Climate alarmists sometimes like to claim skeptical scientists don’t exist, but they do, and one meteorologist had a lot to say on the subject.
In an interview with the MRC’s Business and Media Institute, well-known meteorologist Joe Bastardi dissected and criticized major aspects of the climate change alarmism movement. Drawing on his knowledge of weather and climate history, Bastardi said that “extreme weather” events [1] the media talk about so much are commonplace and the result of normal variability. He also attacked basic arguments about CO2, scientific consensus and alarmist media bias.
Bastardi contended that climate alarmism is “ludicrous” and “not about science.” He didn’t mince words, blasting climate alarmists as living in a “loony world.” He also criticized news media that “simply follow what the majority thinks because they want to be popular” instead of understanding the issue.
After many years working with AccuWeather, Bastardi is now a weather forecaster for Weatherbell Analytics LLC [2], where he is tasked with making accurate and objective forecasts for private sector clients. He has appeared on many news broadcasts, including Fox News, CBS and ABC.
Bastardi specializes in understanding the history of weather and climate and said he used this understanding to accurately predict both Hurricane Sandy and Hurricane Arthur ahead of official warnings. In contrast, he said alarmists “don’t know what happened yesterday” or “know anything about what happened in the past.”
As Bastardi pointed out, he has to make accurate predictions in order to be paid and has no political motivation.
Bastardi asserted that alarmist scientists cannot actually be objective [3], because they are given grants explicitly to study global warming. He called upon alarmists to answer just one question. “What would it take for you to change? What do you need to see?” If this question cannot be answered, he argued, then there is nothing empirical behind their arguments that man is causing catastrophic climate change.
Addressing the science, Bastardi noted the entire world only adds 1.8 ppm of CO2 in a year, he called the notion that this miniscule amount causes extreme weather “ludicrous.” Instead, he said alarmists are just “taking every weather event they can find” and connecting it to climate change. He urged people to ask themselves if they believe that amount of carbon dioxide could have the impact that climate alarmists claim it does.
He also criticized the so-called consensus of alarm among climate scientists, saying “it is easy to have consensus when someone will pay you to have one.” Bastardi was very firm in the belief that the climate movement was “not about science” but had become a movement “from people who make profits” off the hysteria.
In his view, the alarmists’ goal was the “restructuring of the way our society works,” and the consequences if their economic recommendations are adopted are “suicide for our way of life.” Furthermore, he pointed out that the United States alone cannot make an impact on global emissions, as it releases only 10 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide. He joked “What are we going to do? Go to war with the rest of the globe [and force them to cut emissions]?”
— Sean Long is Staff Writer at the Media Research Center. Follow Sean Long on Twitter. [4]