Arnold pushing new global-warming hysteria

April 8, 2013

By John Seiler

Ex-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s signature legislation, AB 32, officially is called “The Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006.” Yet like President Obama, he no longer refers to “global warming,” but to a euphemism such as “climate change.”

Arnold does so again today in an L.A. Times op-ed about the new National Climate Assessment. It’s title, “Schwarzenegger: California’s silent disaster.” I got a chuckle. Did the Times headline writer secretly mean, “Schwarzenegger [is] California’s silent disaster”?

Anyway, in the actual article there’s no mention of “global warming.” Instead, he refers only to the local climate getting warmer:

“This team of top climate scientists has concluded that our region of the country is hotter than it has ever been and that it will get hotter — because of humans. The last decade was the hottest the Southwestern U.S. has experienced — on average 2 degrees warmer than it had been historically. The scientists project a further increase over the next 50 years of 6 to 9 degrees if we do nothing.”

That shows how ignorant he is. The phenomenon long has been known as “urban heat islands.” It happens when millions of people get together and do things like — to name some of the activities of our hypocritical former governor — drive a massive, gas-guzzling, $250,000 Mercedes and live in massive compound in Brentwood Country Estates. And by cheating on his wife, Arnold also split his family in two, producing two massive compounds instead of one.

But urban areas are only a fraction of the earth’s surface. The recent data show no global warming for the past 16 years, despite the incredible rise of the Chinese, Indian, Brazilian and Russian industrial economies during that time. Not to mention continued growth in America, Europe  and Japan. And Mexico’s economy also is booming.

Arnold:

“This shift could spell disaster for California, long the nation’s agricultural powerhouse. The state produces more than half of the fruits, nuts and vegetables grown in the U.S., with an output of $43.5 billion last year. Californians don’t rely just on the food produced by the state’s farms; they rely on the revenue and the jobs too. Agriculture employs more than 1.5 million people in California.”

This shows that, despite living here for more than 40 years and misgoverning the state for seven years, he still knows little about our state. Here’s a graph from the Web site of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection showing the Development of Vegetated Lands in the state from 1950 until the present, then projected into the future:

Arnold warns:

“Over the last 100 years, sea levels have risen about 7 inches, and the San Francisco Bay Area is already feeling the effects. A sewage system there was flooded with saltwater, and the 101 Freeway has seen flooding. This isn’t a distant threat.

“Now, we are facing another rise in sea level of 1 to 4 feet. A rise of just 16 inches would be enough to endanger roads, highways and airports in San Francisco and Oakland. It could contaminate crucial groundwater in Los Angeles.”

That’s just alarmism. For one thing, Arnold — or whoever wrote the op-ed for him — shortened the time of the sea-level rise to 100 years, dating to the rapid industrialization that occurred beginning around 1913. That’s a technique straight out of the classic book, “How to Lie With Statistics.”

But the rising sea levels started well before 1913 — that is, before much industrialization existed. Here’s a graph from the excellent site Watts Up With That?:

 

(A Gaussian Average removes the statistical “detail and noise,” and shows a smooth trend line, as with the dark blue line.)

As you can see, the sea levels in San Francisco began rising as early as 1850, when there was little industrial activity around the world, and almost none in California and the rest of the Pacific Rim.

And what if Arnold’s alarmist projection proves true of “another rise in sea level of 1 to 4 feet”?  Here’s the graph of that from Watt’s Up With That?:

Such a high jump in the seal level (the pink line) would break the pattern, much as if Arnold traded in his Mercedes panzer for a Prius. Which means it’s unlikely to happen. And note the dark blue line in the last two decades, 1990-2010: it’s flat.

Arnold urges:

“The report should be a wake-up call for leaders in Washington to overcome gridlock and start working on solutions. For models of how to proceed, they need only look to California and other states and cities that have begun to move forward in a bipartisan way.”

If Arnold really believed that, he would sharply reduce his own high-carbon footprint lifestyle of the rich and sleazy. And instead, like his Austrian compatriot the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, retire to a monastery.