How the Media Corrupted Climate Policy

The administration is right: Worst-case scenarios shouldn’t dominate the debate.

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It’s hard to credit people who say they care about climate change when they don’t bother to know anything about the subject. Or when they applaud proposals that would be extraordinarily expensive yet have no effect on the alleged problem and can only teach the public to become cynical about those who come bearing climate-related proposals.

But that’s the world we live in. Certainly politicians do not volunteer to deliver more truth than we are willing to hear.

Where fraudulence is the norm, Joe Biden’s climate plan needs to be acknowledged for its slightly less fraudulent mien. It doesn’t ignore the rest of the world, as the Green New Deal does. Limply, without a hint of conviction, Mr. Biden proposes tariffs to force our agenda on countries whose emissions will actually determine the fate of climate change regardless of anything the U.S. does. It may not be plausible. It may be an undiluted realization of fears that President Trump’s penchant for tariffs is becoming the magic solvent for every problem. But at least it’s a placeholder in Mr. Biden’s plan for a recognition that efforts by the U.S., which accounts for less than 15% of global emissions, are an extravagant empty gesture if other countries don’t go along.

Mr. Biden also opens the door to nuclear power, without which honest persons in the climate debate (few and far between) know curbing CO2 is implausible.

Other candidates, let’s face it, have adopted the Green New Deal as a contentless virtue signal.

In the latest development, a New York Times headline accuses the Trump administration of wanting to “put science on trial.” Why? Because it is trying to rein in agency shamanizing that uses centurylong, worst-case projections to mislead the public.

Not a single news report mentioned that this outcome was associated with an extreme worst-case temperature increase of more than 11 degrees Fahrenheit. Not one mentioned that the assessment relied on an emissions scenario, known as RCP 8.5, so extreme that it implies much bigger problems for future humanity than just a warmer climate.

Not One…

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