Why has American’s concern with global warming dropped to dead last among issues surveyed (even dead last among environmental issues)? Because a great deal of their concern was based on projections that have been dramatically toned down or exposed as outright fraud. The hysteria is unsupportable and people have caught on.
The very active 2005 hurricane season, underscored by hurricanes Rita and Katrina, put the national psyche in a receptive mood for Al Gore’s inaccurate portrayal of 2005 as the base of an exponentially growing hurricane horror story. Subsequent quiet years and research showing a likely decline in the number of hurricanes took the panic out of that hysteria for many people.
And there is more. The unconscionable exaggeration of the glacial melting in the Himalayas was exposed, which eliminated another panic button.
Wash, rinse, repeat, and repeat, and repeat:
• It turns out the projected loss of rain forest due to warming-induced drought is bogus.
• Where are the missing weather stations in China?
• Where are the missing weather stations in Russia?
• Why are we using so many sub-standard weather stations in the U.S?
• The sub-standard sources (for instance, interviews in a hiking magazine) for melting glaciers in Africa, South America, and the Alps mock the peer-reviewed-only standard at the IPCC.
• Where is Holland?
• Glacier problems arise again in the form of a 40 percent measurement error for Alaska.
Further, “hide the decline” was not some innocent slip of the tongue. By hiding the decline, the researchers hid the fact that these tree-ring proxy data were unfit for documenting significant temperature spikes. That is, since the tree rings in question failed to pick up known recent temperature increases (they actually indicated a temperature decline, hence the need to hide something), the lack of similar findings in the past is hardly proof that current world temperatures have no precedent. (Think: Medieval Warm Period)
If that’s not enough, blizzards in Georgia (the U.S. state, not the country) are blamed on global warming. People remember the story of the boy who cried wolf.
Apologists for the hysterics claim that the basic science is still intact. Since the basic science depends fundamentally on the questionable data, that’s hard to swallow. But even if the basics are there, it’s not enough to get people worked up.
The temperature might go up two more degrees? Hey, why do you think so many people left the Snow Belt for the Sun Belt? Sea levels might rise 6-23 inches in the next 100 years? It rose six inches in the past 100 years and nobody even bothered to mention it.
Will two or three more degrees, if the rise should be that high, impose some net adaptation costs (don’t forget higher temperatures have benefits as well as costs)? It’s possible, but it’s not a catastrophe. Same goes for the 23 inches of possible sea-level rise over a 100-year span.