Energy

Listen to “What Coronavirus Modeling Tells Us About the Climate Debate” on Spreaker.

Many different models of coronavirus infections and deaths are constantly in the news, and one promiment voice in the debate says the speed with which the models change gives us a very good look at the flaws in climate modeling and the “extreme” solutions being offered by advocates of the Green New Deal and other proposals.

Christopher C. Horner served on President Trump’s landing team at the Environmental Protection Agency during the presidential transition in late 2016 and early 2017.  Hormer also spent 20 years at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and is now an attorney and board member at Government Accountability and Oversight.

Horner says models have two areas ripe for intentional or unintentional manipulation – the assumptions built into the models and the quality of the data fed into them.

“If you want carbon dioxide to be a control knob, then you build that into your model.  That’s an assumption.  And you can have other assumptions about the impact of clouds as you believe it to be or sun.

“Even the UN says, ‘Well, we don’t quite know the sun’s impact on climate.’  So, maybe come back to me when you do.  That seems like a big one,” said Horner.

Horner says the rapidly fluctuating coronavirus infection and death projections even while consistently assuming social distancing and other mitigation efforts shows climate models are anything but predictive for decades or centuries from now.

In this podcast interview with Radio America’s Greg Corombos, Horner explains how the coronavirus response is a red flag for those considering dramatic economic action on the climate but he also explains how the two issues are different in very significant ways – and that climate models even admit their sweeping proposals wouldn’t accomplish anything.