The perfect essay on climate change

Crusaders like to claim that the climate violates Le Chatelier's principle and has "tipping points." Given the much higher and changing levels of carbon dioxide that prevailed over much of the earth's history, it is unlikely that life would have survived if such tipping points existed.

Neither contemporary observations nor the geological record support computer-based claims that CO₂ is the "control knob" for the earth's climate. Warmings, similar to or larger than the current one, have been observed many times in the past few millennia when there has been negligible use of fossil fuels. A thousand years ago Greenland really was warmer than today and supported Norse farmers who grew crops such as barley, which cannot be grown there now because of the cold.

In another spasm of crusading fervor, some climate warriors want to do away with traditional farming and ranching because they are sources of the minor greenhouse gases, such as methane from ruminant livestock, paddy rice, etc., and nitrous oxide, mainly from fertilizer use. (In this context, the word "minor" should be explained: The warming per added methane molecule is about 30 times greater than the warming per added carbon-dioxide molecule. Carbon-dioxide molecules are being added to the atmosphere at 300 times the rate of methane molecules. So the warming added each year from methane is about 10 times less than the small warming from carbon dioxide.) This could threaten the livelihoods of farmers in countries whose governments have signed on to the Paris agreement. But, as noted above, the warming from methane is only one-tenth of the modest, beneficial warming of more carbon dioxide.

The crusade against methane and nitrous oxide will be all pain and no gain for farmers and for those who consume their produce.

A serious review of policy-related climate science is long overdue. Crusaders will continue to retort that "the science is settled; it is time to act!" But real science is never settled, nor is scientific truth determined by consensus or political diktats. Agreement with observations is the measure of scientific truth. Climate models predict two or three times more warming than has been observed. They have already been falsified. A soon-to-be published book by physicist and New York University professor Steven Koonin, Unsettled, convincingly lays out some of the problems a high-quality review would reveal.

There is no climate emergency. Americans should not be stampeded into a disastrous climate crusade. The medieval crusades did far more harm than good, destroying the lives of many decent people of all faiths, and leaving a bitter legacy that complicates international relations and social harmony to this day. A climate crusade that destroys economies and ultimately lives will be as bad, or worse.