Sorry Greta, Humanity Is Still Here and Stronger Than Ever

On June 21, 2018, Greta Thunberg tweeted that “climate change will wipe out all of humanity unless we stop using fossil fuels over the next five years.” Five years have come and almost gone, and the tweet has been suspiciously deleted.

Thunberg is claiming her point was misinterpreted, but any way you look at it, the climate cartel is dead wrong — again — about the fate of humanity. In fact, there’s almost nothing about the climate change movement that stands up to science.

Since Thunberg’s fatalist tweet, climate rhetoric has risen to a fever pitch, but fossil fuel usage hasn’t dipped at all. Nationwide oil, natural gas, and coal consumption last year was about equal to annual averages from the 2010s.

It’s not for lack of trying. Even after decades of multibillion-dollar subsidies and seemingly unanimous public support, renewables still only represent 4% of our energy. As nice as wind and solar energy sound, renewable technology just isn’t capable of serving as a primary energy source. It may not be for generations, if ever. If “whole of government” support from Washington, mind-boggling corporate investment, and rabid virtue-signaling from the media and pop culture isn’t enough to move the needle, what will?

No matter how shrill the climate cartel cries that the end is near, the American public just isn’t willing to sacrifice the benefits of affordable, reliable energy — which only fossil fuels can provide.

They see through the disinformation the climate cartel is spreading. Not only is the human race nowhere near the brink of extinction, but our lives and our environment are better than ever before.

In 1980, just over 40 years ago, nearly half the world’s population lived in extreme poverty. Today, the number is just 8%. Global life expectancy has skyrocketed from 51 to over 70, and over 80 in developed countries. Every statistic, from infant and maternal mortality to education and gender equality, has meaningfully improved as access to affordable, reliable energy has expanded.

And in America, at least, the environment is cleaner than ever. Air pollution is down nearly 80% since 1980, and the U.S. is ranked number one in the world for access to clean and safe drinking water.

We’ve also grown more resilient to our natural surroundings, even though the average temperature has warmed about a degree Celsius since the Industrial Revolution. We are 99% less likely to die in a climate-related natural disaster than our great-grandparents were. Interestingly, resiliency to these natural disasters is improving at a much faster rate than to non-climate-related natural disasters like earthquakes and volcanoes. Warmer weather actually seems to improve the human condition, since cold is far deadlier than heat and slightly higher carbon dioxide concentrations stimulate plant and crop growth.

All this progress has happened while fossil fuels have remained by far the dominant energy source, the global population has boomed, and our economy has steadily grown. Fossil fuels aren’t the enemy — they’re the key to human flourishing.

How has the climate cartel gotten it so wrong over and over again? Ironically, the faction constantly demanding blind allegiance to “the science” doesn’t understand science at all.