NY Times: Brussels Survived Terrorism, But May Not Survive Climate Change Or Something

For anyone who follows the issue of anthropogenic climate change, ie, Hotcoldwetdry because Someone Else refuses to allow government to force them to change their behavior as well as tax them into a much higher cost of living, you just knew that someone would link Brussels and climate change at some point. It was inevitable. The winner of Climate Derangement Syndrome is the NY Times’ Nicholas Kristoff, which features a tag line on the main opinion page listing “Brussels survived this week’s terror attacks, but it may not survive climate change.”

Terrorists, Bathtubs, and Snakes

(Kristoff starts out by noting that more Americans have died from falling in bathtubs, how America spends a ton on counter-terrorism, and how the human brain misjudges risk)

On the same day as the attacks, a paper by James E. Hansen and other climate experts was released arguing that carbon emissions are transforming our world far more quickly than expected, in ways that may inundate coastal cities and cause storms more horrendous than any in modern history. The response? A yawn.

Hansen is an eminent former NASA scientist, but he’s also an outlier in his timing forecasts, and I’m not qualified to judge whether he’s correct. Yet whatever the disagreement about the timeline, there is scientific consensus that emissions on our watch are transforming our globe for 10,000 years to come. As an important analysis in Nature Climate Change put it, “The next few decades offer a brief window of opportunity to minimize large-scale and potentially catastrophic climate change that will extend longer than the entire history of human civilization thus far.”

To put it another way, this year’s election choices may shape coastlines 10,000 years from now. Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have both mocked the idea of human-caused climate change, with Trump suggesting that it is a hoax invented by China to harm the American economy (he now says that last point was a joke).

The upshot is that Brussels survived this week’s terrorist attacks, but it may not survive climate change (much of the city is less than 100 feet above sea level).

The minimum height above sea level is around 43 feet. The average is 91 feet. Is Kristof seriously suggesting that the sea will rise this much within a few decades, as Hansen’s paper is about doom in a few decades? This is the worst kind of alarmism.

Oh, and not all survived this week’s terrorist attacks in Brussels. There were at least 34 killed, and the death toll my rise, not too mention all those who lost limbs. Rather uncaring of Nicholas, but, then, that’s leftism, prioritizing Things That Matter.

Doesn’t it seem prudent to invest in efforts to avert not only shoe bombers but also the drowning of the world’s low-lying countries?

Humanity should have stopped the great floodwater melt starting 20,000 years ago, which raised sea levels well over 400 feet over thousands of years. And actual sea level data suggests that the sea rise is exactly average for the Holocene, meaning it is much less than should be happening during this warm period, regardless of causation.

Unfortunately, our brains are not well adapted to most of the biggest threats we actually face in the 21st century. Warn us that climate change is destroying our planet, and only a small part of our prefrontal cortex (which worries about the future) will glimmer; then we’ll go back to worrying about snakes or their modern equivalent — terrorists.

Tiny increases in average global temperatures, regardless of causation, will not destroy the planet. It’s done fine at higher temperatures, such as during the Medieval Warm Period and the Roman Warm Period. This opinion piece has devolved into true Cult of Climastrology derangement.

And this is a disgraceful piece, blowing off the deaths of fellow human beings as being inconsequential in light of Hotcoldwetdry.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

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