As was widely reported, climate scientists have lied, again. Or maybe, it was just a different way of interpreting data? Holman Jenkins wrote an op-ed in the WSJ on February 3rd, titled, “Change Would Be Healthy at U.S. Climate Agencies”.
He restates that 2016 was the warmest on record according to NASA, except it wasn’t. The readings were within the margin of error for such measurements, that fact should have been stated versus a black and white declaration. But that isn’t the whole story, or page two as Paul Harvey used to say.
We should be concerned about climate change, the question is how much of our GDP should be dedicated to reducing gaseous output? The difference between 2015 and 2016 is one tenth the margin of error, 1/10, 0.1. Does that warrant the headline, yes if you want to further your dreams of a carbon less future and load up the economy with very expensive energy; or no if you want to reduce emissions over time and continue to increase employment.
George Schultz and James Baker later that same week wrote an op-ed titled “A Conservative Answer to Climate Change”, again the WSJ. They propose a four step plan that in my opinion goes a long way towards the U.S. leading the world without huge government control, and also returning money to taxpayers.
Just recently a British article caused many people to cast doubt on whether temperatures are rising, Politifact ran this down and feels that is not the case.
We should reduce our emissions. All of us around the world. We also need to do it in as much of a free market method as possible since almost nothing any government does (excluding the totalitarian ones) actually produces the result needed efficiently.