Beaches

Where I live, we're very fortunate. People travel from all over the world to visit the ocean beaches that are little more than a few miles from our home. If those beaches were to disappear, it would be a tragedy. In fact, a tragedy that had been predicted by the house organ of the Left, The New York Times. In a typically hysterical article, the NYT claimed that "some experts say that most of the beaches on the East Coast of the United States will be gone in 25 years." That prediction was made in 1995 ... 28 years ago!

Heh, last time I checked, the broad white-sand beaches and the tens of thousands of people who visit them daily are doing just fine, thank you very much.

Just over a year ago, I wrote a piece that discussed many of the doomsday predictions made by climate alarmists. Every one was wrong, every one had no basis in science, and every one was made to frighten people and promote an agenda that concentrates regulatory power in the hands of a few true believers.

You'd think that when prediction after prediction doesn't come to pass, people would begin to question those making the predictions and the pseudo-science that supports their claims. But that would require that they question the narrative—and that won't do. So instead, they normalize insanity, replacing reality with fantasy. And once you do that for one thing, you're more prone to do it for others as well.

But maybe, just maybe, things are changing. Richard Fernandez tweets:

I hope he's right. The catastrophic policies implemented by Covid hysterics have caused many to question the guidance of "experts" in a variety of politically charged disciplines (including climate).

The Atlantic beaches in my neighborhood are still there, despite what the NYT experts predicted. They're real ... and sandy ... and not going anywhere any time soon. They're a stark reminder that experts, when driven by a political agenda rather that objective reality, are wrong far more often than they're right.

UPDATE-1:

Climate hysterics are at work across the globe, and like COVID hysterics who dominated the past few years, they have begun to exhibit a level of authoritarianism that is both absurd and dangerous at the same time. Jamie Blackett discusses climate lunacy in the Netherlands:

The Dutch have a particular horror of fascism. They bravely resisted the Nazis during the Second World War, as the German occupation of the Netherlands cut off food and fuel shipments. During the “Hunger Winter,” which lasted from 1944 until the Allied liberation in 1945, at least 22,000 Dutch people died from malnutrition.

That experience branded the national character with a strongly libertarian streak. It also explains why, post-war, the Netherlands created the most successful agricultural economy on the planet out of the ruins.

But wrecking a pivotal element of the Dutch economy, not to mention a source of food that feeds millions is nothing compared to "saving the planet." Climate alarmists within the EU (the Netherlands is a member) have decided (without any meaningful basis in actual science) that "nitrogen emissions" are a threat. Blackett explains:

EU climate laws have led the Dutch government to commit to reducing nitrogen emissions by 50 percent by 2030. To achieve this, the government has threatened to withdraw farmers’ licenses to farm because of their high nitrogen emissions, mainly stemming from cow dung and fertilizers. Without their licenses, farmers won’t be able to borrow money, putting many in financial peril. Farmers feel they are being scapegoated even though they farm efficiently. Nitrogen emissions in the Netherlands have fallen 50 percent since 1990—while airlines and other emitters show little restraint in the face of climate change.

Dutch farmers feel they are being targeted unnecessarily and are pushing back ... hard! Those of us in the USA who are also being affected by absurd climate regulations should do the same. 

Biden's climate tzar, John Kerry—a prominent member of the administration's Team of 1s and a man who wouldn't recognize actual science if he tripped over it on the way to his private jet—suggested that possibly the USA will need to regulate farming to save the planet. The uproar that followed caused the administration to walk back his idiotic comments, but that doesn't mean the topic won't arise again.

UPDATE-2 (06-22-2023):

One of the world's most-recognized climate change advocates, Greta Thunberg, is a young person whose commentary on climate is in many ways representative of the mindless hysteria that pervades the narrative promoted by many climate activists. Oliver Lane writes:

Today is the anniversary of a doomsday prediction made by Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg when she was just 15 years old June 21st 2018, stating the human race had five years to end fossil fuels or face certain death. She wrote then:

A top climate scientist is warning that climate change will wipe out all of humanity unless we stop using fossil fuels over the next five years.

While these alarming, but later forgotten warnings with very definite and certain sounding timescales are a major part of green propaganda, this particular instance has taken on a life of its own due to the Streisand Effect, given as the deadline date approached Thunberg was caught having deleted the claim.

It's a day after the apocalypse was supposed to have happened, and ... um ... we're all still here.

The sad thing is that the propaganda media gives Thunberg far more attention than she deserves. Why? Because regardless of the scientific vacuity of her pronouncements and her utter lack of scientific credentials, she promotes the narrative that they emphasize—without context or alternative views—on a daily basis.

UPDATE-3 (06-23-2023):

In celebration of Greta's reference to an apocalyptic climate prediction (see Update-2), we encounter this:

Of course, models are inherently inaccurate, so some variance is to be expected, but if the models represented legitimate science, some would overestimate and others would underestimate temperature trends against actual measured results. Problem is: They all overestimate. That's an indication of narrative bias—the "researchers" want to confirm the narrative, not provide accurate indicators of future climate change.