Guest essay by Chris Talgo Originally published in TownHall
For most of my adult life, climate alarmists have ruled the day as they have methodically and successfully injected fear and fake science throughout academia, the mainstream media, Hollywood, and nearly every powerful and powerful cultural institution. While this has paid giant dividends in recent years, it has also fueled the backlash that we are finally starting to see bubble to the surface.
Let’s start with a brief look at how climate alarmists managed to hypnotize so many people into believing that climate change is an existential crisis – which it isn’t – in the first place.
At the end of the twentieth century and at the beginning of the twenty-first century, we began to see more and more calls for international bodies to deal with what was initially considered “global warming.” In 1992, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was born, intended to combat “harmful human interference with the climate system.”
Since then, the United Nations and several other influential international organizations have pushed the climate change message while creating a spider web of treaties, agreements, and protocols to mitigate the so-called climate crisis.
When these powerful global institutions sound the alarm bells that the future of the planet is in immediate danger due to human consumption of fossil fuels, a network of grifters emerges who are more than ready to capitalize on the alarmist narrative.
From former Vice President Al Gore to a host of scientists, it’s become clear that if anyone jumps on the climate alarmist bandwagon in these early days, there’s money to be made and government funding to be had.
Soon, we began to witness high-ranking political officials from both sides of the aisle succumbing to the climate alarmist narrative. For example, in 2001, President George W. Bush announced his administration’s climate change agenda.
Then the cultural flood as K-12 educators, professors, actors and actresses, TV and radio personalities, social media influencers, and even uneducated child activists from Sweden continue to peddle the climate alarmist narrative.
However, what goes up must come down.
After more than two decades of relentless climate alarmism, climate realism is slowly beginning to emerge.
How do I know this? As usual, hard-working Americans don’t buy the climate hook, line, and sinker.
According to various polls, climate change is not a top concern for the majority of Americans.
Americans are finally starting to understand the truth about climate change while also realizing that climate alarmists have ulterior motives, many of which are in direct opposition to the basic interests of everyday Americans.
Thanks to courageous truth-seekers like my colleagues at the Heartland Institute and many allied organizations, Americans are better able to receive accurate information that dispels the common myths and lies pushed by climate alarmists. As anyone can read on ClimateRealism.com, seas are not rising and weather events like hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, etc. are not becoming more frequent or deadly. In fact, in many cases, the opposite is the case.
Another huge factor that helps Americans understand the skepticism of the climate alarmist narrative is that the solutions do not make sense, do not solve the problems they are called, and often end up with less freedom and more government. Apparently, Americans are beginning to understand that climate justice, for example, is mostly about wealth redistribution and has nothing to do with a cleaner environment.
A few weeks ago, Americans went to the polls and clearly rejected the climate alarmist nonsense that has been raised in the country for the past four years. Without a doubt, the Biden-Harris administration has been the most active on climate alarmism. From nixing the Keystone XL Pipeline to mandating electric vehicles to deciding what kinds of appliances Americans can buy, the Biden-Harris administration has been all about climate alarmism.
But this is not what Americans want. To be clear, almost all Americans want to protect the environment and want clean air and water.
They just don’t want their lives upended and their bank accounts drained in the guise of saving the planet. They want reliable and affordable electricity. They want cheap gas. And, they want the US government to take advantage of the vast energy reserves beneath our feet. This is at least partly why President-elect Donald Trump won the White House and the GOP controls the US Senate.
Now that Trump is back in the Oval Office, we can expect US energy dominance, not climate alarmism, to rule the day. This is good news for hard-working Americans, even if it’s a nightmare for climate alarmists and the cottage industry they’ve been working on.
Chris Talgo (ctalgo@heartland.org) is the editorial director at The Heartland Institute.
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