Dori: Dire climate change study ignores that people have air conditioning

If you’re a regular listener, then you know my views on climate change. I believe the climate is changing, and while man has some impact on it, that impact is unknown and likely small. I also believe that whatever changes come in the next decades, man will do what we’ve done for millennia — we’ll adapt. If the ocean rises a few millimeters, we’ll adapt.

Did you see this study about what climate change is going to do to the city of Seattle?

The Seattle Times wrote about the researchers who have calculated how many people in Seattle are going to die because of climate change. People often say, “Dori, why don’t you believe the 96-percent scientific consensus?” My response is that most scientists are motivated by getting government grants — anything that would transfer dollars from your family to the cult of global warming. If these scientists are part of that cult, then they get the money. That’s what everyone seems to ignore in their unwavering belief in the scientific consensus. If you don’t see that trillions of dollars are at stake, and you don’t realize what people are capable of doing when there is that much money on the line, then you’re very naive.

The Seattle Times’ lead reads, “Hundreds of Seattleites are projected to die in severe heat waves as the globe warms. How much humans limit greenhouse gas emissions will have a significant impact on just how many people perish, according to a new study.”

Global warming alarmists use entirely phony arguments

The study calculated the heat mortality data for 15 U.S. cities, including Seattle. According to the Times, in Seattle, about 725 people will die in each extreme heat event “if global temperatures rise 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit since pre-Industrial times.” We would have a daily mean of 97 degrees.

Let me understand what these scientists are saying. So when we have a severe heat event, if the mean is 97, let’s say the overnight low is 70 degrees, about 27 degrees below the mean. Then that would mean the daytime high would have to also be 27 degrees above the mean. That would be 124 degrees Fahrenheit. We’re going to have 124-degree days here in Seattle? That’s nonsensical.

The fatal heat events would come about every 30 years. The article states, “Limiting warming to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit would save 279 lives in each extreme Seattle heat wave. Keeping temperatures to an increase of 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit would avoid another 105 deaths.”

This is the biggest pack of nonsense I’ve ever seen. There is no way that anybody could take this seriously.

Then they admitted at the end that these numbers don’t take into account the fact that more people might have air conditioning in their homes if things get warmer. Here’s where this is so obviously bogus. I go to Palm Desert nearly every spring. It’s quite often 110 degrees Fahrenheit. It was 104 this year. You know what? I was cool and comfortable because the place we rented had air conditioning.

Do you think that if in 80 years, temperatures rise to the point where they’re killing people, more people might get air conditioning in their homes? I’m guessing the answer is yes. But this study doesn’t take that into account. Man will adapt to what happens. That’s what we’ve always done.

But pinpointing the number of people who are going to die in the year 2100 based on some fantastical calculation of how warm Seattle is going to be — nobody in their right mind could take this even remotely seriously.

Now, if you believe that somebody at UW can calculate that exactly 725 people will die when it gets warm here in 2100 – that’s insane. No, I don’t buy the 96-percent scientific consensus. I don’t think anybody knows what’s going to happen in 81 years in Seattle. They have no idea what’s going to happen to temperatures, they have no idea what the population is going to be, they have no idea what migration patterns will be, and they have no idea what advances we’re going to have in cooling our homes. There probably will be more solar and wind energy.

If people in cities located in deserts around the world — Las Vegas, Dubai, Palm Springs — are not dying when it gets warm, why would we in Seattle? The sad thing is, there are people — I would guess the majority who read this study — who actually believe these projections.

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