I am tired of the constant drumbeat from those who are convinced that greenhouse gas emissions are going to cause an inevitable horror show of environmental impacts and that we need to stop emitting those emissions else we are doomed. In science you should look at the range of possibilities and probabilities. The fact is that though those horrific forecasts are possible, they are pretty unlikely. It is much more likely that any impacts will tweak weather to be a little more severe and a little more frequent if there is any effect at all.
The problem is that these prophesies of doom are driving all kinds of New York State policies that allegedly will prevent catastrophe. If New York implements all the programs the Cuomo administration wants to do so that we reduce our emissions 80% from 1990 levels by 2050 the global temperature increase prevented will be the same as going south a half a mile.
Jo Nova said it well: I say, just stop. Stop installing infrastructure we don’t need, stop subsidizing it, stop pretending we need green electrons. Stop pretending we need “storage” to solve a problem we never had. Stop buying electricity at inflated prices from generators which don’t make it when we need it. People wanting to make money selling solar power can pay for the batteries themselves. Start spreading the costs of this pointless experiment as fairly as we can instead of dumping it on electricity consumers who don’t have solar and on taxpayers who have never had the opportunity to vote whether they support these massive investments.
Here is the bottom line. There will be no measurable effect so all this is virtue signaling and the cost for New York is billions. No one is saying that if we control greenhouse gases that historical severe weather won’t happen. A much better investment of our tax and energy dollars would be to make society more resilient to the observed weather impacts of the past.
Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York 