Link: http://gazette.com/the-cost-of-fixing-climate-changeclimate-change-not-asscary-as-cost-to-stop-it/article/1581670
The cost of fixing climate change not as scary as cost to stop it By: Tom Harris and Tim Ball August 1, 2016 The best answer to most of the claims by climate activists and their political allies is simply: so what? "Climate change is real," they say. So what? Gravity and sunrise are also real. That doesn't mean we cause them or we would be better off without them. Climate has been changing since the origin of the atmosphere billions of years ago. But, "man-made climate change is a fact," they respond. So what? It is obviously warmer in urban areas than in the countryside because of man-made impacts. But the only place where carbon dioxide (CO2) increase causes a temperature increase is in computer models preprogrammed to show exactly that. All that should matter to public officials is whether our CO2 emissions are in any way dangerous. Since they are almost certainly not, the $1 billion spent every day across the world on climate finance is mostly wasted. But, they tell us, "2014 was the hottest year on record, until 2015 surpassed even that." So what? 2014 set the record by seven hundredths of a degree Fahrenheit; 2015 by 29 hundredths of a degree. These amounts are too small to even notice. Regardless, one would naturally expect the warmest years to be at the top of a warming record. And thank goodness we have been in a gradual warming trend since the depths of the Little Ice Age in the late 1600s. But "observations of extreme weather events are increasing. Insurance claims are skyrocketing," we are told. So what? As human habitation increases in areas that were previously sparsely populated, there will naturally be more reports of extreme weather and more related insurance claims. The next alarmist claim? "Sea levels rose 7 inches in the last century!"
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