The Global Warming Con — Fabricating Phony Fear Over Sea Levels

Climate alarmists are warning that the Statue of Liberty is at risk of being overrun by rising sea levels caused by global warming. A more reasonable voice, however, says the nattering nabobs of “the narrative” are off the mark.

It must be tiring to be a practitioner of the global warming dark arts, always having to invent a new scenario of disaster to keep the public in turmoil, as H.L. Mencken said, over “an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”

But give them credit: They keep coming.

And they continue to be mistaken. Or, in some cases, purposely misrepresenting the facts so the facts will fit their political agenda. This appears to be the case with a 2012 study that the alarmists have used to gin up fear that human carbon dioxide emissions are driving us to a global disaster.

When that paper was released, the Los Angeles Times reported that “sea levels in a 620-mile ‘hot spot’ along the Atlantic coast are rising three to four times faster than the global average, according to a new study by the U.S. Geological Survey.” What came next was the feverish, Mencken-esque hobgoblin that is required in every global warming story.

“The sharp rise in sea levels from North Carolina to Massachusetts could mean serious flooding and storm damage for major cities such as New York, Philadelphia and Boston, as well as threats to wetlands habitats.”

The Weather Channel followed up on the claim, declaring last week that “the Statue of Liberty is facing a disturbing future because of rising seas and a warming planet.” This latest argument is based on a new United Nations report, which means that this cautionary statement has all the objective science of a children’s book about a wolf and a young girl with fair hair.

Naturally, the media either ignore or marginalize anything that disputes the global warming narrative. But contrary findings and opinions exist. In this case, climate change website Watts Up With That took a look at the “hot spots” identified in the 2012 study and determined that the researchers were guilty of practicing “bad science” and “cherry picking the time window” that backed the conclusion they wanted to reach.

“Since December 2009,” wrote guest essayist Giordano Bruno, “the sea levels have declined in both Washington, D.C., and The Battery, N.Y.” The decreases were 3.3 millimeters a year in Washington, 10.7 millimeters a year in New York.

The logic behind the study “was clearly flawed, but obviously Nature,” which published the report, “did not accept any comment,” wrote Bruno.

“The science is settled, and can’t be discussed,” he added.

Obviously Bruno — whose true identity is disguised by a pseudonym taken from a man who was executed in part because he held a different set of cosmological views — was being sarcastic, because the science is far from being settled. The fact that the paper was corrected — its supplementary information is the data Bruno used to make his point — proves it.

But, as Bruno said, that can’t be discussed.