Commentary: Big Tent Ideas

DIANA FURCHTGOTT-ROTH: Biden’s Hypocrisy On Climate Change Is Painfully Obvious

President Joe Biden addressing a virtual climate summit in April 2021. (Screen Capture/PBS NewsHour)

President Joe Biden has repeatedly called climate change an “existential threat,” worse than nuclear weapons.

Yet, Biden’s green energy mandates result in a greater U.S. demand for wind turbines, solar panels and electric batteries from China, made by coal-fired power plants, increasing the emissions Biden criticizes at home.

The United Nations Environment Programme estimates that in the absence of reductions in carbon emissions, temperatures will rise by about 3 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. The idea that such a temperature change is worse than deaths from nuclear weapons is ludicrous. Over 200,000 people died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki after America dropped atomic bombs.

Temperatures have varied for centuries. Climate models are not reliable and accurate enough to attribute global warming to human activities. The observed rate of global warming over the past 50 years has been weaker than that predicted by almost all computerized climate models.

Thirty-six computer models overpredicted surface air temperatures during the summer growing season. The models all showed warming well above what happened in reality, with the most extreme model producing seven times too much warming.

Increases in hurricane frequency are erroneously cited as an effect of warming. Although carbon dioxide emissions and temperature — both in America and globally — have increased over the latter parts of the 20th Century, no meaningful increase in frequency and intensity of hurricanes has been observed.

Hurricane damage has increased over time, but this outcome is largely due to increased incomes and wealth, and therefore infrastructure creation, rather than more violent hurricanes. For example, homes in Florida have risen by a factor of 12 since 1975, according to the St Louis Federal Reserve Bank. The same hurricane that in 1975 destroyed a house worth $100,000 would now destroy a house worth $1.2 million.

Although some say that increased CO2 levels are detrimental to human health and welfare, deaths are more likely to result from medical events triggered by the cold than by the heat.

A 2020 study by Dr. Whanhee Lee and others in Lancet showed that cold-related morbidity and mortality — strokes, heart attacks, blood clots, and other problems — result directly from the influence of cold temperatures on the body, where the body is unable to maintain sufficient core temperature to guarantee survival.

In addition, Environmental Protection Agency data shows that death rates are about 10 percent higher in winter, and January is the deadliest month of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.

If Biden truly thought that climate change was an existential threat, he would try to lower global emissions through greater U.S. exports of natural gas. This would enable other countries to reduce emissions by substituting natural gas for coal, just as America has reduced carbon emissions by 1,000 million metric tons over the past 16 years.

In addition, Biden would try to expand emissions-free nuclear power if he thought climate change was a threat. He would make uranium mining easier, because uranium is a critical ingredient for nuclear power. Yet he has taken swaths of land off the table for uranium development and made no attempt to solve the problem of nuclear waste.

Instead, Biden blocks a new liquid natural gas export terminal in Louisiana, which results in greater worldwide use of coal, increasing global carbon dioxide emissions. Europe has already been turning to coal to deal with energy shortages in the aftermath of Russia’s cutoff of natural gas.

New regulations at the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Office of the Controller of the Currency discourage companies from investing in natural gas, and banks from lending money to fund natural gas. Regulations from the Department of Energy raise the cost of natural gas stoves, water heaters, and boilers.

Over the past 20 years, U.S. emissions of CO2 have declined by a billion metric tons as natural gas has been increasingly substituted for coal use in the generation of electricity. Over the same period, CO2 emissions in China have risen by 8.7 billion metric tons.

Biden’s repetition that climate change is an existential threat gives him an excuse to impose more regulations and sign into law subsidies for favored donors.

“Never let a good crisis go to waste,” said Amb. Rahm Emanuel when he was President Bill Clinton’s chief of staff. Biden is inventing the crisis and the waste is following.

Diana Furchtgott-Roth directs the Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment at The Heritage Foundation.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

(Featured Image Media Credit: Screen Capture/PBS NewsHour)