Climate change overrated

 Steven Hayward:

A new group called Climate Intelligence (Clintel for short) has been founded in the Netherlands with the express purpose of combatting the extremism of the climate change campaigners. One of their early efforts is a statement, signed by 1,100 scientists and policy experts from around the world, that argues “There Is No Climate Emergency.”

This link goes to the complete PDF, but the summary of their case is worth noting here in full:

Climate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific. Scientists should openly address uncertainties and exaggerations in their predictions of global warming, while politicians should dispassionately count the real costs as well as the imagined benefits of their policy measures.

Natural as well as anthropogenic factors cause warming

The geological archive reveals that Earth’s climate has varied as long as the planet has existed, with natural cold and warm phases. The Little Ice Age ended as recently as 1850. Therefore, it is no surprise that we now are experiencing a period of warming.

Warming is far slower than predicted

The world has warmed significantly less than predicted by IPCC on the basis of modeled anthropogenic forcing. The gap between the real world and the modeled world tells us that we are far from understanding climate change.

Climate policy relies on inadequate models

Climate models have many shortcomings and are not remotely plausible as policy tools. They do not only exaggerate the effect of greenhouse gases, they also ignore the fact that enriching the atmosphere with CO2 is beneficial. CO2 is plant food, the basis of all life on Earth CO2 is not a pollutant. It is essential to all life on Earth. More CO2 is favorable for nature, greening our planet. Additional CO2 in the air has promoted growth in global plant biomass. It is also profitable for agriculture, increasing the yields of crops worldwide.

Global warming has not increased natural disasters

There is no statistical evidence that global warming is intensifying hurricanes, floods, droughts and suchlike natural disasters, or making them more frequent. However, there is ample evidence that CO2-mitigation measures are as damaging as they are costly.

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I suspect that people who support the climate change narrative get more attention if they exaggerate the alleged changes.  They have an incentive to make things look direr.  According to Al Gore, the poles were supposed to be ice-free by now and coastal cities would be underwater. When it didn't happen they just pushforward their doom and gloom predictions.