by Michael Bastasch
Democrats are increasingly lining up behind New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s call for a “Green New Deal,” but few, if any, have talked about its actual impact on global warming.
Even if all the Green New Deal’s goals were achieved, it would have a negligible, and likely immeasurable, impact on projected global warming, according to climate model simulation provided by a libertarian think tank.
“I seriously think the effect would — at best — be barely detectable in the climate record,” Patrick Michaels, a climatologist with the Cato Institute, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
Cato developed its own “Carbon Tax Temperature-Savings Calculator” to estimate the amount of warming that might be averted through reducing greenhouse gas emissions, like carbon dioxide.
The carbon calculator is based on the so-called “MAGICC” climate model simulator, developed by the National Center for Atmospheric Research with funding from the Environmental Protection Agency.
So, how much warming would a “Green New Deal” avert by the end of the century? Slightly under 0.14 degrees Celsius, according to Cato’s temperature calculator.
“The year-to-year variation is very close to the total amount of warming that would be ‘saved’ by 2100, according to EPA’s own model,” Michaels said.
And that assumes a climate sensitivity estimate of 3 degrees Celsius. Climate sensitivity refers to the amount of warming that can be expected from a doubling of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations.
The United Nations estimates climate sensitivity is anywhere between 1.5 and 4.5 degrees Celsius, though an April 2018 study suggested that climate sensitivity is likely on the low-end of the scale.
Indeed, if climate sensitivity is only 1.5 degrees Celsius, like the April study found, the Green New Deal would only avert about 0.08 degrees Celsius of warming by the end of the century, according to Cato’s calculator.
Ocasio-Cortez’s “Green New Deal” calls for a House committee to draft legislation mandating the meeting of “100% of national power demand through renewable sources” within a 10-year window.
Dozens of Democratic lawmakers have endorsed the proposal, and the environmental group pushing it on Capitol Hill, the Sunrise Movement, calls the Green New Deal “the best chance we have to fight climate change.”
Neither the Sunrise Movement nor a spokesman for Ocasio-Cortez responded to TheDCNF’s inquiry. TheDCNF asked if either had, or knew of, estimates into how much future warming the Green New Deal could avert.
Supporters have sold the Green New Deal as a way to create “green” jobs and be “the vehicle to truly deliver and establish economic, social and racial justice in the United States of America,” Ocasio-Cortez said in December.
“This is going to be the Great Society, the moonshot, the civil rights movement of our generation,” Ocasio-Cortez said at a panel event alongside 2020 presidential hopeful Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
“This is the mechanism through which we can really deliver justice to communities that have been underserved,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
While the exact costs of a “Green New Deal” are uncertain, it would likely cost trillions of dollars and amount to the largest expansion of government authority in decades if enacted in its entirety.
“Also, the ‘100-percent renewable energy’ notion is fatuous,” Michael said. “The sun doesn’t shine at night and the wind often is calm over large areas when temperatures are extreme and the electricity demand is high.”
“So there has to be another source, most likely natural gas-fired generation,” Michaels said.
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Michael Bastasch is a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation. Follow Michael on Facebook and Twitter.
Photo “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez” by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Photo “Bernie Sanders” by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0.
The proponents of anthropogenic-caused global warming invariably, (and ironically) DENY that the Medieval Warming Period (MWP, 1,000 years ago) was global and likely warmer than it is now. These alarmists acknowledge only that Europe experienced the MWP. (They had no choice – that region is too well documented!) They likely take this unjustifiable position because their computer models cannot explain a global, warmer MWP. Their models require an increasing co2 level, plus depend even more on the ASSUMPTION that water vapor feedback is the actual culprit, causing 2 to 3 times the temperature increase as brought on by the increase in co2. However, co2 did not begin increasing until about the mid 1800s, long after the MWP.
The global temperature increase during the MWP could not have been influenced by co2 because there was no increase in co2 and, obviously, also no water vapor feedback. It therefore becomes plausible that our current warming (such as it is) might also be NATURAL climate variation. But that conflicts with Mann’s hockey stick graph, and its various adherents, all of whom claim that our current warming is mostly due to human activity which causes an increase in co2 level.
However, it’s easy to show that the MWP was both global and at least as warm as now. While that proves nothing about the cause of our current warming (such as it is) it speaks loudly about the credibility of the folks who DENY that the MWP was global and at least as warm as now.
A brief meta-analysis, a global study, follows, which makes use of numerous peer-reviewed studies, as well as other easily accessible data. The analysis demonstrates that the MWP was global and at least as warm as it is now.
First, the MWP trend is conclusively shown to be global by borehole temperature data. No controversial models needed, the data speaks for itself. The 6,000 boreholes scattered around the globe are not constrained to just those locations where ice core data has been used. A good discussion of the borehole data can be found at Joanne Nova’s website.
http://joannenova.com.au/2012/11/the-message-from-boreholes/
Next, the receding Mendenhall glacier (Alaska) recently exposed a 1,000-year-old shattered forest, still in its original position. No trees (let alone a forest) have grown at that latitude anywhere near that site since the MWP. It was obviously significantly warmer in that part of Alaska than it is now, and Alaska is quite distant from Europe.
Finally, there have been hundreds of peer-reviewed MWP studies around the globe, with investigation results showing each site to have been warmer during the MWP than at the time of the study, and that result was reflected in earlier IPCC reports. Similar confirming research also continues to show up, but is apparently ignored by the usual suspects. The MWP studies were carried out around the globe by investigators and organizations representing numerous countries. It’s curious that Mann and his cohort did not give more consideration to the studies existing at that time before presenting their conflicting “hockey stick” claim, particularly given the controversial process employed in that “analysis”. One of the well-known alarmists, Phil Jones, admitted publicly that if the MWP was global and as warm as now then it’s a “different ballgame”. (But apparently neither Phil nor Mann, nor other alarmists bothered to review the conflicting data.) Peer-reviewed MWP studies continue to regularly show up confirming that it was at least as warm as now.
The numerous MWP studies have been cataloged by the co2science.org website. Dr. Idso, the proprietor of that website, is a known skeptic. However, the peer-reviewed studies were independently performed by numerous researchers who not only represented many different countries but also used various temperature proxy techniques. Dr. Idso is merely operating as a librarian.
One such example, the Greenland MWP Temperature (gisp2) study (google it) shows, among other things, that Greenland was warmer during the MWP than it was at the time of that study. Greenland is distant from both Europe and Alaska. A separate link to that study: https://junkscience.com/2018/06/study-ancient-greenland-was-much-warmer-than-previously-thought/
Interested readers who are skeptics should satisfy themselves (alarmists won’t usually bother) by going to co2science.org and choosing (say) a half-dozen regions (all should be remote from Alaska, Greenland, and Europe). Focus on the subset of the MWP studies which directly address temperature. Choose at least one temperature study from each selected region. (Idso provides brief summaries but you can also review the original study.) You will find that each of the selected study sites was found to be warmer during the MWP than at the time of the study. These study results are consistent with the temperature trend exhibited by borehole data. Conversely the aggregate studies confirm the global borehole data trend.
There are also other confirming observations which include such things as antique vineyards found at latitudes where grapes cannot be grown today, old burial sites found below the perma-frost, and apparently Viking maps of most of Greenland’s coastline. There is a separate recent report, which references various studies, showing that South America experienced the MWP.
http://notrickszone.com/2018/11/03/new-study-medieval-warm-period-not-limited-to-north-atlantic-but-occurred-in-south-america-as-well/
This meta-study is an aggregate of straightforward peer-reviewed studies, any of which can be replicated and the research results do NOT require the use of controversial “models”, or dubious statistical machinations.
One of the “talking points” posed by alarmists attempting to “rebut” the global, warmer MWP is their claim that warming in all regions during the MWP must be synchronous. Obviously the MWP studies were generally performed independently, so the start and end dates covered by each MWP study will likely vary.
However, anyone foolish enough to accept that “synchronous” argument must be prepared to admit that our current warming would also not qualify as a global event. For example, many alarmists go back into the 1800s when making their claims about the total global warming temperature increase. However, that ignores a three decade GLOBAL cooling period from 1945 to 1975. In fact, that globally non-synchronous period is much more significant than just a region or two not showing a temperature increase.
There are also other good reasons to exclude consideration of temperature increases during the 1800s. There was a significant NATURAL warming beginning around 1630 (the first low temperature experienced during the Little Ice Age), according to Dr. David Evans, and that period of naturally increasing temperatures continued up to (and beyond) 1850, at which time co2 began increasing. But it would have taken many subsequent decades, possibly more than a century, for co2 increase after 1850, at an average 2 ppmv per year, to accrue sufficiently before having any impact on temperature measurements. Neither is there any reason to expect that the 200 years of natural and significant warming beginning in 1630 ended abruptly, after 2 centuries, merely because co2 level (a trace gas) began increasing in 1850 at a miniscule 2ppmv per year. Also, how much, and for how long was the temperature increase after 1850 due mostly to the continuing natural climate warming beginning in 1630?
In regard to the “synchronous” argument, any current considerations about global warming must be constrained to a starting point AFTER the cooling which ended in 1975. The global temperature began steadily increasing in 1975 and that increase basically terminated during the 1997/98 el Nino. Even the IPCC (a bureaucracy which cannot justify its mission if our current warming is NATURAL) has acknowledged a GLOBAL “hiatus” in temperature increase after 2000. This admission conflicts with the well-known fact that co2 level has steadily increased since around 1850. Where is that missing heat?
So, our current “global warming” controversy involves basically two decades, (1975 to 1998) and that warming has been followed, by almost another two decades of no further statistically significant increase in temperature. But wait … ! It turns out that even the period from 1975 to 1998 apparently does not qualify as a global warming period because there were numerous “out of synch” regions and/or countries which experienced no additional warming over durations which are included in the 1975-1998 span.
http://notrickszone.com/2018/02/18/greenland-antarctica-and-dozens-of-areas-worldwide-have-not-seen-any-warming-in-60-years-and-more/#sthash.5Hq7Xqdh.JsV4juVL.dpbs
https://wattsupwiththat.com/category/hiatus-in-global-warming/
Another alarmist attempt at rebuttal is that the MWP studies cataloged by co2science.org have been cherry-picked. (Dozens of independently peer-reviewed studies spanning several decades, all cherry-picked? And what about the borehole data? And the other supporting data? Readers can satisfy themselves by searching for credible peer-reviewed MWP temperature studies which support alarmist claims and supposedly were not cataloged by Idso at co2science.org. But, keep in mind that a few stray conflicting studies will not likely be sufficient to rebut the global, warmer MWP because, as the previous link demonstrates, there are a number of regions during 1975-1998 which show no increasing warming.
There is another question regarding the assumptions used in the alarmist computer models. The greenhouse gas theory, if applied to the open atmosphere, carries with it a critical caveat: there must also be an accompanying warmer region about 10km above the tropics.
Despite decades of radiosondes that “hot spot” has never been found, and this is not a matter of missing data. The radiosonde temperatures cover various altitudes including above 10km.
Occasionally some proponent of anthropogenic catastrophic warming claims to have found that “hot spot”. (Alarmists apparently do not otherwise bring up that subject.) But the folks making such a claim stretch their credibility beyond the breaking point by (1) ignoring the actual data, and (2) replacing that data with speculation to support their confirmation bias.
There is another issue. The alarmist computer modelers insist on including the water vapor feedback assumption when the applicability of GHG theory to the open atmosphere is itself in question (no “hot spot” detected, also satellites detect heat escaping to space). Without water vapor feedback, the potential warming threat is greatly diminished. Ironically, this is currently reflected by the widening difference between computer model projected and the subsequent actual recorded temperatures.
The biggest problem the leftists have is that all the things happening in climate are within the range of natural variability.
A friend sent this to me on a share email from Facebook. I don’t have Facebook so this is the address https://youtu.be/HmdiisLr5ug
Have you seen this video of Democrats all saying we need a border wall?