A piece by the Daily Telegraph‘s U.S. correspondent David Millward is headlined: ‘Donald Trump should take global warming more seriously – it’s his voters in red states who suffer most’.
This clickbait drivel needs debunking and, as usual, Paul Homewood has done a fine job.
The Telegraph’s claims are in bold. Homewood’s comments follow. Useful rebuttals to have at your fingertips next time some climate loon tries it on…
1. Maine’s fishermen hit as lobsters and cod flee north
Warming sea waters have seen lobsters migrate north. The same has been happening with cod – which are now in scant supply in Cape Cod. Melting ice caps and changing current patterns are threatening to have a devastating impact on the fishing industry.
GHGs cannot have any measurable effect on the temperature of deep oceans, it is simply not physically possible. Oceanographer, Dr Robert E Stevenson, explained this succinctly here.
Warmer seas there are purely the result of oceanic currents, which change all the time.
HH Lamb wrote about many of these changes in “Climate, History and the Modern World”. For instance, cod were plentiful even off west Greenland during the Middle Ages, but were forced to migrate to warmer waters during the Little Ice Age.
More recently, during the 1960s, Greenland cod again migrated to warmer waters.
2. Florida and Texas ravaged by some of the worst hurricanes evah
Take Texas and Florida which, only a few months ago were hit by devastating hurricanes. Both states backed Donald Trump in 2016. Hurricanes are not new, but the latest scientific evidence suggests that they have increased in intensity.
A study in Nature Geoscience, which was published in 2010, proved both prescient and alarming. Stripping the study to its basics, it warned that the number of category four and five hurricanes has roughly doubled since the 1970s.
He conveniently ignores the fact that the US had just recorded the longest period on record without a major hurricane, dating back to 2005. The study he quotes references the period since 1970, but this is a dreadfully misleading starting point, as it was in the middle of the cold phase of the AMO.
According to NOAA, during warm phases of the AMO, the numbers of tropical storms that mature into severe hurricanes is much greater than during cool phases. Hence we see major Atlantic hurricanes at similar levels to today during the 1940s and 50s:
3. Republican Arizona boils alive
In Arizona, another solidly Republican state, records are being shattered as temperatures soar. Last month it was so hot that airlines cancelled dozens of flights to and from Phoenix. Motorists started carrying ice packs in their cars along with oven mitts so they can grasp the steering wheel
Ohio, a swing state which backed Trump in 2016, is suffering from a plague of algae blooms, which are killing fish and making water so toxic that signs are being posted at lakes warning people of high bacteria levels.
According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, which remains part of the federal government, climate change is warming the lakes creating a favourable environment for toxic blue-green algae.
Yet according to the Federal Climate Science Special Report from the US Global Change Research Program, heatwaves across the US used to be unbelievably worse than anything faced nowadays:
Why does a “conservative” newspaper run this stuff?
Why don’t mainstream journalists ever question the alarmist narrative?
What do the idiots who buy into this stuff think that Donald Trump could feasibly do to stop the climate changing?
What does it matter anyway given that none of Trump’s base is stupid enough to buy into the climate change scare?
How do we know they don’t buy into it?
This heartwarming letter, posted in the comments at Homewood’s, gives an insight. It comes from Joan Gibson, a Trump voter in West Virginia:
I live in the recently red state of West Virginia. For decades we were at or near the bottom of the heap. Then with the 2014 elections, we became a red state with both the House of Delegates and the Senate being Republican for the first time in 83+ years. The first order of business, repealed former Governor, now Senator Joe Manchin’s cap and trade bill.
Since that time, we now have “right to work” and voided the “prevailing wage.” Prevailing wage, took millions from those building things in the state and gave it to unions (not the workers) who then passed it on to the Democrat Party. My own town, Morgantown, ended up with an extra million $ to spend on road paving 2 summers ago and schools can be built and refurbished due to the extra money from the Prevailing Wage repeal.
Donald J. Trump had been to WV and other coal-producing states, promising an end to Obama’s very real War on Coal. It had left most of the miners out of work with businesses closing due to lack of customers. The whole state was in dire financial straits with coal being shut down. The future was bleak indeed.
Then came the magical night of November 8, 2016. Trump had said several times: “I will never, ever let you down”. He has made good on that promise and far exceeded it. Soon, coal mines were opening again and loaded coal trains were moving. Right now, the operators are advertising throughout the state for additional miners. EPA is not gone, but a lot of its teeth have been pulled and it is being brought into a proper role. Regulations are being cut right and left. Taxes were cut across the board. Pipelines are now being constructed–there is a huge pipefield near my home awaiting installation. Business is moving into the state due to recent state legislation and President Trump’s business-friendly administration. We are awash in natural gas.
This past year, state revenues have been coming in “above estimates” instead of the previous “below estimates” figures. For 2017, WV made the greatest percentage leap up of the 50 states in GDP. It feels good to be at the top of the heap with something good. Optimism abounds, except from the socialist Democrats. Financially, we aren’t quite out of the woods yet, but we are getting there fast is we can hold on to the Republican legislature and keep the sticky fingers of the Democrats off our budget.
Yes, the red states are doing well, thank you. Utility prices are dropping for most and optimism for the future is the highest it has been for decades. Unemployment is the lowest ever across the board. That includes the lowest ever for the black population, the Hispanic population and those without high school diplomas.
Thank you Mr. David Millward of the Telegraph for dire warnings that the sky is falling, but you can peddle your paper elsewhere. WE will keep President Donald J. Trump.