"I've lived through eight environmental apocalypses... overpopulation, resource depletion, Silent Spring, global cooling, acid rain, the ozone hole, global warming... the next one is going to be ocean acidification."

Alarmists claim they're for "science"... - Reason.com: "1) Man's greenhouse gases contribute to warming, but scientists don't agree on how much. Of 117 climate models from the 1990s, 114 overpredicted warming. 2) Warming is harmful. Maybe. But so far it's been good: Over the last century, climates warmed, but climate-related deaths dropped. Since 1933, they fell by 98 percent. Life expectancy doubled. Much of that is thanks to prosperity created by free markets. But some is due to warming. Cold kills more people than heat. Carbon dioxide is also good for crop growth. Even The New York Times admits, "Plants have been growing at a rate far faster than at any other time in the last 54,000 years." 

But what if Al Gore is right? Maybe our greenhouse gases will eventually cause Greenland's icecaps to melt and flood our cities. Shouldn't government act now? No. 3) Nothing we do today will stop global warming. The Obama regulations that Trump recently repealed, horrifying the Earth Day crowd, had a goal that amounted to a mere one percent reduction in global carbon dioxide. And that was just the goal. 

 Of course, some think any cut is better than nothing. But cuts are costly. They kill jobs, opportunity. All to accomplish... nothing the Earth will notice. If warming does become a problem, we're better off if our economy is very strong when the science tells us clearly that action will make a difference. 

We should be especially wary of expensive government projects given how often alarmists were wrong in the past. As Cato's Pat Michaels says, "I've lived through eight environmental apocalypses... overpopulation... resource depletion... Silent Spring... global cooling... acid rain... the ozone hole... global warming... the next one is going to be ocean acidification." 

In the '70s, environmentalist Paul Ehrlich won fame with his book The Population Bomb. Ehrlich predicted: "I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000." Oops. Ehrlich now admits: "When you predict the future, you get things wrong." But he says there's a grain of truth in his prediction, because: "If you look closely at England, what can I tell you? They're having all kinds of problems." 

 Give me a break."

By Robert A. Rohde (Dragons flight at English Wikipedia) - This figure was created by Robert A. Rohde from published data and is part of the Global Warming Art project.