Winter has come early, and in many places, the month of December has brought with it record or near record cold. As I write, the eastern U.S. lies in the grip of extreme cold, with possible record lows tonight in Tennessee, South Carolina, and other states. Even sunny Florida is expecting freezing in many locales, with temperatures fifteen degrees colder than normal.
Given current conditions, it’s difficult to convince most Americans that a climate crisis exists. A large snowstorm is approaching the northeastern U.S. Heating bills have been higher than normal due to the cold. The snow and ice are stressful for everyone. Global warming is the last thing on most people’s minds.
Perhaps this is why the issue of climate change played such a small part in the 2024 election. Only 9% of the electorate, most of them Democrats, rated climate change as the top issue, and Trump’s promise to reverse the Green New Deal and withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement did not hurt his campaign. If anything, it attracted voters who were tired of what they view as a hoax.
According to a recent poll by the Associated Press–NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, two thirds of Americans do not believe that climate change is harming them, and it is unlikely that the remaining third believe AOC’s prediction that “the Earth will end” in 2031.
At the same time, 72% believe that global warming is “real.” How to explain the disconnect?
Perhaps a majority are going along with “accepted opinion,” regardless of their actual belief. Or perhaps they actually do believe that warming is harmful but that it is harming someone else. What the electorate does not seem to understand is that the climate “crisis,” with recent claims that many of our coastal states will be underwater in 25 years (not a few beach areas, but “the state”), is driven by massive self-interest. The salary for Fred Krupp at the Environmental Defense Fund was $825,000 in 2020. Other environmental leaders commanded high six-figure salaries as well. It’s unlikely they would come forward and admit that there is not a crisis.
It may be, as Bjorn Lomborg asserts, that some degree of global warming actually is taking place but that the magnitude of the “crisis” has been blown way out of proportion and that government response, such as promoting E.V.s with subsidies and mandates and restricting fossil fuels, is irrational. Or it may be that most of the recent climate change (one degree Celsius over the past 150 years) has resulted from natural cycles. In either case, the climate alarmists are wrong in alarming the public.
What progressives see in climate change is an opportunity to grasp more power. Six point seven percent of U.S. GDP is derived from energy production and distribution, 84% of that being fossil fuels. That’s 6.7% of a $30-trillion economy, or $2.1 trillion. Over the past 35 years, the global warming narrative has been developed and enlarged with the intention of securing government control of the energy sector of the economy.
Proponents of global warming such as Al Gore (who as of 2023 had a net worth of $330 million) have enriched themselves, seemingly at the expense of ordinary working Americans who must pay higher prices for gasoline, heating, food transportation, automobiles, and other necessities. But Gore is only one in a large cottage industry of lobbyists, non-profit officials, academics, journalists, politicians, and investors who have profited from promoting the idea of climate change. Green New Deal–supporters are like pigs at the trough, dividing up the estimated $93-trillion total estimated cost of climate abatement. According to Fox News, that price tag would amount to $600,000 per household.
Do Americans have $600,000 per household to spend on global warming? This is the greatest shell game in history: as one claim of warming is shot down, another even greater claim is manufactured.
The problem, as Lomborg insists, is that climate hysteria distracts attention from hunger, inadequate shelter, lack of medical attention, poor educational standards, and many other legitimate concerns. It is not the role of the federal government to address these problems, but at the local level, many would like to improve the lot of the poor through private charity. In my opinion, those Salvation Army kettles at Christmastime are a good place to start.
Winter is here, and there’s no sign of global warming where most Americans live. The current eight-day forecast for Cleveland, Ohio shows snow for six of those eight days and a high of 38 degrees on Christmas. Boston is worse, with a high of 32 degrees on Christmas day, though without the snow. Even in central Florida, by Christmas, we will have experienced five frosts so far this year — perhaps not a record, but cold by subtropical standards.
The point is that in winter, it is cold, and in summer, it is hot, and in a nation as large as the USA, new records will be set somewhere every month. That does not mean that the climate has gone haywire. In hurricane season, there are hurricanes, and there always have been. There are tornadoes, wildfires, droughts, and floods.
Even before humans set foot on North America, all of these phenomena existed. Temperatures rose and fell over the millennia. Storm activity increased and declined. Droughts came and went, as they have in California even during the past twenty years. The hysteria that existed for so long surrounding drought in California seems to have diminished, though the state still has in effect what seems to be “permanent regulations” predicated on drought. One can remember wild claims of California “burning up” and “running out of water”: now the problem, at least in some counties, is too much water.
Hopefully, President Trump will reverse all of Biden’s misguided environmental policies. Jobs will be created, wealth increased, prices lowered, and Americans allowed the freedom to choose their sources of energy. Unlike global warming, which has had no noticeable effect on two thirds of Americans, “Drill, Baby, Drill” will have a direct effect for the better. Prices overall ought to decline, and the energy industry will provide good-paying jobs for hundreds of thousands of persons, many of them young men who are currently underemployed or unemployed.
It’s not yet 2031, so we can’t yet proclaim that the world has not come to an end, but I’m willing to bet that little will have changed by 2032. Human beings have lived through far worse than a one degree rise in temperatures, and if government will give them a chance, they will live through this one.
Jeffrey Folks is the author of many books and articles on American culture and politics.
Image: Zink Dawg via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0.
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