By Jay Brodell

Some Americans, particularly youthful Americans are terrified. Many sound very much like the Swedish teen who told U. N. Climate Summit attendees that failure to stop climate change ruined her childhood. More than a million schoolchildren, released from school, protested in New York Friday, and there were similar protests through Monday in other cities.

Also at the United Nations, Costa Rica's President Carlos Alvarado boasted that most of the nation's electricity is coming from hydro sources and that an embargo on exploratory petroleum drilling will continue for years.

Still, as critics of the climate panic have pointed out, there are no precise figures about how much of climate change can be attributed to human activity, how much is natural and what exactly drives temperature increases. Some activists say that climate change is not reversible now. That's true and has been true until now since the last glacial maximum about 13,000 years ago. If the cyclical theory of earth's climate is fact, the alternative to climate warming is a new ice age.

Meanwhile, the climate argument has morphed into a political dispute in the United States pitting Democrats, embracing an amorphous green new deal, against the Donald Trump administration. Trump is pulling the United States from the 2016 Paris climate accord, and his policies have stimulated U.S. oil and gas production to the extent that the country is now energy independent. Climate seems to be a defining topic for the 2020 national elections.

Critics have been emboldened by the failure of many climate predictions and characterize climate alarmism as a socialist plot to take over the world.  Some of the current reports, including those criticized by YouTube personality Tony Heller, contain data that conveniently fails to reflect periods when U.S. temperatures were higher, such as the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s.

The irony is that many in the United States and Europe are fearful that their climates will become similar to that of Costa Rica. And the concerns are fanned by an alarmist news media seeking scary headlines.

Even though climate change critics are labeled deniers, few doubt that the earth is warming. The National Aeronautical and Space Administration says that the planet's average surface temperature has risen about 2.0 degrees F. (1.1 degrees C.) since the late 19th century. The federal agency says that sea level has risen eight inches in about the same time. Of course, sea level has risen about 400 feet since the glaciers began to recede.

The big question is how much of these changes are the result of higher levels of carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gases. By far, a more potent gas is methane, which is why some U.S. lawmakers want to reduce the consumption of meat. Cows generate the gas, but that concern is not widely held in Costa Rica.

Curiously, U.S. scientists were warning of global cooling in the early 1970s, and some publications heralded a new ice age.

The climate debate has been riddled with false information. A claim that reduced arctic ice hurt polar bears involved a photo of an old bear dying of causes not related to climate. Hundreds of photos illustrating climate articles feature belching smokestacks while carbon dioxide is invisible. Then there are the Photoshopped illustrations of New York and the Statue of Liberty under water.

Now that the debate is mainly in the political arena, more falsities and exaggerations are likely. Trump, himself, has been blamed for many false statements.

Regardless of personal beliefs on climate, the truth is that a segment of the population is very fearful and expecting a catastrophe in a matter of years.



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