evolved in oceans much warmer than today, and they thrive in tropical seas. In the Indonesian Archipelago, called the Coral Triangle, we find some of the warmest seas on Earth. There are over 600 species of corals, which are 76% of all coral species. Indeed, the reason why other reefs have fewer corals than the Coral Triangle is not because of global warming, but because they are located in oceans that are cooler than the Coral Triangle. Warmer water means greater biodiversity, not just of corals, but all marine life.
With crops thriving in warmer weather, we will likewise be able to better sustain our growing population with more abundant agriculture. During the Mesozoic Era, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth approximately 252 to 66 million years ago, plants grew to enormous sizes, and forests were lush with flora and fauna. Even plants that do better in cooler environments adapt to warming, just as they have for millennia.
According to Climate Week NYC’s website, “If only ‘current policies’ are implemented, the UN’s prediction of a 3°C world by the end of this century will be an environmental catastrophe and an economic disaster.” This is the exact opposite of reality: besides the fact that these forecasts are based on hopelessly flawed computerized climate models, and so the actual temperature rise will likely be much less, warming will not lead to an environmental catastrophe. And the only economic disaster that would ensue would be due to the overreach of renewable energy technologies and taxation on our way of living. That is the disaster we must work to prevent, not climate change.
Note: Mary-Jean Harris, BSc, MSc (physics), contributed to this article.
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