A recent article posted at MSNBC, written by Ja’han Jones, titled “Trump’s pick for energy secretary thinks climate change is good, actually,” claims that Trump’s energy secretary pick Chris Wright is wrong to claim that there have been positive impacts from climate change, rather than the looming catastrophe the media claims. Wright is right, and Jones at MSNBC is wrong.
Jones writes that Wright “has downplayed the risks of rising global temperatures and argued that climate change might actually be good for the world.” He goes on to quote a Wall Street Journal article that quotes Wright from an interview he did with PragerU, where the WSJ reported:
“But he also says climate change makes the planet greener by increasing plant growth, boosts agricultural productivity and likely reduces the number of temperature-related deaths annually. “It’s probably almost as many positive changes as there are negative changes,” he told conservative media nonprofit PragerU last year, referring to climate change. “Is it a crisis, is it the world’s greatest challenge, or a big threat to the next generation? No.”
Jones complains that “the things Wright lists as positives of rising atmospheric carbon — like more plant growth and a boost in ‘agricultural productivity’ — don’t always occur in climate change scenarios, and when they do, they aren’t always positive developments.”
Jones is conflating real world observations of increases in plant growth and crop productivity, which are what Wright is referring to, and climate computer model scenarios, which are not real and often don’t produce results that correspond to reality, especially but not limited to various of their projections of crop production under climate change. As Climate Realism has repeatedly discussed, here, here, and here, for example, models run way too hot, and as a result their projections about various types of impacts are way off.
Crop production has increased globally, with a large part of that increase being attributable to increased carbon dioxide and improved growing conditions. For instance, cereal crops (wheat, rice, corn, et cetera.) which make up a large percent of staple foods for people around the globe have increased massively. Data from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) show that cereal yields have increased by around 52 percent, and production grew by 57 percent, between 1990 and 2022. (See figure below)
World records are set frequently, with the most recent occurring in 2022.
At Climate Realism, we have written over 200 articles going examining production and yield data various crops around the world, at local and global scales. The data show increasing trends in crop production can be found for most crops across the spectrum, from fruits to tubers to vegetables. Both production and yields have increased, and this can only be a good thing for decreasing rates of hunger and malnutrition.
It is not just cropland either. According to data from NASA, the earth has greened over the same period that the most alarming warming is supposed to have occurred, deserts are being reclaimed and wildlife habitat expanding — and no catastrophe for life has accompanied it.
Another point Jones attempts to make is that “contrary to Wright’s claim about temperature-related deaths, the Environmental Protection Agency reported this year that ‘dramatic increases in heat-related deaths are closely associated with the occurrence of hot temperatures and heat waves.’”
Jones is being deceptive. He shifted to discussing just heat-related deaths, when Wright said temperature related deaths have declined. Once again, Wright has the facts on his side.
Because of the declines in days with cold temperatures, deaths tied to suboptimal cold temperatures have declined significantly as the planet has modestly warmed. Data from a recent analysis published in the Lancet shows that cold deaths significantly outnumber heat related deaths, by almost 10 to 1, with cold killing more than 6 million people every year, and heat killing only just over 600 thousand. Between the years 2000 and 2019, an increase in heat related deaths of about 116 thousand, has been offset by a decline in cold related deaths by about 283 thousand. Cold deaths have declined by more than double any increase in heat related mortality. This means Wright was correct, there has been a net decrease in temperature related deaths.
To finish the article, Jones lists off the whole bevy of other alleged catastrophic impacts of climate change, including wildfires, droughts, insect borne diseases, and other subjects, all of which Climate Realism has discussed in detail previously, none of which are worsening.
Jones’ and others’ claims to the contrary, Wright is correct that climate change has produced substantial benefits over the past hundred-plus years, benefits that are rarely discussed by the mainstream media. By contrast, contrary to the mainstream media’s constant flow of assertions of doom, climate change has caused little in the way of proven concrete harms. Jones and MSNBC at large would do their readers a service by actually looking into the subjects that Wright and similar climate realism proponents discuss, rather than uncritically reposting canned claims climate induced disasters handed to them by alarmists.
