The mass media loves
scary climate predictions.
They publish them
without questions
and make their
headlines even scarier
than the predictions.
The media do not like
looking back to analyze
the old predictions
they have published.
But I do !
Governments around the world
spent 2018 and 2019
declaring a Climate Emergency.
Then the COVID-19 pandemic
showed us what a real crisis
looks like.
The climate emergency
is still "coming" -- in ten
years, say the latest
computer models !
The so called models
have been saying
the same thing
since the 1970's,
and some
scientists were
saying the same thing,
without computers,
since the late 1950s.
If the models
were accurate,
the predictions
would have
come true
by now.
In 2003, the US
Department of Defense
commissioned a report
on the risks climate change
“An Abrupt Climate Change
Scenario and Its Implications
for United States National
Security”.
It was submitted to the Pentagon
in October 2003, when then
President George W. Bush
was getting international criticism
for his indifference to the global
warming issue.
The contents of the report
were leaked in early 2004.
By two British publications,
the Guardian newspaper,
and its Sunday sister
The Observer.
“Pentagon tells Bush:
Climate Change
Will Destroy Us”
the headline said.
“Climate change
over the next
20 years
could result in a
global catastrophe,
costing millions
of lives in wars
and natural disasters.”
Climate scientists
hailed the report.
German climatologist
John Schellnhuber
that the Pentagon report
should be a “tipping point”
in persuading Bush to stop
being a climate denier,
whatever that means.
Schellnhuber later become
head of Germany’s top
climate research institute
and the top climate advisor
to the supposedly conservative
Christian Democratic Union
Chancellor Angela Merkel.
British climate expert
Robert Watson said:
“It’s going to be hard
to blow off this sort
of document. …
The Pentagon
is no wacko,
liberal group
… If climate change
is a threat to
national security
and the economy,
then he has to act.”
At the time, Watson was
the chief scientist
for the World Bank
and the former chair
of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change.
Another former
chair of the IPCC,
Sir John Houghton,
added “If the Pentagon
is sending out that sort
of message, then this
is an important
document indeed.”
The Guardian quoted
a former senior
Environmental
Protection
Agency official
who said
the report was
“yet another example
of why this government
should stop burying
its head in the sand
on this issue.”
The "top" scientists
at the time agreed
with the 2003 predictions,
mainly for things
that would happen by 2020,
unless the US and others
took drastic actions
( which never happened ).
Prediction A:
Coastal levees in the
Netherlands could be
so damaged by storms
by 2007 that they
would give way,
making Dutch cities
like the Hague unlivable.
That did not happen.
In 2019 there was a big
Climate Change and Security
Conference in the Hague,
and it was not underwater !
Prediction B:
There would also be
a failure of delta levees
in the Sacramento region
of California that
would cause an
inland sea to form
in the Central Valley.
That did not happen.
Today there is
no sign of
an inland sea
covering the
California
Central Valley.
Prediction C:
Starting in 2010,
ocean circulation patterns
would break down,
wiping out the Gulf Stream
and causing European
temperatures to plunge
about 3 degrees
in 10 years.
By 2020, according to
the report, Europe’s climate
would be like Siberia’s.
That did not happen.
Prediction D:
Europe would
experience
a drought for
the entire decade
from 2010 to 2020,
as would China
and East Africa.
That did not happen.
Prediction E:
The US and Europe
would enter into
open conflict over
fishing rights
starting in 2016.
That did not happen
-- no fish war.
Prediction F:
Border skirmishes
would start among
European countries
over dwindling food
and water.
That did not happen
-- no dwindling food
or water.
Prediction G:
The European Union
will nearly collapse by 2025,
as 10% of the population
fled for North Africa
and Israel.
The opposite happened.
The EU took in a huge wave
of migrants from North Africa
and the Middle East.
The predictions
were approved by
top experts
at the Pentagon,
endorsed by leading
climate scientists,
and then touted
in the media as
definitive evidence
with major policy
implications.
In fact, to use
a technical term,
the report was a huge pile
of steaming farm animal
digestive waste products !
In the spring of 2020
we found out what
a real emergency
looks like
-- COVID-19.
-- COVID-19.
Nothing like
an imaginary
“climate
emergency".
emergency".