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Climate researchers show we’re actually “safer than ever from climate” catastrophes

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12 minute read

The climate safety denial movement

I and others have documented that we’re safer than ever from climate. Catastrophists can’t refute us, so they’re now saying that disaster deaths don’t matter!

For decades climate catastrophists have portrayed climate disasters as getting deadlier and deadlier.

Now that I and others have documented that we’re safer than ever from climate, catastrophists are saying that disaster deaths don’t matter!

  • Reuters says “Drop in climate-related disaster deaths not evidence against climate emergency.”

    But a drop in deaths from something—here, a 98% drop—is obvious evidence against it being an emergency.

    Would Reuters say: “98% drop in flu deaths not evidence against flu emergency”?¹

  • Why is Reuters, along with The New York TimesPolitiFact, and USA Todayclaiming that a 98% drop in climate disaster deaths doesn’t contradict their climate emergency narrative? Because it obviously does, and they can only save their narrative by intimidating us into denying the obvious
  • The central narrative of climate catastrophists is that fossil fuels and their CO2 emissions are killing more and more people via climate disasters.

    This narrative has always had a fatal weakness: it totally contradicts the data, which show plummeting climate disaster deaths.³

  • Why are climate disaster deaths plummeting as fossil fuel use and CO2 emissions rise?

    Because the enormous ability uniquely cost-effective and scalable fossil fuel energy gives us to master climate danger far outweighs any new climate challenges from CO2 emissions.

  • An example of fossil-fueled climate mastery overwhelming CO2 impacts is drought.

    Any contribution of rising CO2 to drought has been overwhelmed by fossil-fueled irrigation and crop transport, which have helped reduce drought deaths by over 100 times over 100 years as CO2 levels have risen.⁴

  • Over the last decade, I and a number of others, including Bjorn Lomborg and Michael Shellenberger, have challenged catastrophism by pointing to declining climate disaster deaths.

    Catastrophists couldn’t refute our argument. So instead they pretended it didn’t exist.

    Until last year.⁵

  • In 2023, climate catastrophists finally felt compelled to address the fact that climate disaster deaths have plummeted (driven by fossil-fueled climate mastery).

    Because of honesty? No—because Presidential candidates started bringing it up and persuading people with it.

  • Here is Vivek Ramaswamy during his Presidential campaign referring to a 98% decline in climate disaster deaths—and, crucially, giving fossil fuel energy credit.

     

  • Here is Ron DeSantis during his Presidential campaign referring to a 98% decline in climate disaster deaths—and, crucially, giving fossil fuel energy credit.
  • The 98% decline in climate disaster deaths, driven by fossil fuels, is a blockbuster fact: it shows that we are experiencing not fossil-fueled climate emergency but fossil-fueled climate safety.

    But instead of being happy, catastrophists engage in climate safety denial.

  • Here are 3 recent instances of climate safety denial—from ReutersPolitiFact, and USA Today. All have long portrayed climate deaths as a fast-increasing problem. But now they claim deaths don’t matter.
    https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/drop-climate-related-disaster-deaths-not-evidence-against-climate-emergency-2023-09-19/

    https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2023/aug/24/vivek-ramaswamy/vivek-ramsaswamys-misleading-gop-debate-claim-abou/

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2023/11/27/false-claim-disaster-deaths-show-climate-change-not-real-fact-check/71249882007/

  • Climate safety denial utilizes 5 main myths to evade the decline in disaster deaths:

    1. Fossil fuels don’t deserve credit
    2. Weather forecasting deserves the credit
    3. 100 years is a misleading period
    4. Damages are drastically increasing
    5. There’s a major increase in reported disasters

  • Myth 1: Fossil fuels don’t deserve much credit for plummeting climate disaster deaths; it’s “resilience.”

    Truth: Uniquely cost-effective and scalable fossil fuel energy makes us resilient through plentiful infrastructure-building, heating and cooling, irrigation, transportation, etc.⁶

  • Myth 2: Storm warning systems deserve the credit for plummeting climate disaster deaths.

    TruthDrought, not storm, deaths are the leading source of reduced climate deaths. And fossil fuels power storm warning and evacuation systems (and more resilient infrastructure).⁷

  • Myth 3100 years is a misleading period to measure plummeting climate disaster deaths.

    Truth100 years is a standard, very meaningful period to look at. While we have data going back an additional two decades, those tend to underreport due to less global communication.⁸

  • Contrary to the claim that starting analysis of climate disaster deaths in the 1920s overestimates the decline, it actually likely underestimates the decline due to insufficient past reporting; data before WWII extremely likely underreport deaths compared to data after 2000.
  • Myth 4: There is an alarming increase in reported disasters, revealing an underlying climate emergency.

    Truth: The increase in reported disasters over time is due overwhelmingly to increased global communication. Changes in fundamentals, such as storms, are extremely modest.⁹

  • The claim that more reported disasters show an increasingly dangerous climate is absurd in light of the fact that underlying data show massive increases in reporting before significant human climate impacts and the reporting trend also massively goes up for non-climate causes!
  • Other biases might inflate the number of reported disasters. E.g., governments of poor countries have an incentive to declare more disasters with increasing international relief.¹⁰
  • Using obviously problematic disaster frequency reporting instead of direct climatological evidence to try and show increasing climate danger is a revealing choice by catastrophists. They are making it because the climate change we’ve experienced has been very modest—and masterable.
    Do Not Declare a “Climate Emergency”

    Do Not Declare a “Climate Emergency”

    ·
    AUGUST 17, 2023
    Read full story
  • An example of unalarming climate fundamentals: neither the frequency nor the energy in global hurricanes has changed significantly relative to the noisy average. There is also little evidence for more landfalling hurricanes.¹¹
  • The catastrophist attempt to undermine the 98% decrease in disaster deaths by pointing to the increased reporting of disasters is actually self-defeating.

    If disaster deaths are plummeting despite incomplete past reporting, that means they’ve declined by even more than 98%.

  • Myth 5Climate damages are drastically increasing, revealing an underlying climate emergency.

    Truth: Even though there are many incentives for climate damages to go up—preferences for riskier areas, government bailouts—GDP-adjusted damages are flat.¹²

  • We often hear that “billion-dollar disasters” have increased significantly. But this is a bogus metric. Of course, as GDP grows we’ll have more billion-dollar disasters because there is more wealth for disasters to strike. But when we adjust for GDP there’s no increase in damage.¹³
  • Reuters “fact check” alarmingly claims a 151% growth in disaster damages from a period starting in 1978 to a period ending in 2017.

    But they evade that the global economy grew by over 200% during that period!

    (And they evade that disaster and damage reporting increased.)¹⁴

  • The stupidest climate safety denial myth (used by The New York Times): 2 million people died from extreme weather in the last 50 years; that’s obviously an emergency.

    Truth: 2 million in 50 years is a rate of 40,000 per year—far, far less than 100 years ago, thus confirming today’s climate safety.¹⁵

  • The last-gasp climate safety denial myth: Okay, we’re safer than ever from climate disasters, and it is driven by cheap energy from fossil fuels, but we can easily replace fossil fuels with solar and wind.

    Truth: For the foreseeable future there is no cheap global energy without fossil fuels.

  • Observe that all these seemingly scientific outlets, such as The New York Times, Reuters, and PolitiFact are totally unable to refute the death-blow to their “climate emergency” narrative that is the drastic decline in climate disaster deaths.

    Science requires that they admit defeat.

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UC San Diego – The Keeling Curve

For every million people on earth, annual deaths from climate-related causes (extreme temperature, drought, flood, storms, wildfires) declined 98%–from an average of 247 per year during the 1920s to 2.5 per year during the 2010s.

Data on disaster deaths come from EM-DAT, CRED / UCLouvain, Brussels, Belgium – www.emdat.be (D. Guha-Sapir).

Population estimates for the 1920s from the Maddison Database 2010, the Groningen Growth and Development Centre, Faculty of Economics and Business at University of Groningen. For years not shown, population is assumed to have grown at a steady rate.

Population estimates for the 2010s come from World Bank Data

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Saskatchewan becomes first Canadian province to fully eliminate carbon tax

Published on

From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

Saskatchewan has become the first Canadian province to free itself entirely of the carbon tax.

On March 27, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe announced the removal of the provincial industrial carbon tax beginning April 1, boosting the province’s industry and making Saskatchewan the first carbon tax free province.

“The immediate effect is the removal of the carbon tax on your Sask Power bills, saving Saskatchewan families and small businesses hundreds of dollars a year. And in the longer term, it will reduce the cost of other consumer products that have the industrial carbon tax built right into their price,” said Moe.

Under Moe’s direction, Saskatchewan has dropped the industrial carbon tax which he says will allow Saskatchewan to thrive under a “tariff environment.”

“I would hope that all of the parties running in the federal election would agree with those objectives and allow the provinces to regulate in this area without imposing the federal backstop,” he continued.

The removal of the tax is estimated to save Saskatchewan residents up to 18 cents a liter in gas prices.

The removal of the tax will take place on April 1, the same day the consumer carbon tax will reduce to 0 percent under Prime Minister Mark Carney’s direction. Notably, Carney did not scrap the carbon tax legislation: he just reduced its current rate to zero. This means it could come back at any time.

Furthermore, while Carney has dropped the consumer carbon tax, he has previously revealed that he wishes to implement a corporation carbon tax, the effects of which many argued would trickle down to all Canadians.

The Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM) celebrated Moe’s move, noting that the carbon tax was especially difficult on farmers.

“It puts our farming community and our business people in rural municipalities at a competitive disadvantage, having to pay this and compete on the world stage,” he continued.

“We’ve got a carbon tax on power — and that’s going to be gone now — and propane and natural gas and we use them more and more every year, with grain drying and different things in our farming operations,” he explained.

“I know most producers that have grain drying systems have three-phase power. If they haven’t got natural gas, they have propane to fire those dryers. And that cost goes on and on at a high level, and it’s made us more noncompetitive on a world stage,” Huber decalred.

The carbon tax is wildly unpopular and blamed for the rising cost of living throughout Canada. Currently, Canadians living in provinces under the federal carbon pricing scheme pay $80 per tonne.

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2025 Federal Election

Fight against carbon taxes not over yet

Published on

By Franco Terrazzano 

As the federal government removes the consumer carbon tax, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation is calling on all party leaders to oppose all carbon taxes, including the hidden tax on business.

“Canadians fought hard to force Ottawa to back down on its consumer carbon tax and now the fight moves to stopping the hidden carbon tax on business,” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director. “Canadians can’t afford a carbon tax on business that pushes up prices at the gas station and makes it harder for our businesses to compete while they’re already struggling with a trade war.”

Today, the federal government cut the consumer carbon tax rate to $0. This will reduce taxes by about 17 cents per litre of gasoline, 21 cents per litre of diesel and 15 cents per cubic metre of natural gas.

The federal government still imposes an industrial carbon tax on oil and gas, steel and fertilizer businesses, among others.

During the Liberal Party leadership race, Prime Minister Mark Carney said he would “improve and tighten” the industrial carbon tax and “extend the framework to 2035.”

Just 12 per cent of Canadians believe businesses pay most of the cost of the industrial carbon tax, according to a Leger poll commissioned by the CTF. Meanwhile, 70 per cent said businesses would pass most or some carbon tax costs on to consumers.

Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre said he will “repeal the entire carbon tax law, including the tax on Canadian businesses and industries.”

“Carbon taxes on refineries make gas more expensive, carbon taxes on utilities make home heating more expensive and carbon taxes on fertilizer plants increase costs for farmers and that makes groceries more expensive,” Terrazzano said. “Canadians know Poilievre will end all carbon taxes and Canadians know Carney’s carbon tax costs won’t be zero.

“Carney owes Canadians a clear answer: How much will your carbon tax cost?”

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