Opinion
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September 30, 2019 (American Thinker) — It is dangerous when teenagers who have been indoctrinated their entire lives are treated as if they have knowledge on climate change and fossil fuels. They are just repeating talking points when trotted out on media outlets and before Congress as if they were experts. They have been discouraged from doing research and critically thinking because they have been told the science is settled. They know that anyone who says the climate is changing and has always changed naturally is de a climate change denier; to get good grades, they need to repeat what they are told.

It is more dangerous when almost all journalists and other Democrats repeat the same talking points instead of doing research and asking questions. Instead of pointing out to the teenagers that temperatures, sea levels, storm activity, droughts and floods have always fluctuated naturally, and previous dire predictions have been 100% wrong, they just go along.

A high percentage of high school students don't have basic math, reading, or science skills, yet yesterday they were let out of school by the millions to push the Democrat agenda on climate as if they somehow have knowledge on that. They are being denied genuine education on the basics and cynically exploited as pawns for a government power-grab.

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D.C. Climate Strike, 09-20-19 (YouTube screen grab, cropped).

Myron Ebell and Steven J. Milloy of the Competitive Enterprise Institute have produced a landmark listing of projections of projections of doom that have gone bust. Here are some of the previous predictions on the climate that have been 100% wrong:

In 1922, the AP, the WaPo, and other news outlets said coastal cities would soon be gone along with the Arctic ice because of warming.

In 1970, on the first Earth Day, billions would starve to death soon because of cooling.

In 1975, a Newsweek headline “Global Cooling is Coming.” Maybe the teens should be asked a simple question: if rising CO2, fossil fuel use, and rising populations cause warming how did the world cool so much for over 25 years that a large number of people were predicting problems because of cooling?

1989: The U.N. predicted we only had ten years left to fix the warming problem.

2008: ABC predicted New York City would be under water by June 2015. They also predicted that milk would be $12.99 per gallon and gas would be $9 per gallon. They were so close.

2008: Nancy Pelosi said on Meet the Press that we have to get away from fossil fuels and go to natural gas. Do we really want people making our laws who seemed to be so confused over a decade ago?

2009: Al Gore predicted that the Arctic ice cap would be gone by 2014. It actually increased in 2014.

November 12, 2009: Al Gore said on The Conan O'Brien Show that the Earth was several million degrees a few feet below the surface. Gore is treated as an expert, and he was only several million degrees off.

After Hurricane Katrina hit, we were told hurricanes would be more severe and more frequent than ever, and we had over a ten-year lull in serious hurricanes hitting our shores.

We have repeatedly been told that because of global warming, we would have snowless winters. In 2018–2019, there were record snowfalls in California and elsewhere. The drought, which was supposedly caused by humans and fossil fuels in California, ended because of the record snows.

For decades, we were told that the reason we needed alternative fuels like wind and solar was because we were going to run out of oil soon. Now that we know there is plenty of oil, we are told that it is destroying the Earth and we have to outlaw it.

Here is a list of dire predictions that have been right on the climate the last 100 years:

 

I couldn't find any.

Instead of telling children they are going to die soon because of fossil fuels and scaring them into pledging not to have children, they should be taught that fossil fuels have increased the quality and length of life the last 150 years, and temperatures rise and fall naturally, as they always have. They should also be told the truth that CO2 is a clear, innocuous, non-pollutant gas that makes plants thrive and allows the world to be fed.

Every policy solution the Democrats propose, on whatever their dire predictions of the day are, involves transferring massive amounts of freedom, power, and money to the bureaucrats and politicians. That is the greatest existential threat to the survival of the United States as a great country — not the continued use of fossil fuels. 

Published with permission from the American Thinker.