Climate Myths

        I guess United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres didn’t think his hyping global warming risks brought him enough attention, so now he says, “The era of global boiling has arrived!”

        Global boiling?

        Give me a break.

        Yes, the climate is warming.

        We can deal with that.

        What annoys me is politicians, activists and media pushing hysterical myths.

        Myth 1: The Arctic will soon be ice-free.

        It “could already be ice-free by the summer of 2030!” shrieks a DW report.      “‘Doomsday Glacier’ is melting faster than scientists thought,” adds the BBC. “Earth’s biggest cities are at risk!”

        Nonsense.

        “It’s not happening at nearly the catastrophic pace that they claim,” says Heartland Institute fellow Linnea Lueken in my new video.

        But the media show dramatic images of melting and missing ice.

        “No ice! There’s all these walruses laying out on a stony beach. … It’s because it’s the summertime! In the winter, it all comes right back!”

        As far as ice disappearing in winter, too, “Compared to the amount of ice that’s in the Arctic,” says Lueken, it “is like a grain of sand … so minuscule compared to the amount of ice that’s there, it doesn’t even show up on a trend chart when you plot it.”

        But zealots push hysteria.

        In 2009, Al Gore, while collecting a Nobel prize, said there was “a 75% chance that the entire north polar ice cap … during some of the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years!”

        In just five to seven years! Oh, no!

        Wait … seven years have passed. In fact, 16 years passed. The ice cap has plenty of ice, even in summer. Yet nobody calls him on it.

        “They absolutely should be calling him on it,” says Lueken.

        Myth 2: Polar bears are going extinct.

        Polar bears look cute, so environmental groups use them in ads to sucker you into donating money.

        But Polar bear populations have increased!

        In the 1960s, 17,000-19,000 was the highest of three scientific estimates of polar bear population. Today, there are about 26,000 polar bears.

        Yet the Environmental Defense Fund collected almost a quarter-billion dollars from gullible donors running ads that say: “Your support can help Environmental Defense Fund save the polar bears!”

        The EDF hasn’t agreed to my interview requests. I understand why. I would call their advertising sleazy.

        “Absolutely,” agrees Lueken, “the data is right there. It’s not hard to find out that polar bears are fine.”

        OK, maybe polar bears aren’t going extinct, but we might starve!

        That’s Myth 3.

        MSNBC shrieks, “Climate change could create a massive global food shortage.”

        President Barack Obama said, “Our changing climate is already making it more difficult to produce food!”

        “There is no claim less true.” sighs Lueken. “Food production has skyrocketed.”

        She’s right, and the data is there for everyone to see. Agriculture output sets record highs year after year.

        In fact, the extra carbon dioxide in greenhouse gasses probably increases food production.

        “We inject CO2 into greenhouses for a reason,” Lueken points out. “It helps to fertilize plants for faster and better growth.”

        As the climate has warmed, the world experienced the biggest drop in hunger and malnutrition ever.

        Still, when food prices rise, media idiots still blame climate change.

        The New York Times claimed “devastation that climate change had wrought” caused a rise in coffee prices.

        But global coffee production has increased by 82% since the 1990s.

        The Times story focused on a brief decline in coffee production in Honduras. But since the ’90s, coffee production there rose more than 200%.

        “They never apologize,” I note. “They never say, ‘Oh, we got this wrong.'”

        “No,” replies Lueken. “Even if they did have a retraction, the damage is already done.”

        Alarmist media and environmental groups never apologize.

        When doom doesn’t happen, they just move on to the next scare.

        I’ll cover four more myths about climate change next week.

        Every Tuesday at JohnStossel.com, Stossel posts a new video about the battle between government and individual freedom.