By Kevin Dayaratna Roy Spencer
Access to affordable and reliable energy is critical to a prosperous society. Everything we do, from waking up in the morning, to going to work, to spending time with our family, requires energy. Fortunately, President-elect Trump’s choice for energy secretary, Chris Wright, understands this.
But his credentials have been obscured by media attention focused on Wright's views on climate change. For example, washington post Ridiculing Mr Wright as a “sceptic of mainstream climate science”. But mainstream climate scientists say severe weather has not changed due to greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. By the end of the century, there will likely be few, if any, such changes.
This is the problem with most media coverage: if the subject is climate change, the sky is falling. But even the U.N.-led Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change acknowledges that there are no changes in severe weather anywhere related to human emissions of greenhouse gases.
Indeed, temperatures are rising slightly, by about 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade (with large natural variations from year to year). But it's not clear whether this is bad news for humans, plants or animals. The growing season is lengthening. Cold weather kills far more than hot weather kills. Global crop production continues to set records in most years. If you were led to believe otherwise, blame local alarmist environmental cadres, radical scientists, and the alarmist media.
In fact, global warming is progressing slower than predicted by most climate models used to warn elected representatives about climate action. After 40 years of climate modeling and billions of dollars of investment, the models are now more inconsistent than ever.
Projections of future warming based on the same assumptions about CO2 changes2the model with the largest change had three times the temperature change than the model with the smallest prediction. This is surprising because climate models are said to be based on “known physical principles,” so different models should produce about the same level of warming.
The lack of climate model accuracy is particularly evident in the U.S. Corn Belt, where each of the three dozen state-of-the-art models over the past 50 years has overestimated warming despite knowing the answer in advance. But global greening comes from more carbon dioxide2 This fact in the atmosphere has been confirmed by several NASA-funded studies (e.g., here , here , here ).
More fundamentally, policies aimed at limiting Americans’ energy choices from fossil fuels will have significant economic consequences. An analysis by the Heritage Foundation using government modeling concluded that regulations sought by the Biden-Harris administration to reduce fossil fuel use would cost the economy more than $7 trillion over 20 years, equivalent to a loss of more than $80,000. mouth.
Trillions of dollars will be spent to reduce global temperatures by less than 0.2 degrees Celsius by 2100.
On the other hand, increasing America's access to fossil fuels would boost economic growth by more than $3 trillion within 20 years. Again using government models, this would result in a temperature rise of less than 0.13 degrees Celsius in 2100.
The United States is fortunate to have abundant fossil fuel resources that allow it to become energy independent from OPEC and China, which dominates renewable energy, batteries and electric vehicles. Increasing fossil fuel production could lower electricity prices, benefiting all Americans and helping allies overseas. Chris Wright, chief executive of Liberty Energy, one of the largest fracking companies in the United States, has experience paving the way for massive private sector expansion.
Mr. Wright’s understanding of energy markets should be praised, not ridiculed. Allowing the incoming administration to tap into his talents and expertise will put affordable, reliable energy back on its pedestal, allowing America to thrive for years to come.
Kevin Dayaratna, Ph.D., is chief statistician and senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, where Roy Spencer, Ph.D., is a visiting fellow.
This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and provided via RealClearWire.
Relevant
