Be cautious before spending trillions on climate change

In the Feb. 14 Press, Carrie and Jerry Scheid wrote a My Turn piece titled, “Galileo was right.” Jerry wrote, “According to NASA’s website, 97 percent of climate scientists who publish in peer-reviewed scientific journals agree that “climate warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities.” That may be so, but before governments around the world sink trillions of dollars into trying to cool the planet, they must answer “yes” to all three of these questions:

- Is the Earth warming?

- Is the warming caused mostly or solely by humans?

- Will the ensuing rise in global temperature lead to catastrophic results?

NASA’s statement affirms Nos. 1 and 2, but it doesn’t address No. 3. Without a “yes” on No. 3, we should be cautious about trying to solve what may not be a monumental problem.

Please Google “prageru ‘Do 97% of Climate Scientists Really Agree?’” to learn in just five minutes what scientists agree on.

Richard Lindzen is the former Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at MIT. In his 2017 piece, “Global Warming in One Easy Lesson,” he wrote, “The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was established twenty-five years ago, to find scientific support for dangers from increasing carbon dioxide. While this has led to generous and rapidly increased support for the field, the purported dangers remain hypothetical, model-based projections. By contrast, the benefits of increasing CO2 and modest warming are clearer than ever, and they are supported by dramatic satellite images of a greening Earth.”

In the Feb. 28, 2018, issue of The Wall Street Journal, Holman W. Jenkins (Good Climate News Isn’t Told) wrote that American journalism reports only climate news that points toward a catastrophic result in the future. A recent French report describes a new study by climate physicists Peter Cox and Mark Williamson of the University of Exeter and Chris Huntingford of the U.K.’s Center for Ecology and Hydrology. “Not only does it narrow the range of expected warming to between 2.2 and 2.4 degrees Celsius, but they rule out the possibility of worrying outcomes higher than 4.5 degrees.” He continued, “Even the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an example. Slightly contrary to the French report, it backpedaled in 2013 to adopt a wider range of uncertainty, and did so entirely in the direction of less warming.”

I am skeptical that scientists’ computer models will be able to accurately predict climate change decades from now. They may be able to do so, but please understand that minor modifications to their models produce a great variety of predicted outcomes. And, keep in mind that the first two degrees of warming will probably be a net positive for the planet. Please Google “prageru ‘Can Computer Models Predict Climate Change?’” to see evidence you may never have encountered.

I have hundreds of friends and clients who span the political spectrum. I have yet to meet one person who doesn’t want clean air, clean water, and a beautiful, healthy environment for his/her children and grandchildren to inherit.

I agree with the Scheids that fossil fuels may be unhealthy for the future of the globe, but I’m sure we disagree on the solution and on how quickly we need to solve this potential challenge. I imagine that solar, wind and other renewables may well be part of the answer down the line, but they are too expensive and limited to be the primary answer today.

Frankly, I am more sanguine about the future than most people I know and read. I believe that human ingenuity in partnership with government funding and tax relief will solve this conundrum, and sooner than most think.

So, let’s all join forces to learn the facts about climate change and then encourage our government to work with industry — not penalize industry — to meet this challenge.

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Les Atchley is the CFP of Atchley Financial Group in Coeur d’Alene.